The following national organizations all helped making the large changes: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, The American Association for the advancement of Science, the International Reading Association, the National Council of Teachers of English, the National Commission for the Social Studies, the National Association of Elementary School principals, the National Association of State board educators, the Association for Supervision and Curriculum development, and many others
The early childhood profession, represented by the NAEYC, entered the educational reform debate by issuing influential position statements defining developmentally appropriate practices for young children (Bredekamp, 1987).
The national organizations call for schooling to place greater emphasis on: Active hands on learning, Conceptual learning that leads to understanding along with acquisition of basic skills, meaningful relevant learning experiences, interactive teaching and cooperative learning, and a broad range of relevant content, integrated across traditional subject matter divisions. At the same time these national organizations also criticize remote memorization, drill and practice on one academic skill, teacher lecturing, repetitive seatwork, and standardized paper and pencil multiple choice achievement tests (earlyeducation.com).
While NAEYC's had clear guidance about how to teach young children, they were less specific on what to teach. Curriculum development should take into account many things such as child development, knowledge, individual characteristics of children, knowledge base of various discipline, values of the culture, parent desires, and the knowledge needed to function correctly in our society. The task of developing curriculum is made difficult because of all the things that should be taking into consideration. That's why I think the curriculum taught should be influenced by not only what the teacher thinks but also by the parents.