When educational standards are written, it is with the expectation that schools will adapt curriculum in a manner that is designed to ensure that students deal with the content and skills necessary to meet standards. Unfortunately, this ideal alignment is not always forthcoming. A lack of alignment may be due to such variables as inadequate resources at the school level, mis-communication between standards-setting authorities and schools, funding deficits, or an overt reaction against changing curriculum at any given level within the school system (North Central Regional Educational Laboratory, 2010).
The issues arising when this alignment does not occur can be significant. For example, students may fail to score adequately on standardized achievement tests and entire schools may be affected by poor report cards which summarize all students' achievement. Public confidence in the schools may be eroded and new demands may be placed upon schools to undertake major structural reforms. Parents and the general public may lose confidence in schools and teachers and teachers themselves may receive poor evaluations that do not generally reflect their instructional competencies (North Central Regional Educational Laboratory, 2010). Consequently, standards must be directly based upon real curriculum and program content because curriculum comprises the entire body of information that will be delivered to students by teachers and incorporates the skills that students will master.
North Central Regional Educational Laboratory. (2010).
Critical issue: Integrating standards into the curriculum.
Available at www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/content
/currclum/cu300.htm. Accessed online January 20, 2010.
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