Curriculum Policy

There are three kinds of curriculum policy: formal, implicit, and prudential. Formal curriculum policy is the official, mandatory statement of what is to be taught to students. Such statements are expressed in widely different ways by those responsible for policy development, for example, philosophical vision, goals, subject matter knowledge, student standards, and what students know and should be able to do. Curriculum policy takes on broader implicit and prudential meaning during implementation. Implicit curriculum policy refers to policies at various administrative and government levels that influence curriculum practices. For instance, the United States, No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is an education policy with significant impact on local curriculum practices, though NCLB is not a formal curriculum policy. Implicit curriculum policy also refers to statements, documents, suggestions, advice, and other matters that often accompany formal curriculum policy and that do not, officially, carry the weight of mandatory requirement, but that are treated as such in practice. Prudential curriculum policy refers to the prudence, practical wisdom, and practical knowledge used by teachers, school administrators, school board staff, and elected trustees as they adapt formal and implicit curriculum policy for local situations. In many jurisdictions, formal and implicit curriculum policy is established by provincial/state governments. School boards and schools implement these policies in various ways depending on their communities and the variation among communities within the jurisdiction of the school board.

These three kinds of curriculum policies interact in different ways under different forms of government. In the U.S. presidential republican system with a strong central government educational policy role, at least in recent years, implicit curriculum policy may drive state and local formal curriculum policy and may override prudential policy. This possibility is evident with NCLB. In parliamentary systems such as in Canada and in Australia, education is the constitutional responsibility of the provinces and states. The result is that implicit curriculum policy may be formulated closer to school curriculum practice and in closer conjunction with formal curriculum policy than is the case in a presidential system. Ministers of Education in Canada regularly bring curriculum policy to a cabinet of other ministers, some of whom may administer policies impinging on curriculum and that, therefore, function as implicit curriculum policies. There are Canadian examples of financial leverage to implement implicit and formal curriculum policy. For example, in Ontario, schools not achieving provincial content standards receive additional support. In centralized, nonelected governments, for example, China, less is known about the mix of policy forms. Implicit and prudential curriculum policy is likely of less importance in nonelected systems with the result that there is a more direct connection between formal policy and practice than is the case in elected government systems.