Measured Progress - Newsletter - Open Response - What is a curriculum framework?

What is a curriculum framework?

I wish there were a simple answer to this question. The problem is there are several terms—curriculum framework, curriculum guide, content standards—that people use interchangeably; yet each person probably has his or her own way to distinguish them. There are even different perceptions of what a curriculum is. The dictionary is not much help. It says a curriculum is a set of courses offered by an educational institution. However, we’re really talking about a curriculum in the sense of a school’s science curriculum or a district’s K-12 mathematics curriculum. Thus, some might say a curriculum is the agreed-upon content of a course or a series of courses.

Many educators view a curriculum as much more than well-articulated lists of concepts, topics, and skills. They would consider a curriculum to include not only the “what,” but the “how,” as well. In other words, they would not separate instruction from curriculum and feel that resources and techniques are part of curriculum. When one considers the Montessori curriculum, for example, it would be hard to consider the materials and techniques as separate from the curriculum.

Years ago, state departments of education purposely avoided mandating curricula. That would be a serious blow to local control. However, in fulfilling their responsibilities with respect to education, many of them did issue curriculum frameworks or guides. These generally did not have the same level of detail or specificity as full-blown curricula. Their content descriptions would be more like outlines for curricula that did not get down to the specific concept or skill level. They often summarized content appropriate for grade spans, rather than for each grade. Like full curricula, as described above, sometimes these documents focused only on content; but sometimes they described desirable practices and resources, too. As statewide accountability testing came into being, especially in the 1980s, the content components of the curriculum frameworks were quite useful for defining the subject domains to be assessed.

Reauthorizations of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) in the past decade have required states to create content standards to which their assessments must be aligned in order for the states to receive Title I funds. In many cases, the content components of the states’ curriculum frameworks or guides satisfied this requirement. The most recent reauthorization of ESEA, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), however, required that states create grade-level expectations (GLEs). For states whose content standards were already organized by grade, it was no problem. States whose standards were organized by grade spans had to extend their standards to provide expectations for each grade separately. While “content standards” is currently the term that is in vogue, many states still call them “curriculum frameworks” or “guides.”