In an effort to ascertain whether elementary teachers have shifted from textbook-based school education toward curriculum-based school education, this study was to measure the extent to which elementary teachers localized the contents of the ten national common basic subjects. The data were gathered through survey, classroom observation and interviews. Many elementary teachers were not localizing contents at all, while only a few of them were localizing contents, indicating that, overall, they have not moved far from textbook-based school education toward curriculum-based school education. Even, they were putting only part of the plans in the school curriculum documents into practice. In addition, the extent to which they localized contents was different by subject, Social Studies at the highest level, Korean Language, Moral Education, Practical Arts, Physical Education, Music, and Fine Arts at the middle level, and Mathematics, Science, and Foreign Language (English) at the lowest level. This study suggests the ways to support elementary teachers for localizing contents of the ten subjects: supply of various instructional materials on the region, increased sessions for staff development on how to localize contents, change in the perceptions of the textbook, change in the textbook and teacher\'s guide, principal\'s support for teacher\'s localization of contents, the maintenance of instructional materials on the region within school, increased number of experts on the curriculum in the region, and support from local governments. Moreover, it is important that teachers, as gatekeepers of educational reform, increase knowledge and skills on how to develop and implement the school curriculum. Thus, it is necessary to provide preservice and inservice teachers with the opportunity for seeing the benefits of the curriculum-based school education as compared to teaching a textbook from cover to cover. Then, teachers will be able to change their traditional perceptions of school education and seek ways to educate students based on the curriculum.