Author: Fenwick W. English

Publisher: Scarecrow Press

Published: 1988

Total Pages: 361

ISBN-13: 9780877625926

This book explains curriculum audits and how to conduct them. Chapter I, "Why Audit?" presents criteria for determining if an audit is warranted and describes three basic types: functional, operational, and programmatic. Chapter II shows how the three primary activities of document review, interviews, and site visitations yield answers to the questions inherent in each audit standard. Chapter III discusses writing the audit and provides guidelines in creating the final document, including the use of photographs. Chapter IV is an expose of the hidden curriculum, as revealed through still photographs. Chapters V through VIII present a series of case studies (with names changed to protect the districts involved) of audits conducted between 1986 and 1987. The purpose of the case studies is to demonstrate how data are used and to illustrate some of the shortcomings of the audit. Chapter IX discusses pre- and post-audit activities as linkages that connect the audit to practice and to change, and Chapter X addresses the working assumptions of the audit in a nonrational school system. Appended are (1) an annotated bibliography entitled "The Essential Curriculum Audit Reader"; (2) a survey instrument on good curriculum management practices; and (3) a sample board policy to establish curricular control. An index and bibliography are included. (TE)