We've had those tests for years and years and nobody's made that complaint. The standards agenda reduces the curriculum. Oh, I don't think so. Bad standards do that. If you've got standards that are essentially trivial then you will drive out good teaching and good curriculum.
Standards operate to close opportunities for low-income and minority students.
What the standards have done is to focus attention as never before on the kids who are not making it. Patricia Harvey brought a successful career in Chicago Public Schools and as a director at the National Center on Education and the Economy to her position as superintendent with Saint Paul Public Schools in Minnesota. Harvey offers many examples of how standards have benefited her district's diverse student body. She explained that a lot of work was done towards standards-based education from the state level to the district level before her arrival as superintendent. The city decided to take advantage of the coming of a new superintendent to expand their vision to include the development of a standards-based education system.