Efficacy of Economics in the K-12 Curriculum in California: A Case Study

Abstract

This study was conducted to determine how economics has evolved as a required and assessed subject of study in kindergarten through twelfth grade in the state of California and to determine the factors behind the development of the state's economics requirements. I attempted to determine how California's requirements paralleled the economic content knowledge set forth in the Voluntary National Content Standards in Economics and its predecessor national and state-level documents and to establish the reasons for any differences I found. A qualitative case study approach was employed through the use of interviews, primary and secondary source analysis, and triangulation of the findings. I found that decisions concerning the amount and content of economics instruction in California had clearly been influenced by state and federal legislation and occasionally by judicial fiat. The passage of both California S.B. 813 and S.B. 1213 into law in the 1980s continues to keep economics in the curriculum at the 12th grade level and ensures that California high school graduates have been introduced to the subject. This began well in advance of the publication of the Voluntary National Content Standards in Economics. Nonetheless, California teachers had the advantage of being able to consult both the 1987 History-Social Science Framework for California Public Schools and the national economics content standards to help facilitate their instruction prior to the time the state economics standards were published. If assessments are key indicators of the viability of a discipline, the dearth of economics testing in California stands as a partial failure of one of the goals of the Voluntary National Content Standards in Economics: to maintain economics' place in the elementary and secondary curriculums. The case study has shown that, in California, economics, while remaining as a required course in high school, is neither tested as much in state assessments nor taught as much in grades K-11. Overall, there has been movement toward a universal acceptance of economics as a regular, identified subject, but its place is not unquestionable like history, mathematics or language arts.