ABSTRACT
Education standards have swept across the United States, engulfing almost every state. Forty-six states have created K-12 academic content standards in most academic subjects, and all but Iowa have required statewide K-12 student achievement tests. There is progress in clarifying what students must be able to know and to do in the K-12 grades, and how to align standards, assessments, textbook selection, and accountability measures at the K-12 level. A gaping hole in this state reform strategy, however, is the lack of coherence in content and assessment standards between higher education and K-12. No state included higher education institutions as an integral part of its K-12 standards deliberations. Higher education faculty participated as individuals, but not as representatives of higher education systems or public institutions.
