Author discusses the most important and controversial issues associated with the project of educational standards for high school: a paradigm shift from “vseobuch” to “actionism”, the need for teacher retraining, the changing nature of public control over the school and also the question of when new standards should be the implemented. Special attention is paid to the basic curriculum: subjects studied at a basic or advanced level; the need to reduce the number of existing subjects; rationality of the choice of subjects, which are assumed to be compulsory by the standards. Author also notices that one of the strengths of the new standards is moral and personal development of students.