This paper is part of a larger project and co-authored book . Throughout the wider project and in this paper we have chosen to interweave parliamentary exchanges, newspaper reports and professional commentary. This highlights the role that different interest groups play in initiating public debates over educational standards and the accompanying concerns over pedagogy and curriculum. We see these debates as best fitting Herbert Kliebard's conclusion that different interest groups each represent a force for a different selection of knowledge and values from the surrounding culture and compete for dominance over the curriculum. This view of the public debates over reading standards and the micro-politics surrounding their visibility in the public arena, has led us to question the Left-versus-Right dualism often implicit in educational policy accounts. It raises critical questions about the complex processes that surround educational decision making at the intersection of politics, schooling, standards and literacy. Kliebard, H. M. (1995). The Struggle for the American Curriculum 1893-1958 (second ed.). New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul. p.8.