Who Controls the Literature Curriculum?

Autor/in	Allington, Richard
Institution	National Research Center on Literature Teaching and Learning, Albany, NY.
Titel	Who Controls the Literature Curriculum?
Quelle	In: Literature Update, (1995), S.1-2 (3 Seiten) PDF als Volltext kostenfreie Datei Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
Schlagwörter	Stellungnahme; Administrative Policy; Administrators; Childrens Literature; Curriculum Problems; Elementary Education; Elementary School Curriculum; Language Arts; Power Structure; Quality Control; Reading Instruction; State Standards; Textbook Selection + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? 'Children''s literature'; Kinderliteratur; Elementarunterricht; Sprachkultur; Qualitätskontrolle; Leseunterricht
Abstract	Within the literacy education community, the focus on decentralizing curriculum decisions, i.e., returning to teachers the authority to make many decisions, including those about which texts to use, has garnered much attention. But the issue is not quite so straightforward, given the power structure currently found in most K-12 educational settings and the general consensus that curriculum standardization is important. However, the power to regulate curriculum is typically assigned to those who work outside the classroom and often outside the schools. For instance, the authority of state legislatures to establish curriculum standards has been upheld by the federal courts. The press for standardization, however, is also present among teachers themselves. It has been common in schools studied to find teachers working to define a curriculum around a set of core books to be read in a particular course. During one focus-group, a new fourth-grade teacher told of how another teacher removed books from a display she had set up, because fourth-graders were not allowed to read those books as they were part of the fifth-grade curriculum. Also, without a common curriculum, some administrators fear variation in the instruction offered across classrooms. Finally, the press for standardization comes from parents and the general public who seem to want some assurance that all fifth-grade students, regardless of the class assigned, will read the same books. (TB)
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC