An electronic newsletter for the science education community
March/April 2006
Examining Policy and
Curriculum
Mathematics curriculum conference offers
insights for CCMS
Through its eighteen centers, the National Science Foundation’s Centers
for Learning and Teaching program addresses nationally significant
issues related to the teaching and learning of science, technology,
engineering, and mathematics (STEM). At a February conference hosted
by one of these centers, the Center
for the Study of Mathematics Curriculum (CSMC), 90 education
researchers from around the country gathered to share ideas about
the relationship between policy and the K–12 mathematics curriculum.
Sessions focused on the relationship between policy and practice
at the national, state, and local levels and between policy and curriculum
research in mathematics.
Several members of the Project 2061-led Center for Curriculum Materials
in Science (CCMS) attended the meeting to learn how policy that impacts
the mathematics curriculum might also affect the development and implementation
of the science curriculum. Representing CCMS were George DeBoer and
Cari Herrmann Abell of Project 2061, Ed Smith and Dean Grosshandler
of Michigan State University, and Aaron Rogat and Cory Forbes of the
University of Michigan.
National, State, and Local Policy
The policy most on people’s minds was
the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation
that requires states to measure student progress
toward meeting explicit content standards in mathematics and language
arts. This policy has far-reaching impact on what is included in textbooks,
what is taught in school, and where school resources are concentrated.
With science due to join the mandatory testing of NCLB in 2007, CCMS researchers
are preparing for the impact that NCLB will have on the design,
selection, and use of curriculum materials in science.
But NCLB is not the only policy that affects the curriculum.
State-level policies on teacher education affect
how well-prepared teachers are (i.e., what they
know about the content they are to teach and
how to teach it). And district-level policies
affect how much time is allocated to each subject
and the range of a teacher's responsibilities.
This means developers have to pay attention
to the preparation teachers have had, how they are accustomed to carrying
out their teaching, and what else they are expected
to do on a day-to-day basis. The success of
innovative materials depends on the culture
of the school, the knowledge and values of teachers, and the
capabilities of the students. All of these interact
with policies that have been established at the local,
state, and national levels.
“The policy field is enormously complex,” said George
DeBoer, Project 2061 deputy director and associate director of CCMS. “But
it is something that educators need to be aware of as they do their
work. We are driven by policy decisions that others make, but we can
also affect policy decisions as long as we are aware of the way that
these decisions are made, how they are interpreted, and how they are
followed and sometimes subverted.”
Recognizing that policies are the rules and expectations that guide
practice, CCMS includes attention to the policy dimension among its core
principles for the development and use of science curriculum materials.
Attending the mathematics curriculum conference gave CCMS researchers
insights into the complexity of curriculum policy and ways to strengthen
the Center’s efforts in the area of policy. To share what was
learned at the conference, CCMS is organizing a session on policy
and the science curriculum for its 2006 Knowledge
Sharing Institute in July at the University of Michigan.
# # #
For more information about CCMS and its work on policy and curriculum,
please contact:
CCMS Associate Director: Dr.
George DeBoer, (202) 326-6624
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