What the Lack of a National Curriculum Means for US Kids: A Teacher’s Perspective
The first week of October last year, Mia sat slouched in her plastic chair at my 4th grade math small group, twisting the neon pink bracelet on her wrist and staring at the worksheet in front of her. “I’ve never done fractions before,” she mumbled, when I leaned down to ask what was tripping her up. Mia had moved to our Ohio suburb from Orlando over the summer, and her 3rd grade transcript said she’d met all grade-level math standards. Turns out, in Florida’s state standards, equivalent fractions are a 4th grade first-semester topic. In Ohio’s, they’re a 3rd grade second-semester topic. She was three months behind before she even walked through my door.
I spent three lunch periods working through the basics with her after that, and by December she was acing every fraction quiz we gave. But I noticed she still tensed up every time we introduced a new unit. She’d raise her hand halfway through the first lesson and ask, “Did I learn this at my old school?” That’s the part no one talks about when we argue about national curriculum versus local control: it’s not just a policy fight. It’s kids carrying around gaps they don’t understand, and wondering if they’re just bad at school because they missed something everyone else already knows.
Most people know the US doesn’t have a national curriculum. What a lot of parents don’t realize is that even our common set of guidelines, Common Core Standards, isn’t a curriculum. It’s just a loose list of goals, and states can rewrite it, ignore it, or opt out entirely. More than a dozen states did just that over the last 10 years, so what a kid is expected to know in 4th grade math or 10th grade biology can be wildly different depending on what state they live in, or even what district they go to school in.
My sister teaches 10th grade biology outside Austin, Texas. A few years back, the state changed their standards to cut most required instruction on evolution, so she can only cover it as an optional add-on for students who plan to take the AP exam. My cousin teaches the same grade biology outside Portland, Oregon, and evolution is the core of her first semester. If a kid moved from my sister’s class to my cousin’s mid-year, they’d miss one of the most basic concepts in modern biology before they even applied to college. Last year, a family moved from Austin to Portland right before junior year, and my cousin had to spend six weeks after school catching the kid up just so he could pass his midterm.
I get the argument against a national curriculum. I’ve lived and taught in this town for 12 years, and our community cares a lot about teaching kids about the local watershed and how to protect our Lake Erie shoreline. We get to weave that into our science and social studies units every year, something we might not get to do if a rigid national curriculum forced us to stick to a script that focuses on other issues. Local control lets communities shape what their kids learn, and that matters a lot to a lot of people. I don’t think anyone wants a one-size-fits-all system that ignores what’s important to local families.
But the current system is too broken, too fragmented, and it hurts kids who move the most. 1 in 10 US kids move between states at least once before they graduate high school, and even more move between districts within the same state. Every time they move, they risk ending up with gaps that take months to fix, if they get fixed at all.
The good news is, you don’t have to wait for Congress to fix national policy to protect your kid. A few small, concrete steps go a long way. If you’re moving with school-age kids, don’t just accept a transcript that says your kid meets all standards. Ask the old school for a full list of topics covered each semester, and pull up the new state’s standards online—every state department of education posts these for free on their website. Compare the two, mark the gaps, and share that list with your kid’s new teacher. Most teachers are happy to spend 10 minutes a week after school working through the gaps, or send home a short practice sheet, if they know what needs work. I started doing this for all new transfer students after Mia, and it cuts catch-up time in half.
If you’re not moving, it’s still worth 10 minutes of your time once a year, around back-to-school, to pull up your state’s grade-level standards and scan through them. A lot of states don’t require basic personal finance education, for example, or cut key topics like climate change. You don’t have to homeschool your kid to fill those gaps. If personal finance is missing, spend 15 minutes a week having your kid add up the grocery cart as you shop, or budget for a new video game they want. If climate change isn’t covered, watch a 10-minute reliable video about it together once a month. It’s low effort, and it adds up.
Last month, Mia stopped by my classroom after school to show me her 5th grade science fair project. It was about fraction calculations for water quality in our local creek, and she got first place. She’s doing great now, but I still think about that day she sat in my small group, convinced she was behind because she’d done everything right at her old school. We’re not going to see a standardized nationalized curriculum in the US any time soon—politics are too divided, and most people still value local control too much. But we can stop pretending the current system works for everyone, and we can do the small things to patch the gaps that hurt kids. Right now, that’s the best any of us can do.
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