Question 2: Integrated curriculum/content

Integrated curriculum

The draft Master Plan envisions an education system that will prepare every student for a successful transition to work, further education, and productive participation in society. The intent is to promote a rich integrated curriculum that prepares students equally for employment and postsecondary education. The Joint Committee felt that one way to do this would be to end the artificial division into college prep and vocational prep.

Many participants have been concerned about this, feeling that vocational/career education would get lost if such changes were made.

Question 2a: For those who agree that ending this division would be helpful, please tell us how you think the Master Plan can do a better job of describing the intent to promote a rich integrated curriculum. Also: will this approach really avoid fostering the perception that students who don't go to college are second class citizens?

Question 2b: For those who feel that it is essential to keep the two kinds of courses separate, please tell us if you think there are other kinds of changes in the system that would help to avoid students' choosing (or being "tracked" into) vocational prep when it is not the best option for them. How do we assure that students who make such choices do not have the option of college attendance foreclosed as a consequence?

Content standards

Words in the Draft Plan that advocate rigor and challenge in the curriculum have sometimes been interpreted as code for UC "A-G" course requirements. Such interpretations ignore rigorous academic content contained in a variety of vocational and career-technical courses; content that includes the basics of physics, chemistry, mathematics, etc. Even honors courses have sometimes been deemed insufficiently rigorous if they do not appear on the UC approved honors course list.

Question 2c: Should the state advocate development of standards for rigorous course content that are independent of actions by the University of California and independent of whether the content is taught in a course traditionally viewed as college preparatory?

Note: Feel free to add your own pros and cons, but please try for SHORT answers - split up your topics into additional messages if necessary. Thanks!

Rosemary