An analysis of the ubiquitous but taken-for-granted term "rigorous academic curriculum" reveals that by definition it is not an academically rigorous term. The term contains multiple meanings, negative connotations, and a constricted conception of the school curriculum. It is associated with a discredited learning theory and in practice tends to function more as a status marker than as a substantive educational experience. We should shift our thinking and teaching away from the imprecise and potentially miseducative notion of a rigorous academic curriculum and toward the ideal of a vigorous educative curriculum.