Absolutely. There are serious risks with standardisation and our priorities in education are called into question. You might enjoy this book - it illustrates what it is really like for teachers and students when standardisation drives education. The book deals with standardised testing, but there is much overlap and interplay between standardised testing and standardised curricula.

McNeill, L. M. (2000). Contradictions of school reform: Educational costs of standardized testing. New York: Routledge.

I agree with Katrina above. It defiantly limits creativity. Sugata Mitra (The winner of the TED 2013 $1M award) suggests that introducing the internet in exams will give us an idea of the curriculum we will need in the future. In our professional life, we will always have the Internet to help us solve our problems, so we might as well have it in our exams and redesign the curriculum accordingly.

Standardization is not in service of students, but rather in service of the hierarchy of admissions officers (middle school, high school, college...) and employers that are categorizing the students. It makes it easier to compare.

What would genuinely serve students is curricula based on self-awareness of strengths weaknesses, and passions, as well as individual differences and personality types. The goal would be to teach social-emotional intelligence, which accelerates all other types of learning, as we learn the most from other human beings and by observing ourselves in action during challenges.

I agree that standardization may limit creativity - both standardization of tests and curriculum. It may work both directly on the students, but also indirectly by limiting the creativity of the teachers. Standardization probably have the most negative effect on the best and most dedicated teachers and students. However, the question is really and empirical one.

I agree with all of you. Standardisation does limit or stunt creativity. I've been around students who have been educated within the 'school' systems, as well as students who have been or who are home educated. The students who are 'school' educated via standardised curricula are far less creative and far less adventurous about their learning experiences (or any life experience for that matter) than students who do not have to be limited by the 'school' structure. Consider this as an example: An 11 year old child in 6th grade is learning about the Aztecs, as this is part of the curriculum. The teacher spends no more than 2 weeks on the activities, gives all students a project which is due at the end of the 2 weeks. The 11 year old child gets highly engaged with the activity, has started researching the Aztec history on their own time at home on the internet, and is keen to continue discovering more information about this long lost culture. However, going in to school on Monday of the 3rd week, the child discovers that they have moved onto the next topic, let us say... Tutankhamen. The alienation and perhaps anomie that the child feels is overwhelming because there has been no opportunities to continue the experience of learning about the first topic before it is discarded and replaced by a new one. The teacher, urged on by the curriculum, has no choice but to move on to the next topic due to time constraints and testing constraints, so the teacher has to nudge the kids along and refuse to answer any more questions about the Aztecs, because time is of the essence. In actual fact, the issue with standardisation is mostly about the number of assessments that students must complete. So kids are actually preparing for exams rather than learning a topic. In this way, kids learn that they should not care about any subject whatsoever because it is not worthy of their time. Hence, creativity, interest, and true-healthy learning is halted by the system. Going back to a home educated child scenario, you will find them stuck on particular topics for weeks, months or even a full year at a time - depending on how much engagement they find with the topic. They create movies, dress up and act out certain imagined scenarios, they develop massive projects and involve all other people in their lives with their learning. They enjoy their learning experiences because they are not forced to rush the interest they have found with the subject matter. Hence, they can be as engaged with it as they please. 

Is so, but not only with the cv.

The App Generation. How Today’s Youth Navigate Identity, Intimacy, and Imagination in a Digital World, by Howard Gardner and Katie Davis

No one has failed to notice that the current generation of youth is deeply—some would say totally—involved with digital media. Professors Howard Gardner and Katie Davis name today’s young people The App Generation, and in this spellbinding book they explore what it means to be “app-dependent” versus “app-enabled” and how life for this generation differs from life before the digital era. Gardner and Davis are concerned with three vital areas of adolescent life: identity, intimacy, and imagination. Through innovative research, including interviews of young people, focus groups of those who work with them, and a unique comparison of youthful artistic productions before and after the digital revolution, the authors uncover the drawbacks of apps: they may foreclose a sense of identity, encourage superficial relations with others, and stunt creative imagination. On the other hand, the benefits of apps are equally striking: they can promote a strong sense of identity, allow deep relationships, and stimulate creativity. The challenge is to venture beyond the ways that apps are designed to be used, Gardner and Davis conclude, and they suggest how the power of apps can be a springboard to greater creativity and higher aspirations.

Standardization in science is nonstandard step.

Good insights from able previous contributors to this topic. I concur with them because there may be no time or interest for creativity when learners are pressured and competing for marks at the expense of developing skills. Much time and energy (physical and psychological) is needed for one to get good grades.

The intended purpose of curriculum standards was to provide an outline of what students should learn in a given course of study. Over the course of time the intended purpose seems to have been lost. Using the mathematics standards as espoused by Common Core, the critique is that the standards are " mile wide and an inch thick" as lamented by Dr. Marzano. (The precise citation escapes me at the moment.) Standardizing a curriculum has taken the concept of seeking and mastering essential knowledge and added too many levels leaving little time to develop depth or mastery of knowledge.

The result is exposing students to a host of concepts without  affording learners the opportunity to secure a strong foundation of knowledge or mastery of necessary skills to begin the process of creativity. 

Referring to the post by Edward Meidhof:  I associate the phrase "an inch deep and a mile wide"  with Bill Schmidt, writing or talking for the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) of 1995, apropos of the USA mathematics curriculum - though he may have been quoting a catchphrase from elsewhere.  It is perhaps interesting, in the context of the present discussion, that TIMSS could characterize aspects of "the USA curriculum" even though there was no national curriculum; there were strong commonalities in what was done.  In international terms, it appeared less focused than did the curricula of many other countries or education systems in the study, especially in the middle grades.  This suggests that, or at least raises the question as to whether, some more central curricular guidance should be given than was the case then.

I come from a country - Ireland - that prescribes curriculum centrally and that has a very high-stakes State examination at the end of 12th grade.  The main Mathematics curriculum is offered at three levels (Higher, Ordinary and Foundation), thus addressing issues raised above about different courses for different needs (but introducing difficulties of choosing or being allocated to an appropriate level for whatever those needs may be).  The examinations are not in the form of standardized tests - examination papers are prepared every year by our State Examinations Commission; however, teaching to the examinations and trying to second-guess what the examiners will offer has been a national preoccupation, and certainly has not helped teachers and students to focus on creativity.  So our system does not solve all the problems!  Overall, however, I see the problems as being more to do with the high-stakes nature of the examinations and the generally overloaded curriculum than with central prescription as such.

It would be interesting to hear from people in countries where curriculum is centrally prescribed, but where multiple syllabuses are available, adequate time for deep learning of concepts and skills is allocated, and the final examinations (if existing) are less high-stakes.  Or have I just described some Platonic perfect education system?

A key question might be:  "Does a national curriculum (maybe differentiated as indicated above) tend to raise the floor but lower the ceiling?"

Incidentally, some creativity finds its way into our system, and others, via extra-curricular events and competitions.  (Additionally, our 10th grade is meant to focus on broader skills - but is so unusual that I suspect a description here would be irrelevant.)

Dr. Marzano had prepared a lecture video for Walden University in 2005 for the master's program in mathematics. It was on that video from which the quote was taken.  

Thanks to Edward Meidhof for his update on the lecture-video source of the quotation ("a mile wide and an inch deep").  I heard Bill Schmidt use it, I THINK at the NCTM conference in Minneapolis in Spring 1997, around the time when the curriculum volume of TIMSS 1995 came out (Schmidt, W., McKnight, C., Valverde, G., Houang, R., and Wiley, D. [1997]. Many Visions, Many Aims, Volume 1:  A cross-national investigation of curricular intentions in school mathematics.  Dordrecht:  Kluwer).  I have not located the phrase in the book, but it may be there.

Subsequent rounds of TIMSS publish the curricular information chiefly in a chapter within the main "results" volume.  While this maintains the advantages of a systematic cross-national study of curricula, and doubtless is less draining on scarce resources compared with producing a separate volume, it does lead to loss of depth.  (In European parlance: a kilometre wide and a metre deep??)

I think it depends on how we implement the standards-based curriculum. Students can either meet or exceed the standard by giving recognition to those students who have used their creativity in responding to an exam question. 

Best regards,

Debra

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South Africa has moved from a province-based (9 provinces) curriculum and province-based examinations to a completely centralised national curriculum and high-stakes exit-level examinations in the final year of schooling. Teachers have been disempowered in adapting sequencing, pacing and formal assessments to suit their own contexts. These moves are intended to correct the disparity in standards of education offered in our extremely diverse society. So far, the ceiling has been lowered, in the hope that at some later stage, the floor can be raised. 

However, returning to the original question posted, competent teachers are frustrated by the standardised curriculum, but less competent teachers feel supported by it. Yes, it has compromised creativity, but we have a huge problem with so many teachers and schools performing below expectations. 

Standardized curriculum is an official curriculum that is well designed and patterned to reflect the aspiration of the nation/society at large. It gives focus to human capital development and enable the individuals to think creatively within the framework of national values and goals.  The process of delivering the standardized curriculum is all encompassing and gives recognition to cognitive, affective and psycho-motor development of the individuals. The learning resources allow students to be familiar with issues that affect them and develop pragmatic mind towards exploring their environment and contribute significantly towards national development.

I agree with the statement and have experienced that students can not think beyond that content line. However, if content is taught effectively with variety of instructional techniques, only then it can do justice with learning but creativity still suffers for those who loves to be creative.

Certainly; a "canned," prescribed program leaves no room for students to explore interests or new areas thereby ensuring little variability. Basically, little, if any, creativity ...

I think all previous comments are interesting.

My opinion

Short answer is maybe

Long answer is, It depends on the teacher and the general school culture.

Fullan, M. (2016). The New meaning of Educational Change. 5th Ed. New York, NY : Teachers College Press