Mixed Reaction to Curriculum Plan : Some Call It Overdue, Others See Students Dropping Out

Shariann Smith, a 1980 graduate of Crawford High School, now works for IBM as a systems engineer. But her success owes little to the system of counseling and placement by school officials. Rather, her parents demanded rigorous courses for her despite the teachers who recommended low-level courses, she said.

So on Tuesday, Smith, a black woman, spoke to the San Diego school board in favor of the sweeping core curriculum proposal, which would revamp and tighten secondary-school curriculum in the city schools.

“A lot of students are floundering in low-level courses,” Smith said. “They are predestined for failure.”

The potentially fundamental changes of the proposal brought denunciation from others Tuesday, such as teacher John de Beck at Garfield High School, an alternative school for students unsuccessful in regular school settings.

Tutoring Proposed

De Beck labeled the proposal a “take-it-or-leave-it curriculum” that will force more students uninterested in academic courses to drop out of school. He suggested that the millions of dollars now used for busing for integration be put instead into tutoring and smaller class sizes for elementary school students, because better instruction at that level would reap greater benefits than trying changes at the secondary level.

Donald Basile, director of the Academic Skills Center at San Diego State University, praised the proposal because he said too many students still show up for college deficient in math and language skills. He said that many students do not realize until their junior or senior years at high school that they want to go to college, then they find themselves without good math or science backgrounds.

“Everyone should have three years of math (in high schools) that challenges them in every way,” Basile said.

The Board of Education is expected to vote next Tuesday on the proposal, which could take several years to implement should members follow the recommendations of Supt. Tom Payzant. Payzant, while supporting the concept of a core curriculum of English, math, science and social studies for all students, said that the millions of dollars in necessary funding is not available for a rapid introduction of the proposal.

Teacher Support Needed

Payzant said that the district’s teachers must be persuaded to support the program wholeheartedly since new teaching methods and attitudes--particularly that of believing that all students can study difficult material--will be crucial to success. In addition, much greater levels of tutoring will be needed to help those students unprepared through years of academic neglect to tackle the tougher curriculum.

Payzant told a group of vocational education instructors Tuesday that the core proposal would not hurt their courses. He said that the core proposal requires no additional academic credits and would still leave room for electives such as shop or electronics.

Payzant also said that research nationwide and in California shows that increasing academic requirements through tougher courses has not led to a greater number of dropouts as feared by opponents of the proposal.