PrintThis section is available for download—Common, Knowledge-Rich Curriculum
The AFT has long been an advocate for a common core-curriculum framework which ensures that all children, regardless of neighborhood, are exposed to a rich, well-sequenced curriculum, starting in kindergarten or before. We know that a shallow, overly broad curriculum fails to teach students basic skills and is not desirable, but it is also clear that increased assessment requirements have squeezed music, the arts, history and other nontested subjects out of the curriculum. The need for a rich common curriculum has become more essential than ever before.
Features of a common, coherent, grade-by-grade curriculum:
What You Can Do
The AFT publishes regular reports on the quality of state standards, paying particular attention to whether they offer enough guidance to ensure that all students are exposed to a common curriculum or whether they leave teachers to "teach in the dark." Consider using these reports and other AFT materials to press both for improvements in your state's curriculum and for better alignment between the curriculum and the state's tests.
Examples from the Field
To make sure children are exposed to the rich content that will propel them past the notorious fourth-grade reading slump, scores of schools in New York City are instituting Core Knowledge, a nationally available curriculum sequence that addresses social studies, science, math, literature and the arts through a coherent grade-by-grade curriculum framework, backed up by a growing variety of student and teacher materials. Nationally certified trainers from the United Federation of Teachers will provide training and in-school support to teachers.
Hawthorne Academy, an inner-city, predominant Hispanic school in San Antonio, Texas, has been using the Core Knowledge sequence since 1992. It offers teachers grade-by-grade guidelines for teaching a rich, content-packed curriculum. Even though 90 percent of Hawthorne Academy's students are economically disadvantaged, 93 percent passed the state reading test in 2005—that's 10 percentage points higher than the statewide passing rate. But their success isn't limited to reading: Hawthorne students also surpassed the statewide passing rate (by at least 7 percentage points) in mathematics, writing, science and social studies.
