ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors ask where standards come from and whether their provenance offers a means of analyzing prospects for the development and promulgation of new standards in the field of instructional supervision. Briefly, a genealogical method combines analyses of scholarly texts with analyses of local and tacit knowledge to show contradictions and discontinuities, and points of struggle over how official discourses and practices are constituted, and by whom. Etymologies of the word standard indicate a transition from military to civilian and scientific denotations of the word, maintaining strong moral overtones. Processes of making and changing standards were crucial in the development of Western science and the expansion of European nations and empires. The biological sciences give us an example of the development of genetic standards derived from research and from which practices emanate. The teachers, leaders, students, and communities that inhabit schools require more complicated tools for instructional leadership toward educational equality and excellence.
