Setting standards means making the goals crystal clear, measuring to see whether students are meeting them, and adjusting how schools work in order to promote optimum productivity. Standards do not matter unless employers and admissions officers require them to be met. There has to be customer demand. Raising standards means a focus on quality, and that may mean changes in how schools do business. Students may need more time to meet high standards and schools may need more resources to support them.
Standards come in many forms.
The two most important are content standards and performance standards. Content standards define what students must know and be able to do. Performance standards define how well students must know and be able to do what is defined in the content standards. The best standards combine content and performance. World-class standards are rigorous, public, assessable, high stakes, inclusive, coherent, specific, and parsimonious.