Emerging Educational Standards of Performance in the United States

This paper will describe the role of standards and assessments in the present cycle of educational reform of the United States. Its major sections include a brief description of the American educational system and a reprise of the key elements of the educational reform undertaken in the last decade, including the ascendant role of standards and new forms of assessment, particularly their evolving defining and articulated purposes. We will conclude with the ways in which performance standards, as variously defined, are practically implemented. Illustrating with particular case studies of high-profile performance standards activities, we will project a set of problems that need sustained technical and policy attention for their solution.