This paper examines the major historical, political, and legislative forces that have shaped curriculum development in American K-12 education. It traces the roots of public schooling from one-room schoolhouses to modern policy debates, focusing on No Child Left Behind's test-driven curriculum mandates, federal civil rights obligations for English Language Learners, the Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP), and the influence of gifted education models on general curriculum design. Drawing on Hockett (2009) and federal policy sources, the paper argues that while standardization has imposed constraints, frameworks developed for ELL instruction and gifted learners offer constructive models for improving curriculum quality across all student populations.
The social and political history of the United States has always influenced schools and the curricula they devise for their students. An article in the New Straits Times (2005) reflects the fact that mounting levels of obesity have raised concerns about what schools are teaching regarding good health habits. The World Health Organization (WHO) reported that over 300 million people worldwide are obese, and the lack of physical education and health education in American schools was cited as partly to blame. As a result, curricula in some schools have added nutrition and physical health activities to regular classroom content.
Historically, children attending one-room schoolhouses needed to learn to write, read, and spell "for the purpose of reading the Bible, government notices, and common law" (People Learn, 2003). After the American Revolution, the "common school" — known today as the public school — was established in order to ensure the survival of a newly founded democracy.
Among the most dramatic legislative changes to school curriculum in recent decades is the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). The curriculum resulting from NCLB has been decidedly test-driven, has posed "a potential threat to national security," and has harmed programs "for gifted students" (Hockett, 2009, p. 394). In fact, many teachers have been moved to "emphasize uniformly delivered test preparation lessons at the expense of differentiated approaches to curriculum and instruction" (Hockett, p. 395).
Hockett (p. 395) gets to the heart of the matter when she notes that the "recent shift towards standardization has not been categorically deleterious for curriculum." In other words, under NCLB, teachers were largely "teaching to the test" in order to demonstrate high test scores. In some cases, teachers' jobs were on the line if their students did not score well on standardized assessments. This arrangement is problematic because it works against the idea that children should learn to solve problems, develop independent research habits, and be intellectually challenged. Among the five principles Hockett offers, "Principle 2" is the most relevant: "High-Quality General Education Curriculum Should be Rooted in Ideas, Principles, and Skills Essential to the Respective Disciplines" (p. 398).
Federal civil rights laws make clear that English as a Second Language (ESL) and English Language Learner (ELL) students have equal access to education. According to the National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition (NCELA), roughly five million students in the United States have limited English language skills, and that deficiency has a negative impact on their ability to "participate successfully in educational programs." In 1970, the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) issued a memo to schools clarifying what civil rights law requires of them regarding these students.
Because children who struggle with English face significant barriers to academic success, school districts "must take affirmative steps to rectify the language deficiency in order to open its instructional program to these students" (NCELA). Federal law is violated if: (a) school districts exclude students because they do not speak English; (b) minority students are inappropriately assigned to special education classes due to limited English proficiency; (c) programs for non-English-speaking students are not designed to teach them English as quickly as possible, or effectively function as a "dead end track"; or (d) parents of students with limited English proficiency are not provided school notices in a language they understand (NCELA).
In response to these obligations, school districts have created curricula specifically designed to help non-English speakers develop language competency. One negative impact of ELL laws on curriculum development, noted by Zehr (2009) in Education Week, is that in schools with a small number of ELL students, "first generation immigrant students do better academically if they aren't placed in an ESL class" (p. 1). This may occur because ELL students placed in separate programs lose access to the mainstream core academic curriculum. Their counterparts placed in mainstream classes without dedicated ESL support "do better academically than students who are put in ESL classes" — though this finding applies specifically to schools with few ELL students (Zehr, p. 1).
"SIOP model improves ELL academic performance"
"Gifted curriculum models benefit general education"
Federal laws in America require schools to make English language learning opportunities available for non-English speakers, and this obligation has served students well from the time the OCR published its foundational memo to the present day. This paper has also demonstrated how curriculum has evolved in response to federal laws and policies, and how curriculum frameworks designed for gifted students have had a positive influence on general education students. Together, these forces — legislative mandates, civil rights protections, and specialized instructional models — continue to shape the direction of American curriculum development.
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