Defying Standardization: Creating Curriculum for an Uncertain Future

Public schools across the United States are faced with seismic challenges. The needs of our students have out-paced the reform agenda, and there is a clearly identifiable gap between policy-driven reform and the daily practices needed to ensure all students thrive. Every leader and learner has felt the impact of standardization.

In the local and national news and in social media, the issue of school failure is front and center, and the answer of standardization and accountability has become commonplace. In his most recent book, Defying Standardization Creating Curriculum for an Uncertain Future, Christopher Tienken outlines from multiple views how standardization became the overarching mandate for public schools and provides an alternate view of how teachers and leaders can build curriculum that is recommitted to a democratic life. He carefully unpacks the assumptions and drivers that underlie a false belief in standardization as the holy grail of school reform.