Deciding What To Teach and Test

School Administrator, June, 1994 by Margaret C. Trader

Fenwick W. English has taken the complex concepts of curriculum practice and translated them into understandable definitions and answers to the most commonly asked questions about curriculum development and assessment.

Deciding What to Teach and Test is a 144-page, easy-to-read-and-use handbook that guides readers through the functions of curriculum, curriculum construction, curriculum alignment, and curriculum auditing.

Busy administrator will particularly like the section devoted to definitions of commonly used terms, including front-loading, backloading, and tightening the curriuculum. English clearly and cogently differentiates among the informal, the forma,, and the hidden curriculum; the written taught, and tested curriculum content and context alignment; and curriculum coordination and curriculum articulation.

The fourth chapter details the curriculum audit process, differentiating it from the accreditation process. The chapter concludes with a checklist that systems can use to determine whether they are ready for the curriculum audit.

(Deciding What to Teach and Test, by Fenwick W. English, Corwin Press, 2455 Teller Road, Newbury Park, Calif., order from AASA (Stock #21-00147), 1993, 144 pp., $16 softcover)