So You Want to Write a Curriculum?

The Albert Shanker Institute, A Call for Common Content:

...our nation must finally answer questions it has avoided for generations: What is it, precisely, that we expect all educated citizens to have learned? What explicit knowledge, skills, and understanding of content will help define the day-to-day work of teaching and learning?

Anyone is free to say there should be a national curriculum, sit down and write it, and say "OK, this is it!" Sounds like a fun project.

However, I'm completely baffled by what, well, anyone thinks the Common Core standards are for. Because you can come up with your own set of "knowledge, skills, and understandings of content" if you want, but guess what -- they're still going to be outside the assessment framework.

Is what you're saying that you're going to fail my daughter after she entirely meets the Common Core standards and passes the four assessments every year which correspond to it, if she also fails to meet the additional curriculum objectives that have been laid on top?