Why National Standards and Tests?

The Need to Improve the Schools Why Raising Student Achievement through Higher Standards Was First Proposed Origins of National Standards and Tests How President Bush, Corporate Leaders and the Governors First Advanced the Idea of Raising Standards The 1992 Presidential Campaign and the Transition to a New Administration How Bush and Clinton Differed on Education, but How Clinton Continued the Fight for Higher Standards That Bush Began Goals 2000 in the US House of Representatives How Liberals Expressed Concerns About the Fairness of Standards, and How Conservative Opposition to the Idea Grew Goals 2000 in the Senate and the Conference Committee How the Concept of Raising Standards Triumphed, but Only after Liberal Concerns about Equity Lost and Increasingly Strident Conservative Opposition Was Overcome The Elementary and Secondary Education Act How Other Federal Programs Were Refashioned to Raise Standards, and How This Victory Further Hardened the Opposition of the Political Far-Right The Conservative Assault on Raising Standards to Improve the Schools How the Conservative Opposition Tried to Undo Standards-Based Reform and Failed Because Clinton, the Business Community and Governors Fought Back The Elections of 1996 and Clinton's Second Term How the Conservatives Were Rebuffed, and Clinton Revived the Idea of National Standards and Tests