ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses to the questions of whether there should be a common core curriculum, if so who should devise it, what responsibilities teachers and individual schools should have and to whom they should be accountable, how decision-making within the school should operate and, finally, the question of teacher neutrality within the classroom. There are those who argue that no predetermined curriculum requirements, whether common to all children or not, can be justified, on the grounds that content, or what children study, should be entirely governed by their individual interests or needs. The chapter then distinguishes between the questions of someone's authority, responsibility and ultimate accountability. It examines the way in which the decision-making process within the school should be organised. Philosophic competence in decision making is to be characterised in terms of such formal requirements as consistency, coherence, concern for good reason and impartiality.
