Why Are Curricular Wars Fought Again and Again?

Phonics vs. Whole Language. Old Math vs. New Math. Knowing Science Subjects vs. Doing Science. Heritage vs. Doing History.

Wars of words have been fought among politicians, parents, and educators over reading, math, science, and social studies in the past century. And those rhetorical battles reappear again and again over which content and skills should be taught and the best ways for teaching both in K-12 classrooms.

Rest assured that these simplistic either-or choices have pumped adrenalin into the veins of advocates and opponents in each of this academic “wars.” However, few teachers get involved in these “wars” or teach lessons clearly on one side or the other of the issue once they close their classroom doors. Nonetheless, for media and bloggers, the vocabulary of “war” makes fine slogans, bumper stickers, and even cartoons.

These “wars” reveal the fact that educators since World War II have steadily lost their influence in making curricular policy. Since the early 1950s policy elites including federal and state officials have slowly “educationalized” national social, economic, and political problems. In short, policy elites have expected schools to “solve” alcohol, tobacco, and drug abuse, teen age pregnancy, and defending the nation against the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

Now policy elites and the general public expect schools to increase economic growth. reverse the decline in global market competitiveness, and get every graduate into college and a career that will pay well.

The process of drafting schools to “solve” national problems began slowly in the U.S. but proceeded quickly by mid-twentieth century. As early as World War I, the Smith-Hughes Act (1917) had the federal government, for the first time, pumping dollars into vocational education to turn out skilled graduates for industrial and commercial jobs thereby making U.S. economically competitive with European nations.

Consider the National Defense Education Act (1958) which pushed public schools to produce more engineers, scientists, and mathematicians to fight the Cold War in space and weaponry. Then in 1965, President Lyndon Johnson and Congress enlisted schools in the fight against poverty with the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, a law that was reauthorized by presidents and congresses every five or more years thereafter including the current incarnation of that law called No Child Left Behind (2001) and its successor, Every Student Succeeds Act (2023).

No Child Left Behind is the poster child for “educationalizing” national problems. Test-driven accountability is expected to insure that students leaving school will be skilled and prepared to enter an economy where employers hunger for graduates who can make their companies more competitive in the global marketplace while helping the economy grow. 

Since the 1960s, then, these coalitions of elected policymakers in concert with business and civic leaders have slowly wrested authority from educators in answering two basic questions that get at the heart of public schooling.

*What content and skills should be taught to U.S. children and youth?

*How should both be taught?

Answers to those questions account for the periodic curriculum struggles that have occurred time and again in reading, math, science, and social studies throughout the 20th century. With the Common Core Standards adopted by 45 states and endorsed by President Obama in the early 2010s, the “wars” have been re-ignited as governors, parents, researchers, and practitioners struggle anew in answering those basic and contentious questions.