This is a historical study of the modern standards movement starting in 1983 with the landmark report, A Nation At Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform, and concluding in 1995 with the publication of the revised Standards of Learning for Virginia Public Schools in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The study was done through a review of available archival papers, written documents, and oral testimony.

The purpose of this study was to analyze critically the modern standards movement as a context to the development and implementation of the revised Standards of Learning for Virginia Public Schools. Objectives of the study were to identify key events and key characters that impacted the standards movement and identify issues that evolved. A main focus of the study was to develop a documentary history that identified themes that linked events and showed connections between past and current events.

Phase one of the process involved data collection from appropriate literary sources and writing the history as portrayed in written documents. Phase two of the process was done through the collection of oral testimony from key informers, especially in the Virginia movement and weaving that testimony logically and chronologically into the appropriate documentary history. Phase three of the process concluded with the identification of main themes that linked events and implications for future studies.