Curriculum

Whitehurst: How to Reform Schools? Improve the Curriculum

By Mary Ann Zehr — October 19, 2009 1 min read
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Effect sizes in research studies of curriculum are “larger, more certain, and less expensive” than education reforms favored by the Obama administration, according to a paper by Grover J. “Russ” Whitehurst, the former research chief of the U.S. Department of Education. He’s now the director of the Brown Center on Education at the Brookings Institute.

He makes the case that federal education officials should consider ways to support improvement of the curriculum over such efforts as expanding charter schools and teacher merit-pay programs because research has shown that the impact of the curriculum used has been greater than the impact of charter schooling or merit pay.

My colleague Debbie Viadero has highlighted Whitehurst’s arguments over at Inside Research.

Robert Pondiscio of Core Knowledge and Joanne Jacobs also feature the paper on their blogs.

A version of this news article first appeared in the Curriculum Matters blog.