Every state sets its own curriculum, with varying degrees of freedom for the districts and schools within the states. The federal level has standards, which students are generally tested against in various standardized tests, that are tied to federal funding.

Multiple curricula can satisfy the same standards, at least on paper if not in practice. So states are, more or less, free to teach things how they want. However, they're also strongly driven by the textbook industry, which turns on the two biggest textbook purchasers: Texas and California. So a lot of the textbooks (and associated curriculum material) available for purchase in the rest of the states are driven by whatever those two states are pushing.

I would have still appreciated that refresher in a college class on content I learned 7-8 years prior.

> I guess education in the US has local standards?

Very much so! The US didn’t have a Department of Education until the 90s.

90s? You're off by a bit. The current Department of Education started in 1980, but it came out of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, founded in 1953. That, in turn, came out of the FSA which included an Office of Education (1939). Prior to that, the Office of Education had been part of the Department of the Interior. Before that it was its own Department, starting in 1867.

Though "90s" is delightfully vague. You're either off by nearly 1800 years, you're very old and meant 1890s and were only off by a few years, or you really meant the 1990s and were off by nearly 130 years.

Thanks. I have no idea where I read that, but have been carrying around that “fact” for over twenty years!