17-State Project Hammers Out Own Standards

By Lynn Olson

Proposed national standards in subjects ranging from the arts to U.S. history describe many things students should know and be able to do. But the voluminous documents are relatively silent on how students would show that they have met a standard.

In the next six months, the New Standards Project will turn to the question of how to judge what students know and are able to do as it develops performance standards in English/language arts, mathematics, science, and "applied learning."

The National Center on Education and the Economy, a private, nonprofit research and policy group in Rochester, N.Y., and the Learning Research and Development Center at the University of Pittsburgh started the project in 1991. The two groups are working with 17 states and six school districts to develop high academic standards and a national...