Introduction
While the terms “standards” and “curricula” are often used interchangeably, they are not the same thing, and it is important to differentiate them.
Standards can be understood as a framework containing broad course objectives. According to the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (DPI), standards “define what students are expected to know and be able to do by the end of each school year or course.” State standards are updated periodically and must be approved by the State Board of Education. Typically, the revision and approval process takes around one year to complete and occurs without too much controversy. Sometimes, however, controversies erupt, as they did over the Common Core State Standards in 2010 and the social studies standards in 2010 and 2021.
Although school districts must align their teaching with the state-approved standards, they retain the flexibility to choose the specific curricula and instructional materials used to implement the standards. Curricula may originate from one source or several. Teachers may develop their own course content or collaborate with other teachers. Schools or districts may opt to purchase a prepackaged curriculum, or educators may avail themselves of free or low-cost materials from universities, nonprofit organizations, or education-related websites.
Because districts are not required to adopt a standard curriculum, students can be subjected to endless variations in instructional methods and assigned tasks. This arrangement has benefits as well as drawbacks. On the one hand, it gives teachers the flexibility to adapt lessons to the unique needs of their students. On the other hand, however, it permits ill-equipped educators to fill students’ time with unproductive busywork. At worst, teachers exploit this flexibility to push critical race theory or social justice ideologies on their impressionable students.
The bottom line is that raising student achievement requires excellent content standards as well as a first-rate curriculum. In fact, the controversy over the Common Core State Standards highlighted how focusing exclusively on standards is not sufficient to boost student performance. Standards are successful only when they are bolstered by content-rich curricula delivered by well-trained educators, preferably using research-based instructional methods such as Direct Instruction.
Key Facts
- State education officials mandate that all subject-area teachers follow the Standard Course of Study, which defines “appropriate content standards for each grade level and each high school course to provide a uniform set of learning standards for every public school in North Carolina.” State standards are reviewed and updated periodically.
- State-authored standards in the Standard Course of Study include Arts Education, CTE and Career Pathways, Computer Science, English Language Arts, English Language Development, Guidance, Healthful Living, Information and Technology, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies, and World Languages.
- The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction currently of-fers crosswalks, glossaries, and “unpacking” documents to teachers without mandating that they adopt any of them.
- North Carolina law prescribes the teaching of curricular content in certain grades and course areas. For example, it prescribes a civic literacy curriculum during a high school social studies course. Health education, character education, and financial literacy are other con-tent requirements outlined in the statute. Two notable curriculum mandates passed into law are the requirements to teach multiplication tables and cursive writing.
- In 2023, the General Assembly passed a law that requires students in public district and charter schools to take a computer science course in order to graduate from high school. According to DPI, the course will be optional starting in the 2024-25 school year but will become mandatory for students who enter high school beginning in the 2026-27 academic year. Students will be instructed about “the study of computers and algorithmic processes, including their (i) principles, (ii) hardware and software designs, (iii) implementation, and (iv) impact on society.”
- Also in 2023, the State Board of Education approved a new version of the standards for K-12 science. The standards incorporate beneficial material about the process and importance of the scientific method, but they also contain some one-sided perspectives and vague lan-guage that compromise their clarity and objectivity, such as certain assumptions about human impact on climate and its consequences. The new standards will be implemented in schools beginning in the 2024-25 school year.
Recommendations
1. Legislators should create commissions charged with raising the quality and rigor of state standards, curricula, and assessments.
The commissions’ goals should be: 1) modify substantially outdated or inferior standards, 2) specify high-quality content that aligns with the standards, 3) recommend a valid, reliable, and cost-effective testing program, and 4) provide ongoing review of the standards, curricula, and tests throughout implementation.
2. The commission should produce a rigorous, state-developed curriculum or adopt a research-based program package, such as the Core Knowledge Sequence.
Prescribing baseline curricular content would ensure that all students are exposed to the same essential content regardless of socioeconomic circumstances. It would also allow the state to compensate for knowledge and skill deficiencies identified by institutions of higher education, privateand public-sector employers, and other stakeholders.
3. Legislators should reject federal sex education grants.
The federal government offers several grants that fund sex education programs. Federal dollars often come with strings attached and can be used to implement programs or curricula that undermine strong health education standards. North Carolina should reject this federal money.
4. North Carolina should adopt additional curriculum transparency requirements.
North Carolina’s Parents’ Bill of Rights, which became law in August 2023, requires school districts to adopt policies and procedures that allow parents to “inspect and review all textbooks and supplementary instructional materials that will be used in their child’s classroom” and object to any of these materials. North Carolina could go further by requiring teachers to post outlines of lesson plans and assignments to publicly accessible websites after the conclusion of the school year. Curriculum transparency measures should also mandate that schools outline procedures for the documentation, review, or approval of the learning materials used for student instruction.
Combined with vigilant parents monitoring and evaluating their child’s daily activities, academic transparency may deter indoctrination and related forms of professional misconduct.
5. School boards should use their statutory authority to make curriculum decisions, select instructional materials, and create community media advisory committees tasked with addressing concerns about the appropriateness of textbooks and other resources.
State law gives local school boards the power to establish policies and procedures for adopting library books, periodicals, audiovisual materials, and other supplementary instructional materials. School boards can even select textbooks that the State Board of Education has not adopted through its formal textbook adoption process.
