Strategic Report- ADD ON

The United States education curriculum has several concerns that remain unsolved. Educational institutions are undergoing significant changes, calling for an adjustment in the curriculum used in schools. It is also a challenge that each state determines the general curriculum used in their respective learning institutions, and the school districts decide on implementation. The lack of a standardized and responsive curriculum has resulted in a dysfunctional education system that produces learners who don’t meet society’s needs. The purpose of such a curriculum should be to extensively improve learning and teaching. The curriculum framework should be coordinated with assessment systems, instructional materials, teacher training, and policies that support learning to be effective (Lei, 2019).

Students usually select one or more electives per year during middle or high school in many states. The categories of electives taught differ widely, with some being specialized offerings linked to core subjects. Other electives emphasize student’s abilities and interests like drama, music, and visual art. Some teach applicable life skills, though becoming less common. Learning of foreign language does not start until high school, with Spanish being the most common foreign language. Furthermore, there is a rising interest in students learning Chinese (Lei, 2019).

A Standard curriculum should be content-specific and when certain content and skills should be taught. The time specification is usually a range where the framework outlines the period within which content is covered. Furthermore, learning institutions should stress more on students’ depth of understanding than broad and superficial content coverage. That said, a standard curriculum would give rise to universal national exams across the country. The contents of the exams should be tied to the curriculum taught in schools, making it easy for administrators to evaluate the system’s effectiveness and find the best ways to improve the national curriculum (Lei, 2019).

Sections III & IV: Impact and Legal Analyses

Source 1 (Aydin et al., 2017)

In a rapidly changing world, the curriculum needs to be designed to meet the diverse student base’s needs. Educational institutions are undergoing changes alongside other factors such as policy and technology that influence curriculum, hence the requirement for restructuring the curriculum and instructions provided in schools to reflect best practices and teaching techniques.

Source 2 (Harrison & Clark, 2016)

There is a recognition that the curriculum was designed to propagate white supremacy. The learning framework asserts that African Americans and students of color are of a subordinate class and fail because their families experience deficiencies that obstruct their learning process. There was a need for a critical race curriculum that challenged the traditional one, which operated with an unacknowledged agenda to promote white privilege. Furthermore, having culturally responsive teachers empowers their students emotionally and intellectually. These teachers can use their knowledge and skills of culture to support developing a curriculum that will enable student success while remaining connected to their culture’s key areas.

Source 3 (Olsen, 2019)

The article focuses on a curriculum where topics relating to the experiences of minority groups are taught in small discussion groups where students narrate their encounters to teach their classmates on issues of ethnicity or race. During training, little attention was given to students from minority groups, but they were expected to be spokespersons of their cultural groups. The obligation to contribute their perspectives led to a feeling of exhaustion and frustration, hence the call for a more equitable training curriculum.

References

Aydin, H., Ozfidan, B., & Carothers, D. (2017). Meeting the challenges of curriculum and instruction in school settings in the United States. Journal of Social Studies Education Research, 8(3), 76-92.

Harrison Jr, L., & Clark, L. (2016). Contemporary issues of social justice: A focus on race and physical education in the United States. Research Quarterly for Exercise and sport, 87(3), 230-241.

Lei, S. A., & Lei, S. Y. (2019). General education curricula affecting satisfaction and retention of undergraduate students: A review of literature. Education, 139(4), 197-202.

Olsen, L. D. (2019). The conscripted curriculum and the reproduction of racial inequalities in contemporary US medical education. Journal of health and social behavior, 60(1), 55-68.