Standards-based education grew out of two major national concerns in the early 1990s: that students in the United States would not be able to compete in a global economy; and that we still had an intolerable achievement gap between minority and non-minority students. As early as 1992, when the standards movement was just gatheirng steam, an AFT resolution stated that:

…research and the experience of other nations
indicate that having clear and high content and performance standards for students, basing
curriculum and assessments on those standards, providing the resources that schools and teachers
need to help students meet high standards, and motivating students to work hard on their studies
are the hallmarks of successful education systems.

The AFT was in the forefront of the standards movement, urging states to learn from other high-achieving countries: to set high and rigorous standards for all children and do whatever is necessary to ensure that all children have an equal opportunity to achieve them. That commitment continues today as the AFT fights to ensure that the implementation of standards-based reform keeps the original goals—a rigorous curriculum for all students and closing the achievement gap—in sight.

During the mid-1990s, as states began developing and implementing standards, it became apparent that setting high standards was only one piece of building and sustaining a complex, coherent, and aligned approach to school improvement. States and districts—in addition to developing high content and performance standards for what students should know and be able to do—must:

• Develop curricula aligned with the standards;
• Develop the capacity of schools and teachers to help students meet the high standards;
• Develop state-level assessments to measure student progress toward the standards;
• Develop an incentive and accountability system that uses the results of assessments and other variables to provide intervention to school systems and schools that fail to move their students toward high standards; and
• Phase in a student incentive and accountability system based, in part, on assessment results.

Since 1995, AFT has tracked each state's progress toward establishing such a standards-based system. While we have documented some great improvements over the years, we have also learned that much work lies ahead.