This paper discusses state control over curriculum relative to two general schools of curriculum theorists. The traditionalists employ a behavioristic social science orientation and attempt to develop curriculum theory with laws and principles tested through research. Reconceptualists reject the behavioral science model and attempt to reconceptualize the field of curriculum theory using disciplines such as the arts, literature, religion, and humanistic psychology as a basis for theorizing curriculum. Assumptions and consequences of state control over curriculum in relation to these two broad groups of curriculum theorists are discussed under five major categories: (1) the nature of knowledge, (2) purposes of the explicit curriculum, (3) messages students receive from the implicit curriculum, (4) what is not being taught or the null curriculum, and (5) the planning of curriculum based upon the fundamental elements of the field. Myths about curriculum that must be discarded with the shift in curriculum control to the state are identified. However, the shift of control of the curriculum back to local districts is advocated. A bibliography is included. (WTH)