A school's curriculum must not only meet the academic standards created by the Pennsylvania State Board of Education, but also be age-appropriate for the students. In order to ensure that both of these requirements are met, parents, taxpayers, and school officials must be engaged in open discussion and have timely, accurate, and free access to all information related to what a child is being taught.
However, in our Commonwealth, there is currently no standardized, simple, and user-friendly way for parents or taxpayers to review the curriculum that will be taught to their children for the upcoming school year. The law only requires that a school board post on its publicly accessible internet website the rules, regulations, and policies surrounding curriculum review by parents and students - not the curriculum itself. While the regulations require schools to provide a process for the review of instructional materials, this usually necessitates that parents physically visit the school building.
Frequently, requests to review a school's curriculum are met with:
- delayed responses;
- an inconvenient time or place for the review; and
- an inability to photograph or photocopy files.
It is 2024. There is no reason why parents or taxpayers should not be able to access what their child is being taught online at a time that is convenient for them.
This is why we will soon re-introduce curriculum transparency legislation (previous HB 1372).
Our legislation was a companion bill to Sen. Coleman's legislation (previous SB 458). It will require that proposed changes to curriculum first be presented at a school board meeting, and then considered for approval at a separate school board meeting. It will also require that a school entity post on its website the following information related to curriculum and instructional materials:
- a link or title for each primary resource used; and
- a course syllabus or summary of each instructional course, and the state academic standards for each course.
This legislation will further guarantee that parents or guardians have access to information about the curriculum, including academic standards to be achieved, instructional materials and assessment techniques, as required by the Pennsylvania Code.
We hope you will join us in cosponsoring this critical legislation.
Prior co-sponsors (HB1372): Marcell, Cooper, Bernstine, D'Orsie, Ecker, Fink, Grove, Hamm, Keefer, R. Mackenzie, Moul, Roae, Zimmerman, Rowe, and Kutz