Reforming the curriculum: will empowerment policies replace control?

Curriculum reform is analyzed from the perspective of hard content for all students. High school mathematics and social studies are used as subject matter examples. Against these expressions of desired ends, current practice is reviewed to illustrate obstacles that reform must overcome. Two approaches to reform are identified, curriculum control and teacher empowerment. Neither of these strategies is new; each has been used in the past in the service of less ambitious curriculum reforms. Drawing on previous experience, we sketch characteristics of control and empowerment and compare their strengths and weaknesses. Four states – Florida, California, New York, and Texas – are used to illustrate where states stand relative to the goal of hard content for all students. Those same states provide illustrations of the two strategies for curriculum reform. Again, high school mathematics and social studies are used to situate the analyses. We observe important differences among states and within states between subjects, both in the extent to which the goal of hard content for all students is approximated and in commitment to the two reform strategies. Generally, state policies are found to be short of what is necessary. Nowhere do we find efforts likely to measure up to the challenge.