Area school districts balance local curriculum decisions with standards set by the state.
Metro Newspaper Service
LIMA
There are two distinct perceptions about how public schools decide what to teach.
One is that everything’s decided at the state level, force-feeding the same facts to every student in Ohio.
The other is every local district makes up its own set of rules, with the ability to teach whatever it wants, however it wants.
The truth is somewhere in between.
“Ohio, in general, doesn’t ever force a curriculum on a school,” said Gary Herman, a curriculum coordinator with the Putnam County Educational Service Center. “They provide model curriculum through their different standards. … We can help them make informed decisions with our schools, but it’s all about them making the decision.”
It can come at a cost, though, of a teacher’s individual creativity, said Jill Ackerman, Lima schools superintendent.
“Back in the day when I taught, boy, everybody loved to teach what they liked,” Ackerman said. “There would be dinosaur units, thematic units, and teachers would just tend to teach what they liked to teach. Well, now we have standards we have to follow. So our job is to make sure that we’re all on the same page. We’re all following along together, and there is no Wild West out there.”
Local school districts increasingly lean on local curriculum experts to help them find the right courses of study for a district. In the 30th annual public salary review, The Lima News found three taxpayer-funded employees making upwards of $85,000 a year to help keep local districts in line with the state’s expectations.
“Educators in local school districts pick their own curriculum,” according to the Ohio Department of Education’s Model Curricula website. “That means they plan the instruction and select the learning techniques, textbooks and other materials for their students that will help them gain the knowledge and skills called for in Ohio’s Learning Standards.”
Picking the courses
That’s not to say the state doesn’t lay down some goals of what ought to be taught. Schools are often measured by their standardized testing, after all.
“Learning standards explain the knowledge and skills Ohio students in pre-kindergarten through grade 12 need to have,” according to the Ohio Department of Education’s Learning Standards website. “Ohio’s Learning Standards emphasize skills like critical thinking and problem solving — qualities most sought by today’s employers. By teaching our students to apply these skills to what they are learning in school, we can make sure they are on track to graduate from high school and enjoy success in college, careers and life.”
Herman taught high school math at Paulding and Van Wert schools before joining the Putnam County ESC, where he and Melissa Basinger support the nine schools in that county in understanding the standards, offering professional development and occasionally weighing in on the curriculum.
“We do some of the background searching for them, to find out which are the best options based on what they want to do,” Herman said. “But we don’t ever go in and say, ‘This is what you should choose.’”
In the Lima schools, a committee called the curriculum team helps pick what types of resources and methods to use in teaching. The team includes administrators, department chairs and people in various content areas.
“Their job is to ensure that we are teaching the standards and then pacing the curriculum out for the teachers for the year, so that everybody’s heading for the same goal. Kids are transitional here, and we’re always making sure that we’re all on the same pace with the curriculum throughout the year.”
Some stability
When Herman first started at the Putnam County ESC 13 years ago, it was right in the midst of debates about Common Core. The assessments and standards kept changing.
Ohio adopted new standards in 2012, with some tweaks in the 2017-18 school year.
“Realistically, we’ve had about 10 years now of the same standards base with just a few modifications,” Herman said.
That’s given administrators time to see what works.
“Anytime that we can have a consistent period of time to perfect things, then the better of a job we’re able to do,” Ackerman said. “It was changing all the time for a while. It was exhausting and frustrating.”
Now, teachers have a better understanding of the curriculum they’re asked to teach.
“It’s a good process. I think everybody’s held accountable for what they’re doing,” Ackerman said.
Room for electives
While core educational concepts are well defined at the state level, there’s some room for variety among schools when it comes to elective classes. That’s where Lima’s curriculum committee really gets tested, often piloting a program at one school before rolling it out districtwide.
“Literally, people will come and present, and our people ask a lot of questions,” Ackerman said. “We look at their proposal, look at what their standards would be and look at what their curriculum will be. Then that group makes a collective decision on whether or not we allow that extra course or extra program to happen.”
Even once a program is vetted and tried, it doesn’t become a permanent part of the curriculum right away.
“If it’s approved, then it pilots for a period of time,” Ackerman said. “Then they have to come back with data and feedback before a decision is made to make it go district-wide.”
Demand for data
Being able to dissect all of the data created during state assessments may be the biggest value in having curriculum experts locally.
“We provide spreadsheets every year for them to analyze their state test results,” Herman said. “What are they doing well? What are their areas of weakness? Are there any patterns or trends over multiple years of data for that?”
That information often turns into professional development, Herman said.
In Putnam County, the ESC launched three days in the fall with countywide professional development days for teachers, offering information about best practices in classrooms to help teachers do their best.
“We try not to be a top-down approach,” Herman said. “Tell us what you need. We make suggestions. We find people are more receptive if you get buy-in from the districts and their administrators.”
Ultimately, when the experts on curriculum do their jobs well, it leads to students prepared for the world.
“We’re very fortunate we do have high-achieving districts here,” Herman said. “Just passing achievement tests is not the only thing that matters here. They’re learning a lot of good life skills, and they’re prepared for success.”
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Reach David Trinko at 567-242-0467 or on Twitter @Lima_Trinko.
