What gets aligned in a "curriculum alignment"

This paper says three things get aligned:

1. Curriculum (what is taught)
   
2. Instruction (how it's taught)
   
3. Assessment (the what/how of testing)
   

A skeptic's view of curriculum alignment

From SaveSeattleSchools:

the question you should be asking [about curriculum alignment] is this one:

"We've tried this before without success. How will it be different this time?"

There are four necessary supports for curricular alignment which [might NOT be] in place. The people who are responsible for curricular alignment do not have control over these elements, so they can't make them happen.

The "four supports" seem to be:

1. Resources for intervening with lagging (below grade level) students
2. Assurance that teachers know what they are supposed to be teaching (depends on effective professional development)
3. Identification of teachers who choose not to teach the curriculum (and getting them on board)
4. Assurance that college-prep classes will be available at all schools

There's an analogy in automotive wheel alignments. These don't do a car owner much good if there's no gas in the tank and no air in the tires.

One definition of "curriculum alignment"

From Howard Johnston at PrincipalPartnership.com:

Curriculum alignment means assuring that the material taught in the school matches the standards and assessments set by the state or district for specific grade levels. It is a way of "mapping" the curriculum onto the standards to be sure that the school is teaching the content that is expected. In states that use tests to assess student mastery, schools may also align their curriculum with the content of the test to assure that students have studied the required content before taking the tests.

Why do it?

Increasing demands for accountability mean that schools must document that they are achieving the objectives mandated by state standards. In some cases, districts must submit curriculum guides that show how the instruction at each grade level is linked to state, national or local standards. In others, students are expected to pass tests that are based on the standards.

Whatever the mechanism, standards are deeply imbedded in public opinion and state law. They are not going away any time soon. Communities are insisting on strong performance, and, in some regions, teacher and administrator compensation is based on how well students perform on mandated tests. Standards have become a very high stakes issue in public education.

National K-12 curriculum?

From Liz Bowie, writing in the Inside Ed blog at the Baltimore Sun:

... for years, every state developed its own curriculum, standards and tests. That process will likely change soon. For a good story on the subject, go to Education Week.
...
This year, Maryland and 45 other states decided to jointly develop a common group of standards for what should be taught in kindergarten through high school.
...
[a list of who] will be writing and reviewing the new national or "common core" standards for math and language arts [...] here.

First things first

Now that I'm looking into the BCPS curriculum, I thought I'd take a look at the definition of curriculum:

The set of courses, coursework, and their content, offered at a school or university.

The schools my kids go to (or have gone to) in Baltimore County don't seem to publish even a basic list of course titles on their websites. Nor does the central BCPS website have a list.

"Top Secret" curriculum at BCPS?

Can someone explain to me why public school administrators talk incessantly about "the curriculum", but seem determined to ensure that parents don't get to see it?

The mission of the Baltimore County Public Schools' Department of Curriculum & Instruction includes this bit:

development of curricula, based on research and best practices, provides teachers, students, and parents with a quality instructional program

But the BCPS website hides nearly all details of the curriculum behind a password-protected intranet.

All we parents get to see on the website is fluff, peripheral material, and educational mumbo jumbo about "seeds", "clarifications", "sample assessments", "thinking skills", "Articulated Instruction Modules", "Core Learning Goals toolkits", "parent summaries" that don't exist yet, and so on. And this comes in an Alice-in-Wonderland format that is impossible to skim in an efficient way.

UPDATE: Joanne Jacobs links, and asks her readers, "Do other school districts make it hard for parents to access the curriculum?" Thanks Joanne. The comments she gets are enlightening. Another thing I'd like to know: which largeish school systems out there (1) have an excellent curriculum, and (2) make the curriculum easily accessible on the web?