Building a Curriculum System

Before we get started, let's clear up some vocabulary.

STANDARD: Is a long-term outcome that is reached through curriculum and instruction.  This is why Common Core emphasizes that it is not a curriculum - it is a set of desired outcomes for students.

OBJECTIVE: Is short-term outcome achieved in classrooms through daily instruction.  It is a building block towards the standards.

The first thing to understand is whether it is the school or the teacher that doesn't understand the standards.


Does your school have an ACADEMIC vision that is tied to the standards and to the state assessment?

Part of your work as the school leader is to make sure that you have created or articulated the school vision of standards implementation.  Many schools have thematic organization; they focus on social justice, technology, career preparation, college readiness, etc.  Whatever, your vision of the standards are should be articulated.  This allows the school to establish their 4 year academic goals.

Your school's 4 year academic goal may be that all students will be creative, critical thinkers who will contribute to their communities.

Accordingly, if this is clear, when you talk to your teacher about their standards, you will ask them:

1.  How does your interpretation of the standards support students' creativity?
2.  How does your interpretation of the standards support students' critical thinking?
3.  How does your interpretation of the standards ensure student contribution to the community?
4.  How does your interpretation of the standards ensure student success on the state assessment?

NOTE:  Even though it seems counter intuitive, it is important to include a discussion of the state assessment and it's value in your academic vision.  For instance, my school's slogan is Bogan Today, College Tomorrow Our state assessment includes that ACT.  If we really believe Bogan Today, College Tomorrow, then we have to believe that student performance on a college entry test really does align with our vision and mission for the school.  This prevents confusion when teachers are held accountable for results - we agreed the test was an important measurement because....If you are going to have a big blowout, have it here, so everyone can move past their disagreements and work together.


How do the standards align to the state assessment?  Does your state have a criterion test (clearly stated objectives that will be tested) or a norm-referenced test (a framework of objectives that may or may not be tested)? And, are the state standards the exact same as those listed for the test or "aligned" to the test?

The easiest scenario is that your state has a criterion test and that the criteria for the test are the exact same as the state standards.  This makes your job easy: either your school, your departments, or your individual teacher needs to place these criterion in logical order.

The next easiest scenario is that your state has a norm-referenced test with a framework that is also the state standards.  You know you have a framework if either a standard or topic is given along with a group of objectives.  The challenge here is to identify, as a school,  what the MOST IMPORTANT standards and objectives are - because most likely, you aren't able to do everything and some objectives will be learned as a by product of others. Your school academic vision should help in this selection.   After your important standards or "power" standards are selected, they need to be broken down by school consensus and put into logical order.

The most difficult scenario is that you have a framework, a norm-referenced tests, and state standards that are different from the framework of the test.  This means that your teachers have to figure out multiple alignments, which leads to confusion.  In this case, I have learned that it is best to make a choice about which standards you are going to use in order to plan.  If you are lucky, your state provides a clear alignment document already; if you are not, your time is better spent building curriculum than aligning standards.  If the standards have clear objectives connected to them, you spend your time putting them in logical order.  If the standards are numerous, you will still need to select your "power" standards, break them down by school consensus and put them into logical order.

Does your school have the TOOLS to build daily lessons?

Many schools skip over one very important document - the scope and sequence.  A scope and sequence document maps out how standards are taught over the four years at a school.  This creates accountability at each grade level and for each teacher and prevents "individual" courses.  If your school does not have a scope and sequence, your students, classes, and scores may be suffering for it.

A good scope and sequence will look something like a spreadsheet.  The standards AND objectives will be in the left column.  The other columns will represent blocks of time (i.e. 5 weeks or 10 weeks), and there will be X's that make it clear what will be taught in that time period.  High level scope and sequence maps will show you differentiation as well - what honors classes are expected to cover, what regular classes are expected to cover, and what support classes are expected to cover.

The second document that the school should have is a curriculum map.  The curriculum map can be overlaid on the scope and sequence.  The curriculum map explicitly states the content that is going to be taught with the standards.  Many schools use themes rather than specific materials to provide teachers flexibility.

When these two documents are in place, teachers can focus on planning instruction.  AND, your job as an administrator will be exponentially easier because you have the scope and sequences to refer to when you are participating in planning sessions, observation cycles, and coaching.  Your job is to make sure that the teacher honors their colleagues' work; the teacher's job is to implement what the team has agreed on.

But, it's the middle of the school year!  Yes, we all face that.  One thing that has to be clear is that building a curriculum system takes multiple years - you will always be revising - at first, the revisions will be big, but then they will get more targeted and focused as the teachers get a handle on it.

Expect your first product to be very messy.  Your teachers will learn a lot in the process.  Things that they thought were so crucial will be weeded out or replaced.

In the short term - have your teachers do this work by the quarter.  Have them keep notes and pay attention to student results.  In the long-term, use the summer to really hash out a better plan and dirty details.  Remember, most likely, it will take 2-3 years to really gel your scope and sequence AND curriculum maps.  Most people are going to face this task with Common Core becoming the new planning standards.  But, the pride and collaboration that will come from this will be invaluable, and it will go a long way in making your school a positive, academic culture.