Vertical Curriculum Alignment

In 2006, I accepted an offer from the Cherokeean Herald newspaper in Rusk, TX, to be promoted from part-time to full time employment. My new job was reporter, ad sales and radio personality. Yep, three positions, only one me. To this day I remember those days with fondness (no joking or sarcasm. I enjoyed the work.)

One of my first assignments as reporter was to interview Dr. Ray DeSpain, the new Superintendent of the Alto Independent School District. Dr. DeSpain was taking over a school system that enjoyed a great amount of success in athletics (The football, track, baseball and softball teams were perennial state playoff powerhouses), but struggled academically. In fact, as Dr. DeSpain was taking the job, the Texas Education Agency (T-E-A) was in the process of deeming Alto High School as "academically unacceptable."

Dr. DeSpain had just one year to work with the high school principal to bring the rating back up to "acceptable," or else the T-E-A would step in and offer "assistance."

After working long, hard hours to extend the school day by 20 minutes, offer after school programs and peer-mentoring programs to bring up test scores, Dr. DeSpain began to work to insure that the "unacceptable" rating would never again be applied to any Alto ISD campus. He instituted "Vertical Curriculum Alignment."

Vertical Curriculum Alignment works like this... The school received a list of TEKS (Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills) from the state. This list included what the state felt that a kid should be able to do by the end of each grade. These skills were tested by the TAKS (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills) test. Should a school fail to have an acceptable percentage of kids in all grades and/or ethnic/economic subgroups pass the test, the school is deemed "unacceptable."

So to make sure the students were being taught up to the level that the state demanded, Dr. DeSpain instituted a program, Vertical Curriculum Alignment, designed around those TEKS. If the state wanted 1st-graders doing long-division, the Alto had better make sure Kindergartners had a firm understanding of numbers, counting, and possibly even some light arithmetic. Instead of repeating what was learned the year before, there would be a quick review and then the teachers would build on what was taught last year.

The goal of vertical curriculum alignment was to make sure that all teachers and educational professionals were on the same page as to where a student should be in his educational development. There were goals for what a high school graduate should be able to do, and there were benchmarks to be met along the way to make sure that the student was on track to meet those goals.

It was well planned, well executed and successful. Alto High School got the acceptable rating, and the football team celebrated by winning the state title. In addition, some of the teachers and students received national recognition. Alto High School was a sudden success story.

Contrast that to the approach to youth ministry employed by most modern New Testament churches. If a child were raised in church (and I understand that this is becoming a rare scenario these days), where should he be in his Bible education when he is in Kindergarten, 3rd Grade, Junior High, High School, and then College and Career class?

What basic Bible concepts should a grade-schooler be able to grasp? When should we begin to see enough maturity for a child to be able to make a reasoned decision regarding salvation? When can we expect that child to begin to understand a call to the Lord's service? How are we preparing them for these developments? Have we even thought about this?

I submit to you that the vast majority of churches in America today approach children's ministry by handing out a story sheet and coloring page, maybe a craft, with little regard being paid toward the big picture of that child's spiritual development. It's not that children's ministry workers and teachers are bad or lazy, it's just they haven't been trained.

I also submit to you that pre-teen and teen ministry in America has been reduced to "don't do drugs, don't have sex, don't get a tattoo, now let's go play ball." Again, it's not that the youth workers and teachers are bad or lazy, it's that the critical training of these volunteers is non-existent. Don't blame the workers, they are doing the best they can (in most cases) and are overwhelmed by the non-stop onslaught of Satan's forces.

That being said, I am sure that there are churches that have it all together... and praise God for them. In the meantime, what should the rest of us do about preparing to bring our children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord? What should we do to teach them about the Lord and what expectations should we have at certain ages? What should the benchmarks be?

Those are the questions we should be asking.