Circa 1971

Circa 2001

The Illinois Office of Educational Serivces has been in existence since 1971. It began under a U.S. Department of Education grant to coordinate curriculum across states and was originally named the National Network for Curriculum Coordination / East Central Curriculum Management Center.

The mission was to coordinate curriculum produced by federal and state departments of education. Activities included research on curriculum design, development and dissemination; development of curriculum training for states; dissemination of curriculum specialist certification resources; advisory assistance to all Federallly-developed curriculum products; conduct of a national award for curriculum; development of curriculum synthesis documents; conduct quarterly regional and annual national curriculum coordination conferences; and provision of a lending library of resources. The Illinois library became the largest in the U.S.

Every state and trust territory had a representative to the Network. Illinois representatives were Dr. Fran Beauman, Dr. Rebecca Douglass Woodhull and Sandy Dunkel. Over the twenty-six year history of the National Network for Curriculum Coordination the Illinois-based offices became the headquarters for the National Network. Dr. Woodhull chaired the National Curriculum Coordination Centers Director's Council and was the Network liaison to national groups including the National Center for Research in Vocational Education, V-TECS, AACJC, AVA, NRCUA / NAVEPI and NCOE.

The DACUM technique was the Network's preferred curriculum design method for competency-based curriculum and IOES established the National DACUM Facilitator Institute and Database. IOES staff have provided DACUM services in over forty states. IOES also took the national lead in establishing the National Tech Prep Clearinghouse and the National Task List Database.

All of these activities were maintained as part of the Illinois State Curriculum Center and IOES when federal funding ceased in 1997.