Archived: The Educational System in the United States: Case Study Findings

Attitudes Towards State-Level Initiatives
At the primary research site, Metro City, most discussions of state standards re-
volved around the state assessment test. Curriculum goals themselves were usually
mentioned only in the context of discussions about textbooks. Generally, teachers
at the high-achieving schools felt that the state standards were not relevant to
their students, since the majority of their students demonstrated that they were
well above the state mean on the state assessment test. However, teachers at
schools where the majority of the student population scored below the mean on
the state assessment said that they felt pressure to choose textbooks based upon
the state’s curriculum guidelines.
Teachers and principals in East City also spoke of the state’s standardized exams,
but teachers in both East and West City cited ways in which the state curriculum
or curricular framework was implemented in the schools. A teacher in West City,
for instance, said, ‘‘he was confident in the state’s curricular framework, but also
that the districts were allowed to figure out how to modify the curriculum to
meet the needs of the local population.’’ In East City, math teachers noted that
the state curriculum requires that they cover certain topics and allow students to
use calculators for topics such as fractions.

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District- and Local-Level Initiatives
Initiatives which will help schools reach the national goals have also been devel-
oped at the local level. These programs are often generated by local school boards
and administrators, specifically for their school or district. Innovative programs
may serve as models for other schools and districts, but there is often no system
for sharing information about these programs with other schools or districts, or
both. Yet, local initiatives are a very common means of adopting standards and
goals in U.S. schools because of the deeply rooted value of local autonomy within
the education system.