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Despite many efforts at the national, state, and local levels to promote the use of computers in K-12 classrooms, over the past 20 years, the impact of the computer on teaching and learning has been minimal. In this article, we examine how one school district has advanced the use of computers in the classroom by focusing first on curriculum rather than on technology. While national and state technology standards for teachers, as well as educational technology textbooks, tend to start with computer hardware and how to troubleshoot it, teachers in the district described here spend very little time on hardware or troubleshooting. Instead, as a result of district choices with regard to technology, support, and training, teachers are able to bypass the hardware and troubleshooting and move quickly to more productive and inventive uses of technology in the classroom. Our research offers a paradox for furthering the use of computers in classrooms —if we take away expectations for technical skills and allow teachers to focus on developing curriculum, evaluating learning materials, and thinking about how to provide better learning opportunities for their students, teachers are likely to use technology more effectively and creatively in their teaching.

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This study examines a “critical case” of one school district’s efforts to develop and implement a standards-based curriculum. The study was conducted from two competing perspectives that have dominated organizational analysis in education: the rational and the institutional. The findings demonstrate that the district took an expressly rationalistic approach by using standards and a corresponding criterion-referenced test to focus teachers’ instruction on common sets of outcomes. However, the findings suggest that, lacking a clear instructional philosophy, the district also took an institutional approach, in part. Its approach to development and implementation of the standards-based curriculum resulted in district standards that fell below state standards, a narrowing of curriculum and instructional strategies, and professional development and instructional supervision that lacked an instructional focus.