I totally agree with you on content experts and how they come to their conclusions. If anyone has documentation on this I would love to read it. From milestones, anyway, I know it is the average of kids at a certain age to meet the given milestone. Is curriculum decided in a similar way?
As for social studies, don't get me started on this one! We have a major issue right now in the state of Texas and it is scary! A select few of the extreme right side have determined that we are not teaching 'appropriate' material to our children in public school and have managed get legislation passed that changes Texas textbooks. If we weren't planning on sending our DD to private school we would definitely be doing it now.
