According to the Education Commission of the States’ recent publication, Bridging the Gap (http://www.ecs.org/ecs/219e.htm), "polling data show that an overwhelming 87% of American favor setting higher standards in the basic subjects and holding students accountable for reaching them." During the past decade, various educational associations have been busy defining the standards in their fields. Recently, the federal government has begun to turn towards national standards with voluntary adoption at the local level:

• Link to Clinton’s call for standards, http://www.ed.gov/inits.html
• Link to Secretary Riley’s "Putting Standards of Excellence into Action" http://www.ed.gov/news.html

Whatever your position on national education policy, the resources provided by these standards can be useful is deciding what your local standards will be. Below is a list of the standards resources available with links to their sites and contact information.

Resources

In this section:

In the Toolkit: