Curriculum mapping breaks with traditional curriculum practices by revealing what is actually being taught, how long it is being taught, and the match between what is being taught and the district's testing program. (Author/MLF)

Discusses curriculum development efforts aimed at defining what curriculum is actually taught vs an intended curriculum. Curriculum mapping--used to record content, and curriculum variance--actual differences in content, are explained. (RAO)

Among the factors preventing effective curriculum management are that schools do not state their missions in specific terms or utilize their resources, and neglect systematic use of feedback. (Author/MLF)

The principal's most powerful tool is the ability to integrate the total response of the school toward improvement. A principal that understands this works toward staff synergy and finds a model for this in the concept of "curricular unity." Includes a table and list of references. (MD)

This report discusses deep curriculum alignment and is designed to serve as a practical guide to an educational strategy that embraces the philosophy of "what is tested is what is taught." Chapter 1 describes misconceptions and misuses of rhetoric about public education, popular myths about tests, and the nature of curriculum alignment.…

Different groups have different ideas about how schools should be restructured. Although decision-making and control are increasingly shared with other groups, the principal remains most accountable. Innovative leadership styles, such as the inhouse critic and the master generalist, address issues of curriculum totality, function, and goals.…

This booklet focuses on needs assessment, a process for identifying and defining valid curriculum, instructional, and management objectives. It also presents a means for establishing controls over curriculum development at the local level, whether it be a school district or an individual school. Part 1 explains the (a) fundamentals, (b) rationale,…

Outlines the inadequacies of conventional curriculum guides. The emerging emphasis on the use of curriculum alignment is presented as a promising alternative with four major advantages: (1) local control of the curriculum, (2) textbook adoption by local needs, (3) better pupil achievement, and (4) simpler curriculum monitoring. Includes a…

According to the strategic management approach, the curriculum of a school system is a strategic statement of the system that determines how it selects activities, organizes its resources, and determines how well the system has performed its function within the overall policies it was constructed to implement. (Author/JM)

Curriculum development is an activity that goes on in all school districts, although in some districts it is haphazard and in others it is carefully planned. School district leaders must recognize this situation and take charge of the program to assure that it adheres to high standards. The efforts of each teacher must be "mapped," which…

Three approaches to defining curriculum balance are examined: the imposed "a priori" model, the social utility model, and the phenomenological model. Contends that the current social utilitarian approaches to reform the school curriculum may produce an unbalanced curriculum that ignores the socialization process and aesthetic qualities.…

This paper examines a typology of metanarratives in educational administration. "Metanarratives" represent "a global, overarching, encompassing set of rules that tell us...the necessary and sufficient conditions for the constructs we use and how to use them." From this perspective, logical positivism is considered one of the…

Reports the use of curriculum mapping, a systematic approach to monitoring curriculum implementation and gathering feedback, during one year in a western suburban school district. Describes how administrators can use mapping to manage a school curriculum and identifies methodological problems. (TE)

In December of 1970, teachers in the Mesa Public Schools will design the procedures by which they contract with the Mesa School to produce certain student outcomes for a given unit of study in the spring. These will be specified in a "contract" written by the school board. Teams will "bid" on the contract, submitting dollar estimates of all cost…

Despite a long history in the arts and humanities as curricular mainstays and a continuing presence as sociocultural mythological anchors, biographies and other forms of life writing have been neglected as sources for teaching educational leadership. Besides biographies, these include autobiographies, portraits, profiles, case studies, memoirs,…