ABSTRACT
In September of 1989, the first President Bush held an ‘Education Summit’ in Charlottesville, virginia. In attendance were the governors of all 50 states (led by then-governor Bill Clinton), members of the Bush cabinet, and President Bush. According to Edward Fiske of the New York Times, all had at least one thing in common: they were “scared to death about the quality of schools” (Fiske, 1989: np). The statement issued at the end of the summit contained the seeds of 23 subsequent years of education reform in the US — reform remarkable in its nearly unwavering focus on academic standards and high-stakes tests as the key instruments of change.
