ABSTRACT
How do early learning standards affect curriculum design? This chapter examines the purpose of education and how the standards movement aligns with a particular purpose; that of meeting society’s needs versus other purposes such as to nurture the individual, or to promote social change or reconstruction. The chapter discusses the advantages and disadvantages of the standards movement, including the concerns with high-stakes assessments for young children. The current state of the elementary and early learning standards movement in the United States is reviewed.
In developing a backward design model, the first step is to determine the desired results. Since early childhood programs are required to address early learning standards, can teachers simply use them as the desired results? This chapter reveals that this is not effective. Instead, this chapter shows how early childhood teachers can carefully analyze the standards to determine the big ideas, knowledge, skills, and approaches to learning that are embedded within the standards.
