Curriculum Offerings Of Comprehensive High Schools In America And Its Implications

"The Long-term Education Reform and Development Plan (2010-2020)"issued in2010that reads:"In order to meet the needs of students with different potential,promote the diversification development of ordinary high school and school system and develop variety of training mode to expand high-quality resources.Explore and find innovative ways to educate talents.Encourage the high school to have its own characteristics.Encourage high school which qualified can add appropriate teaching contents of vocational education as its needs. And explore development mode of the comprehensive high school." With the deeply development of education reform,the exploration of comprehensive high schools gradually takes place in regions of our country. Curriculum is the core and soul of education.educations in different stages and types are making different curriculum design and offerings under their guidance of the particular educational goals and training objectives.Therefore,only paying full attention to the curriculum offerings of comprehensive high school can ensure the realization of educational purposes in a comprehensive high school.Our theoretical studies and practical experiences for comprehensive high schools are very poor,while the United States is the first country to build up a comprehensive high school with more mature experiences about the curriculum offerings in comprehensive high schools.In this paper, researcher firstly analyzes the current situation of curriculum offerings at comprehensive high schools of the United States.Then gives a comprehensive analysis of the characteristics of curriculum in American comprehensive high schools and the associated safeguards.And finally,based on the summarizing the experiences of curriculum offerings of American comprehensive high schools,researcher proposes corresponding implications for the curriculum offerings in our comprehensive high school.This paper is divided into five parts:This part is an introduction which gives a brief description of the origin and significance of this study.The introduction also includes the combing and summarizing the current status of the curriculum of comprehensive high schools and their curriculum offerings and defining some core concepts. Finally,the research line and methods of this paper are discussed in the introduction.The first part is about the emergence and development of the American comprehensive high school.The background and development of the origin of the American comprehensive high school as well as the worldwide promotion are discusses in this section.On this basis,researcher summarizes several basic characteristics of the U.S. comprehensive high schools as follows:towards to all students,Delay in tracks and promoting democracy in education,building up training"overpass bridge" promoting the communication between academic and vocational education and training the"whole person",and emphasizing choice,pursuing variance and promoting the personalization developments of students.The second part is about overview of the curriculum offerings of American comprehensive high schools and the main characteristics of curriculum offerings in American comprehensive high schools.According to some specific cases and data from American comprehensive high schools,researcher mainly outlines the status of curriculum in American comprehensive high school from the following three aspects:the"Federal+State＋school district"as the decentralized management model about curriculum offerings in American comprehensive high schools,the "Compulsory courses＋Elective courses＋Integrated courses" as the mode of curriculum type",and"Counseling＋Guidance"as the elective mode.through the introduction of curriculum offerings in American comprehensive high schools,researcher summed up its characteristics as follows:curriculum design with tracks, extensive curriculum categories,"personalization"in curriculum offering,curriculum with integrated content, flexibility in curriculum transformation.The third part is about the policy safeguards and supporting systems of curriculum offerings in American comprehensive high schools.The curriculum offerings in American comprehensive high schools is to be feasible,there must be appropriate policy safeguards and supporting systems.According to the related resources and data about curriculum offerings in American comprehensive high schools, researcher summarizes the policies and systems to ensure that curricula are implemented effectively as follows making laws and policies to ensure the curriculum offerings and its implementation,establishing the corresponding teaching management mechanism,and building up a diversified evaluation criteria.The fourth part is about the Implications for China from the curriculum offerings in American comprehensive high schools.According to the findings from the second part and the third part,we can get four points Implications for curriculum offerings of comprehensive high schools in China.The four points is as follows:developing a comprehensive training objectives,building up diversified three-dimensional curriculum system,constructing flexible curriculum management model,and creating a favorable security conditions for curriculum.