ABSTRACT
Environmental regulation, like educational policy, crucially depends on the establishment and enforcement of standards. One can observe numerous similarities in the interplay of social, political, and technical issues in educational and environmental standard setting. In this article, I review several major types of environmental standards (design, performance, exposure, safety, and behavioral) and discuss their points of contact with educational standards. In this article, I highlight areas of judgment common to both standard-setting processes and describe the principal mechanisms that are used to improve the credibility of environmental standards. In conclusion, I suggest ways in which experiences gained in the environmental arena could usefully be extended to the educational arena.