1. What is the formal curriculum taught in schools?
The formal or visible curriculum is the school's official curriculum, but it is far from static. In colonial America, reading and religion were central. During the early part of the twentieth century, progressive ideas led to a curriculum that emphasized creative expression, social skills, and an integrated study of subject areas. By the 1980s and 1990s, spurred by poor standardized test scores, a back-to-basics curriculum with high-stakes testing dominated.

2. How does the invisible curriculum influence learning?
Schools teach an invisible curriculum that has two components. The hidden or implicit curriculum offers lessons that are not always intended, but emerge as students are shaped by the school culture, including the attitudes and behaviors of teachers. Topics considered unimportant or too controversial, inappropriate or not worth the time, and therefore not taught comprise the null curriculum.

3. What is the place of the extracurriculum in school life?
Most students participate in the extracurriculum, a voluntary curriculum that includes sports, clubs, student government, and school publications. While some see these activities as part of a rich cocurriculum, others discount their value.

4. What forces shape the school curriculum?
Many groups influence the content of the curriculum. In recent years, the federal government and specially appointed education commissions have been two groups promoting a standards-based, high-stakes testing curriculum.

5. How has technology impacted the curriculum?
Americans have a history of utopian predictions when new technology is introduced. Despite exciting virtual field trips that take students around the world or the online activities that create fascinating learning communities, computers and the Internet have had only a limited impact on what students learn.

6. How do textbook publishers and state adoption committees "drive" the curriculum?
More than twenty states, mainly located in the South and West, are textbook adoption states. Local school districts in these states must select their texts from an official, state-approved list. The most populous of these states exert considerable influence in the development of textbooks.

7. What is standards-based education?
The pressure to improve test scores led to standards-based education, a process of focusing the curriculum on specified topics and skills, followed by continuous testing to see if these standards have been learned.

8. What are the provisions and criticisms of No Child Left Behind?
One of the most far-reaching federal education plans, No Child Left Behind, includes annual testing, identification of underperforming schools, employing only "highly qualified" teachers, and providing additional learning options to students attending underperforming schools. Lack of funding and reliance on a single test to measure learning are just two of the criticisms leveled at the law.

9. What problems are created by high-stakes testing, and what are the testing alternatives?
High-stakes tests are believed to contribute to increases in the number of dropouts and the increase in teacher and student stress. High scores on such tests do not necessarily reflect greater learning, and teachers who teach to the test eliminate other important topics from the curriculum. One testing alternative, authentic assessment, evaluates students by asking them to synthesize what they have learned in a final product or "exhibit."

10. How are cultural and political conflicts reflected in the school curriculum?
Opposing the theory of evolution, some support intelligent design, an alternative explanation for the origin of humans. Cultural and political differences over what should be taught have led to book banning and censorship. Proponents of a core curriculum and cultural literacy argue with multiculturalists who advocate the greater inclusion of the roles, experiences, and contributions of women and people of color.

11. How can we rethink tomorrow's curriculum?
Because of the knowledge explosion, some educators believe that we should focus less on content and more on process, including critical thinking skills, metacognition, and critical pedagogy. The reader is invited to consider a new approach to the current curriculum, and the authors suggest a four-tier curriculum that promotes self-understanding, human relations, and greater individualization. The Saber-Tooth Curriculum teaches us that a curriculum should preserve the past, but not be limited by it.