Structuring Curriculum: Technical, Normative, and Political Considerations

Students learn in a remarkable variety of organizational arrangements. They learned in one-room schoolhouses in 19th century Kansas and do today in 21st century Egypt. They learn in formally structured, inner city United States classrooms using the scripted reading lessons of Robert Slavin's Success for All. They learn in child-centered schools modeled on A. S. Neil's Summerhill “open school” in Suffolk, England. They learned as a questioning community sitting at the foot of Socrates in the agora in 4th century Athens. There exists no perfect, universal structure for a school or classroom.

Studies of the instructional benefits and detriments of various educational structures yield complex but useful information about the interactions among school organization, instruction, and learning. However, as we discuss later in this chapter, the relationship between structures and instruction is loose; the former can facilitate the latter but cannot dictate it. Beyond these pedagogical considerations, moreover, lies a series of questions that we find equally compelling and worthy of investigation. These are questions about the norms and politics that help explain why various structures arise and endure, seemingly independent of evidence about their impact on learning.

We begin this review using three key themes that help explain the forces behind curriculum structures: (1) the appeal of technical fixes, notwithstanding the depth of underlying problems rooted in fiscal, cultural, political, and historical issues; (2) the role played by three guiding values—that is, the cultural norms of efficiency, choice, and meritocracy—in the development and continuation of many organizational features; and (3) the political use of structures to create stratified, privileged enclaves within the broader system of universal education. In the discussion of this third theme, we particularly examine potential stratification associated with the recent growth of school choice policies.

Our focus in the first half of the chapter on normative and political forces underlying various organizational structures is not meant to minimize research about the effectiveness of various structures for learning and other desired policy goals. In the second half, we offer a brief summary of this research. Our focus is almost entirely schooling in the United States since that is what we know best. Although many of the structural features we discuss are found throughout the world, their normative [Page 92]and political contexts vary considerably from country to country.

Allure of the Technical Fix

Organizational features of United States schools are shaped by the widespread appeal of technical fixes—changes in structures and practices. The key organizational structures that have found solid footing in school yards and classrooms all have carried with them the promise of a technical fix to complex school problems: year-round schooling, distance education, age-graded classrooms, grade retention, gifted pull-out programs, tracking, organizational structures serving students with special needs, programs for English language learners, school choice, and small and large schools.

No significant school reform, including those listed above, could be fairly described as uncomplicated or undemanding; however, many structural changes are perceived by policymakers as comparatively easy (Welner, 2001a). In contrast with reforms to beliefs and values and core practices, however, school structures can be superficially changed by issuing definite orders mandating, for instance, a new bell schedule or an end to social promotion. Further, some of these changes may appear to be cost free (e.g., changes in student assignment policies) or even to save money (e.g., year-round schooling). Politicians have difficulty resisting the siren's song of reforms that are easily understood, promise swift success, and are consonant with preexisting assumptions. As Mencken remarked, “for every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong” (as cited in Rodin, 1999, p. 60).

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