Educators are all too familiar with the innovation du jour, here today and gone tomorrow. Standards-based reform could be regarded as just one more. The challenge is to get started and to be practical. The real issue is whether kids in rural and inner-city schools will be challenged and enabled to achieve at the same high levels as their best suburban counterparts. School staffs devoting limited attention to standards-based reform may find that their student achievement results do not stack up with those of schools that devote additional resources to standards use.
Consequences can be serious.
Learn the lingo. Examine effective standards develop- ment and implementation processes in other settings in order to understand local options and opportunities. Anticipate and help shape the district and school site governance restructuring that often accompanies standards implementation. School sites could become virtually autonomous and assume full control of decision making, including budgetary authority. This site supplies links to numerous Websites devoted to educational standards in general and standards for specific subject areas.