How Curriculum Is Implemented All Within The California...

According to the glossary for Education Reform, the definition of curriculum is â€Å"the lessons and academic content taught in a school or in a specific course or program.† (S. Abbott (Ed.), 2014) This term, curriculum, can be as simple as a unit plan for a specific subject or as complex as district mandated lessons for an entire department. My focus will be on issues surrounding how curriculum is developed, how decisions are made on who teaches what, and how curriculum is implemented all within the California public school system. I believe the core mission of being a teacher is to deliver meaningful curriculum to our students which will allow them to successfully pass each grade level and become productive members of society. How do we, as†¦show more content†¦(Instructional Quality Commission - CalEdFacts) The California Department of Education (CDE) conducts focus groups with the goal of improving existing frameworks. The IQC then creates the Curriculum Framewor k and Evaluation Criteria Committee (CFCC) where half the members must be classroom teachers. The CFCC meets in a forum open to the public. They then create a draft framework. The draft is made public for 60 days where anyone in the community that is interested can comment on it. After the 60 day period, the SBE holds a public hearing to formally adopt the framework. The criteria developed in the framework are used to select instructional materials for schools. (â€Å"Curriculum Frameworks Adoption Process – CalEdFacts†) From here districts choose how the curriculum is implemented in their schools. Throughout the history of education, many curriculum frameworks have followed the one-size-fits-all formula. This model makes schools more like a factory where students sit in class, listen to the teachers lecture, memorize and regurgitate facts, pass a test, and move on if they are able to fit into that mold. If they don’t they fail. We know, based on Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences that people learn and are intelligent in different ways so why would we think that teaching everyone the same thing at the same time in the same way would work? In the most current