A Response of High School Teachers to the Adoption of State Economics Standards

Abstract

This paper addresses the recent adoption of economics standards in the state of Indiana. The analysis is based on responses to a survey instrument that was designed to obtain information about the demographic profile of high school economics teachers, their coverage of the topic areas included in the economics standards, and the critical challenges they face as high school economics teachers. We find that while virtually all teachers in our sample deviate from the standards, the magnitude of the deviation is small, and occurs in a predictable way. Most teachers appear to spend slightly less time on microeconomics (43.2% versus the mandated 50%) and international economics concepts (9.1% versus the mandated 12%) in favor of additional personal finance topics (19% versus 10%). As a result, the standards appear to be moderately successful in achieving its intended goal of creating convergence in content coverage in high school economics curricula.