Best Careers 2009: Curriculum/Training Specialist

Overview. In a school system, curriculum specialists lead the selection of textbooks and other curriculum and train teachers while motivating them to embrace the government's edicts du jour. They may also attempt to evaluate the results.

In the workplace, training specialists receive requests from higher-ups to develop or select training programs, recruit instructors, perhaps teach some workshops, and evaluate the results. Development of online training, especially using simulations as a primary instructional vehicle, is growing in demand.

This is a pleasant job because you avoid many of teaching's in-the-trenches frustrations yet feel you're helping people to grow. Also, in reviewing and evaluating curriculum and instruction, you're learning new things all the time.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, instructional coordinator jobs are projected to grow much faster than average through 2016 as corporations strive to keep up with the ever quickening pace of change. In addition, increased school system spending is likely, even in a slow economy. Few politicians dare oppose it, even though the United States already spends more money on education in real dollars and even as a percentage of gross domestic product than any other G-8 country, while American students still score below average compared with those nations.

With the work rewarding and not unduly stressful and the job market strong, and with school-system-based jobs offering top job security and the summers off, curriculum/training specialist is a Best Career.

A Day in the Life. You're the reading coordinator for a medium-sized school district. Arriving at your office at about 9 a.m., you settle in to review the three textbook options the state will allow. Tomorrow, you'll outline their pros and cons to one school's teachers and parents, who will make the final choice.

Next, you start designing a questionnaire to be used in evaluating a grant-funded experimental reading program that you and a school's teachers developed. You believe it's too early to see test scores increase, so you're using questionnaires, interviews, and observation as the basis for your evaluation.

Ready for a break, you drop by the district's curriculum center, where all manner of kits, videos, and paraphernalia are housed. You're dismayed at how little material the teachers have checked out, so you make a note to develop a marketing campaign to increase the center's use.

At 3 p.m., you train a school's teachers on how to use the new online, multicultural curriculum, which is tied to the state's new standards. The younger teachers are generally enthusiastic, but a few veterans sigh and roll their eyes at what they perceive to be just this year's fad, soon to be replaced by the next one. You muster all your powers of tactful persuasion to keep the skeptical from sabotaging the training.

Salary Data

Median (with eight years in the field): $55,100

25th to 75th percentile (with eight or more years of experience): $45,800-$76,100

(Data provided by PayScale.com)

Training

For school system jobs, the normal route in is to become a teacher and succeed at that. You might then need to spend some time as a principal or assistant principal.

For training jobs, a wide range of bachelor's degrees is often acceptable for entry-level jobs. Some former teachers have obtained positions in workplace training.

Learn More

• American Society for Training and Development
• Curriculum Leadership: Development and Implementation by Allan Glatthorn, Floyd Boschee, and Bruce M. Whitehead
• E-Learning and the Science of Instruction (2nd edition) by Ruth Colvin Clark and Richard Mayer