Charting a New Path for Curricula Design by Centering the Experiences of Communities

Abstract

In summer 2021, the New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE) announced the development of a rigorous, inclusive, and affirming K-12 English Language Arts and Math curricula. At this moment in time, an off-the-shelf curriculum that reflected the richly diverse experiences and assets of the 1.1 million students in New York City that could serve as a vehicle to increase student outcomes was non-existent. While NYCDOE set out to innovate curricula, launching the curricula development strategy charted a path forward to disrupt status quo practices for curriculum design by uplifting the significance of engaging students, families, educators, and community members to inform the development stages before building curricula. The capstone provides a substantial argument for a more user-centered approach to curricula design, lifts practices from other districts and state agencies to move the process forward, and provides considerations for assessing the capacity of the system to innovate curricula for equity. While amid a mayoral transition and significant senior leadership transition, the capstone describes launching a participatory curriculum design process where stakeholders were provided the opportunity to inform the curricula criteria to ensure learning materials are student-centered and culturally responsive in the largest school system in the nation. While this capstone analyzes efforts to shift the curricula development process at NYCDOE, it also offers implications for self, NCYDOE, and the education sector at large. Based on the larger schema of curriculum design, NYCDOE has made significant strides in moving the notion of culturally responsive curricula forward. Leveraging the season of significant leadership transition to reflect and reorient the system's learnings thus far will only add to the success of the completion and implementation of a curriculum that serves as a means to achievement, specifically for the most vulnerable populations.