Why do people insist on viewing the Standards as inconsistent with teacher creativity and choice? I am baffled by such uncreative thinking. That’s like saying the architect cannot be creative because every house has to meet building code. Indeed, the whole point of mandating standards as opposed to curriculum is to free people up to create innovative curriculum that addresses the standards.

You’re an architect: your clients are students. Your job is to develop client-friendly learning that also meets code. How does this restrict freedom?

Here is an obvious illustration of our failure to think imaginatively now. When I started teaching in 1972, the legacy of the ’60s was still in full force in my school. There were all sorts of creative courses: Death and Dying, The Wilderness, Political Philosophy, Ethics, Why Do We Do What We Do? etc.

More importantly, many of these cool courses met the English…