Rethinking the Curriculum Writing Process in Public Schools

As budgetary scrutiny of federal and state government departments of education grow, one area in great need of attention is that of curriculum development expenditures. In states that emphasize local control, public school curriculum writing processes have remained unchanged for decades while the associated costs have only risen.  It is time to curb these redundancies and remit these saved funds into other budgetary areas. 

For background, states maintain approved public school content standards that outline expected knowledge/skills at grade levels.  This is not the same as curriculum, which determines how content/skills are structured/paced/taught. States such as Louisiana and Massachusetts have relatively comprehensive statewide curriculum guides.  Other states like Texas and California have comprehensive statewide curriculum frameworks that create a standardized structural launching pad for district curriculum guides. Then there are states such as Pennsylvania and New Jersey that emphasize local control.  In these, curricular decisions and the development of guides are made locally and differ by district. 

To understand how this plays out within a state, let’s look specifically at New Jersey and its 600+ districts as an example. District boards of education ensure that course curriculum guides are designed and delivered so students  can demonstrate the knowledge/ skills specified by the state’s learning standards. In several content areas, standards are banded into grade levels, meaning they must be addressed sometime within that time frame. For example, students in one district may learn ancient history in Grade 6 while a neighboring town addresses this content in Grade 8.  Curriculum guides must be reviewed and improved upon when knowledge, technology, data, and learning standards inevitably change. This process is similar in the other aforementioned states as well. 

Statewide, BOEs pay teachers to write guides with varied rates of pay, determined by the collective bargaining agreement (CBA). Districts decide which courses need revised/new guides; perhaps the course is new or has revised standards. Regardless, districts annually budget these projects and create job board postings. 

Here is a World Language Curriculum Writing posting found on a public job site.  

This example may seem like a reasonable budgetary project. However, a look at the big picture reveals that this post, done redundantly across multiple districts, costs taxpayers millions. Let’s break it down. This example focuses on one district’s World Language Department in Grades 6-12. It lists 19 courses, each needing its own guide. Each job allocates 20 hours between 2 writers, paying $49.40 per hour. At $988 per guide, the total is $18,722 for Grades 6 and up in this department alone. Additionally, this district had postings for 77 courses in other departments, totalling $94,798. Notably, no posting in this district was in Mathematics, Language Arts, Science, or Social Studies. 

Upon closer analysis, questions also arise about the work itself. Using this example, what if each writer couldn’t complete the “job” in 10 hours? Is additional funding allocated? How is the work vetted? If revisions are needed, do writers continue at no cost or does the district extend the budget?  

This is one example of many in 1 district of over 600. And this just represents one budgetary cycle, meaning this is a recurring annual fluctuating cost in every district.  Regardless of the local writing rate, it is not hard to see how these costs can grow out of control.  If 75 school districts (remember that PA & NJ both have 600+ districts) replicated anything close to this posting, it would cost over $7 million in curriculum writing just for World Language in Grades 6 and up.  How much money collectively does or rather should taxpayers fund for curriculum guides and is it justifiable?  What is the exact return on investment?

In this conversation, it is important to note that state departments of education already provide a required framework for curriculum guides.  Given that, how greatly would, for example, one school district’s German III guide vary from that of another?  Standards alignment, pacing, interdisciplinary connections, 21st Century skills and technology integrations, etc. - how much variance could exist from one written in district X to one in district Y? 

Could a state department of education, with its own paid and competent experts, either independently or through a collaborative voluntary task force of district employees, create a more universal German III curriculum guide?  Why have the individual districts on different budgetary timelines recreate guides over and over using taxpayer funds year after year?  Each district would still be responsible for selecting/purchasing materials to teach the course and would also create assessments to gauge mastery.   Teachers would, as they have always done, create lessons using the curriculum as their guide. But these tasks would not involve any additional payments for staff. Rather, these tasks would already fall under the collectively bargained job responsibilities of the workforce.  

Would this suggestion, in essence, be a statewide curriculum? Not exactly. Administrative code delineates what DOEs versus districts provide. Instead, this is a more commonly shared academic experience that would create more equity amongst districts in states that preach local autonomy.   Instances of high versus low quality guides with uneven pacing/integrations could go by the wayside while transient students moving from one district to another within the same state would not experience curricular redundancies. Those reasons would serve as gigantic wins for students and parents alike.  Districts would no longer need to submit guides for state review, which would in turn free up state efforts elsewhere. Most importantly, since all of or a majority of each curriculum project would be done, the exorbitant cost of curriculum (easily over $25 million each year) would be significantly reduced.  

When taking two steps back and examining current practice, these common sense reforms  would infuse more community confidence in a system currently bereft with fiscal doubt.  The expended redundant funds here would be reappropriated, not cut, all for the benefit of the student body.  It is time to make our public school budgets work for parents and their kids. 

Written by Ron Zalika

Ron has spent more than 27 years working in and with a diverse collection of school districts as a teacher, supervisor, administrator, and consultant.  He can be reached at [email protected]

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