Good points!
The amazing thing is how little time is spent on curriculum at the state level, at least in NY. Yet, massive amounts of funding is channeled to private corporations for testing. Here is an interesting story.
In 2002 there was a public outcry in NY over high failure rates on a 9th grade math exam (it was called Math A). The exam was compulsory for graduation, and that spring there was a 70% failure rate. The curriculum in place was a horrible failure. So, NY put together a commission to fix the problem.
One of my colleagues was on the commission. She was asked to be on it because her husband was the editor of a major newspaper and he played golf with a member of the Board of Regents. She admitted to me that she knew nothing about what was going on in the public schools, so she would be asking me for help. I had also been asked, but declined, as my weekends were spend ferrying my kids around to various activities. I had been teaching algebra on a voluntary basis for the past 7 years in a Lutheran school, so I was up on such things. I also helped my daughter prepare for the SAT, and she had earned an 800 on the math section.
The commission started with kindergarten and worked their way up to high school. By the time they got to high school, only two people were still involved. At that time I told my colleague to make 9th grade Integrated Algebra, instead of just Integrated Math. This approach had been successful in the Lutheran school, as I was turning out math teachers, engineers, chemists, etc. So, that is what it is. She also presented me with a rough draft of the 9th-11th grade curriculum, and I told her that it was missing a lot of content from the new SAT format. So, I jotted down a list of what was missing (in between classes), and it was added.
That is right! Millions of kids in NY are spending time learning material that was decided in a series of 5-minute conversations while my colleague was headed out the door, on the way to Albany.
There used to be a 12-member math department in Albany that consisted of k-12 educators, professors, mathematicians, etc. That was phased out long ago. Now, it is all privatized. Staggering amounts of money is funneled to the private sector, and we seem to be going from one bad curriculum to another.
From 1965, when my older brother started high school, until 1977, when I graduated, as far as I remember, there was one mistake on one NYS high school math exam. The credentials and level of professionalization during that era was impressive. Now, mistakes are routine. Sometimes 30%-40% of the content is left off of an exam.
I keep reading that we "can't trust the educators". Well, only educators can fix this problem. The private sector won't.