In the wake of challenges to curriculum brought about by the multicultural movement of the 1960s through 1980s in the U.S., we are now seeing state and national governments take control over curriculum. Although the standards movement is cast as aiming to improve schools, it can be understood as part of a political struggle over who has the right to define how the next generations will see the world and their places within it. This article juxtaposes the multicultural education movement and the standards movement in relationship to four central curriculum questions. It then explores how three early-career teachers in the U.S., who are committed to critical multicultural teaching, are making sense of contradictions between the two movements.