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<p>K-12 education is predominantly run at the state and local level, resulting in considerable curricular variation. The main standardization for college-prep curricula comes not from government sources, but from standardized tests such as AP, which have “backed in” to the role of standardizing outcomes for high school learning in various subjects (not what they really started out to be, which is the much narrower task of measuring whether advanced high school students have learned college freshman level material).</p>
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<p>The problem is that most humanities and social studies subjects are politicized. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn may be considered one of the most important books in American literature by some, but too offensive to even be stocked in a school library by others. [The</a> role of Thomas Jefferson in early US history is also minimized by some.](<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/education/13texas.html]The”>http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/education/13texas.html)</p>
<p>Even science subjects are subject to political pressures. Consider evolution in biology, for example.</p>