Sorting students into different tracks within a school correlates strongly with student race and economic status and predicts and contributes to student outcomes. Students in higher-level classes typically experience better teachers, curriculum, and achievement levels than peers in lower-level classes. Creating classrooms that support equity of…

Discusses the type of fragmentation taking place in the curriculum, examines some of the forces causing it, and considers the educational effects. (Author/MLF)

Discusses "backward design," a strategy for planning curriculum and school improvement by first thinking carefully about desired results and then working backward to develop meaningful assessments and learning plans. For this design to work, educators must identify desired results, analyze multiple sources of data, and determine appropriate action…

Contends that curriculum fragmentation does not exist, and that unless children develop a command of the details of any given body of knowledge, they will not be able to use their powers of critical and creative thinking. (Author/MLF)

Ralph W. Tyler reviews five significant events in the field of curriculum development: (1) work of Edward Thorndike, (2) John Dewey's monograph on interest and effort in education, (3) the 26th yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, (4) the formation of the Society for Curriculum Study in 1930, and (5) curriculum experiments…

Article describes the Curriculum Inquiry Center of the Teacher Education Laboratory in the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Los Angeles and its purposes and functions. (GB)

Five short articles describe curriculum planning achievements in selected schools, including establishment of goals for a program for gifted and talented children; the use of learning charts, curriculum guides, and content lesson plans to make expectations public; establishment of subject area coordination; and two curriculum models. (MLF)

The function of dialogue among educators in creating a humanistic curriculum is analyzed and related to three humanistic organizational theories. (GW)

Author offers suggestions for broadening the scope of education and educator. (RK)

Five criteria are discussed for selecting curriculum materials for Bicentennial celebration and study that will encourage valuing and inquiry and enrich historical perspective. Several bibliographies and sources for other instructional materials are included. (MM)

Educational research is said to influence classroom teaching by affecting the design of curricular materials, providing a model of human learning, and furnishing data applicable to solutions of particular problems. (GW)

Historically rooted curriculum designs cannot meet the challenges facing today's schools, let alone those of the future. (Author)

Discusses a number of issues and problems related to the general topic of curriculum, including definitional problems and issues involving curriculum design, curriculum engineering, and curriculum theory. (JG)

Discusses a number of opposing forces that influence curriculum design and school programs and presents a model that illustrates the relationships among various curricular forces. Available from Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 1701 K Street, N.W., Suite 1100, Washington, D.C. 20006, single copies, $2.00. (JG)