So no teacher can count on the students coming into her class having been exposed to anything in particular. Contrast this to other nations, where the curriculum is set to standards for each grade, grade by grade. Each topic is alloted enough time to teach it well and once it is taught, it is learned. Students who move from one end of the nation to another do not have to study in one year the same thing they learned in their old school last year or two years before. Salespeople do not have to travel the nation to find out what should be in the textbooks because the nation has already decided what should be in the textbooks.
National curriculum works.
The critics are worried that a national curriculum would be set by the same elites that brought us the new math and other fads. And they charge, too, that it would be set by academics and other so-called liberals who would flout the values of many mainstream Americans. The experience in other countries would suggest otherwise. There are other critics who say that setting academic standards for students really ought to be a main part of the professional responsibility of teachers, school by school. In their eyes, setting national standards would deprofessionalize teaching.