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Twenty-five years ago this month, President George H.W. Bush and the nation鈥檚 governors took an unprecedented step that poured political accelerant on the nascent movement for standards-based education reform: They proclaimed that the country needed to set educational goals on issues ranging from early-childhood education to adult literacy, and to hold itself accountable鈥攕omehow鈥攆or meeting them.

That agreement was forged during a two-day summit in Charlottesville, Va., that brought the White House together with the chief executives of nearly every state to discuss a single policy issue, for only the third time in American history.

The Sept. 27-28, 1989, gathering at the University of Virginia concluded in a haze of bipartisan camaraderie with Mr. Bush commending his future presidential opponent, Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, for his role in helping bring about consensus.

But big questions loomed amid the fanfare: Exactly what should those education goals be, and what steps should the federal government and states take to reach them? Who should foot the bill for any new policies directed at the goals? And, perhaps most important: How should the nation measure progress toward the goals, and who was best positioned to do that measurement?

Two and a half decades, four presidential administrations, and countless laws and marquee initiatives later, educators and policymakers are still searching for the answers. Questions remain even as a majority of states have taken concrete and sometimes controversial steps to realize the vision that emerged from the summit.

鈥淚t was a very optimistic time: We really thought, as governors, that we could really make a difference, and we could do it over a relatively short period of time. The White House was right with us,鈥� said Thomas H. Kean, an early leader in the standards movement who took part in the event as the Republican governor of New Jersey. 鈥淲e haven鈥檛 had a moment like that since, on any subject.鈥�

At the same time, there were some clear fissures that emerged in Charlottesville and afterward, as policymakers struggled to find a framework for moving forward on the goals set after the summit.

There was disagreement over education funding; the right balance among federal, state, and local control in setting policy; and tension over whether schools could be held accountable for student achievement without policymakers also being held to account for providing certain supports, such as preschool programs for poor children.

Such tensions still reverberate, most recently in the contention over the Common Core State Standards Initiative.

鈥淭he common core is a descendant鈥� of Charlottesville and its aftermath, Mr. Kean said. 鈥淎nd so is the debate against it.鈥�

Setting Goals

The 1989 summit, to its supporters, was an acknowledgment that thousands of school districts鈥攁nd even 50 states鈥攚orking alone, without national leadership, couldn鈥檛 confront the challenges enumerated by the landmark report A Nation at Risk, issued six years earlier.

That report, which had helped spawn a wave of state-level reform efforts, particularly in the South, warned that the American education system was falling behind its international competitors, threatening the nation鈥檚 future prosperity. While the report鈥檚 premises were subject to dispute, its impact was great.

The Charlottesville conference, which was attended by 49 of the nation鈥檚 governors, with the exception of Rudy Perpich, a Democrat from Minnesota, received front-page attention in major newspapers. But the work was only beginning when the president and the governors left Virginia.

After months of meetings鈥攚hich generally included Mr. Clinton, at that time a leader of the education task force of the National Governors Association; and Roger B. Porter, Mr. Bush鈥檚 domestic-policy adviser鈥�the goals became a centerpiece of President Bush鈥檚 State of the Union address in January 1990.

By 2000, Mr. Bush told the country, every child in the United States would start school ready to learn, and the high school graduation rate would rise to at least 90 percent. Every American adult would be a literate and skilled worker. The nation would lead the world in math and science achievement. Schools would be safe and drug-free.

And, most critically: Every student would leave grades 4, 8, and 12 having demonstrated competency in English, mathematics, science, history, and geography.

The goals reflected a 鈥� 鈥楩ield of Dreams鈥� optimism,鈥� said Jal Mehta, an associate professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. 鈥淚f we built the goals, then schools would meet them.鈥�

There was no clear path forward for bringing the goals to fruition, and no way to measure progress toward them, said Mr. Mehta, the author of The Allure of Order: High Hopes, Dashed Expectations, and the Troubled Quest to Remake American Schooling.

But Michael Cohen, who played a key role backstage at the summit as the director of education policy for the NGA, said the goals were intentionally aspirational.

鈥淧eople understood these goals were high, lofty, difficult to reach,鈥� said Mr. Cohen, who later served in the U.S. Department of Education during the Clinton administration.

And in 1990, the NGA鈥檚 education task force, led by then-Gov. Clinton, a Democrat, and Gov. Carroll A. Campbell of South Carolina, a Republican, released a blueprint for meeting the goals that had a significant impact on subsequent state efforts to improve education, Mr. Cohen said.

What鈥檚 more, he said, savvy governors, including Mr. Clinton, knew that the need for assessment measures would stir the policy pot.

鈥淭hey were happy to be doing something that they hoped would usher in the next generation of testing. 鈥� Work on standards and testing and accountability has been a federal-state partnership since the beginning, and the beginning started at the summit,鈥� said Mr. Cohen, who is now the president of Achieve, a Washington-based group that helps states bolster academic standards and played a key role in launching the common-core standards.

But Linda Darling-Hammond, a professor of education at Stanford University, said policymakers have ultimately failed to pair standards with increased resources for schools and richer professional development for educators. That鈥檚 something that was happening in states such as Kentucky at the beginning of the standards movement but, in her view, it hasn鈥檛 been as widespread as it needs to be in the common-core era.

鈥淛ust getting standards and attaching them to tests, which are attached to consequences, is not really enough,鈥� Ms. Darling-Hammond said. Disadvantaged children, especially, need greater supports if they are going to meet more rigorous expectations, she said, which is something policymakers haven鈥檛 really addressed on a national level.

鈥淭he inequality question never got answered,鈥� she said.

Federal Fallout

The consensus that educational standards and accountability needed to be part of a national strategy to ensure that the United States remained economically competitive gave rise to a cascade of K-12 initiatives, each identified with successive presidential administrations.

The first President Bush followed up the summit with America 2000, a plan that called for voluntary national standards and tests. Congress, which had been left out of the goals summit, never passed the proposal.

The Bush administration nonetheless financed the development of voluntary standards in a range of subjects. That effort ultimately faltered in the mid-1990s, in part because of conservative opposition to the American history standards, and in part due to concern over the federal role in encouraging the standards鈥� development.

Mr. Clinton, who was elected president in 1992, crafted Goals 2000, which borrowed ideas from Mr. Bush鈥檚 plan. The Clinton initiative provided grants to help states develop content standards and created a panel to sign off on model state and national standards.

Standards-based education redesign was also encouraged through the 1994 reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, dubbed the Improving America鈥檚 Schools Act.

The standards panel was eliminated by Congress after Republicans took control following the 1994 elections. But by the time Mr. Clinton left office after two terms, nearly every state had set academic expectations, and many had begun to assess their students.

In 2001, President George W. Bush picked up the ball with the No Child Left Behind Act, his overhaul of the ESEA, which put the federal government front and center in ensuring that assessments and federally mandated school improvement remedies were a feature of every state鈥檚 accountability system.

And President Barack Obama later encouraged states to adopt the common-core standards through his signature Race to the Top grant competition and waivers from the mandates of the NCLB law.

Standards-based education reform remains controversial. But the past four presidents鈥攁lthough of different parties鈥攈ave each made a pivotal contribution to the standards movement, said Marc S. Tucker, the president of the National Center on Education and the Economy, a Washington research group. Mr. Tucker also writes an opinion blog for 澳门跑狗论坛.

鈥淲hat began at Charlottesville was a long march of a bipartisan [movement] to fundamentally change the system,鈥� said Mr. Tucker, who served as an unofficial consultant to the cadre of officials involved in developing the goals. 鈥淚t had good results and bad, but it survived changes in administration in a way that few things did. It was not A Nation at Risk that did that. It was Charlottesville.鈥�

Gubernatorial Authority

Charlottesville also is sometimes credited with helping to crack open the door to more federal involvement in K-12 education.

But the participants didn鈥檛 see the summit that way at the time, said Paul Manna, an associate professor of government at the College of William and Mary, in Williamsburg, Va., and the author of School鈥檚 In: Federalism and the National Education Agenda.

鈥淭he governors were really looking at the summit as a way to advance some ideas about standards and advance their own position,鈥� he said.

Before the first President Bush called the summit, governors had collaborated on their own educational goals and improvement efforts through groups such as the NGA and the Southern Regional Education Board.

Governors wanted political cover to move forward on standards-based reform, Mr. Manna said. And some sought more federal aid, especially for early-childhood education. But the governors didn鈥檛 want鈥攐r expect鈥攖he federal government to take more responsibility for student outcomes, he said.

Washington, meanwhile, had been focused primarily on steering aid to disadvantaged students and students in special education, not on prodding states to measure what students needed to know and be able to do.

While the White House may have used the summit to help the senior Mr. Bush make good on his 1988 campaign promise to be the 鈥渆ducation president,鈥� the administration expected leadership to come from the state level.

In fact, in selecting Charlottesville as the site for the meeting, Mr. Bush intended to send a clear signal that the states were the power center on K-12 policy, said Mr. Porter, a professor of business and government at Harvard University. The two previous presidential-gubernatorial summits鈥攐n the economy during the Great Depression, and on conservation in 1908鈥攂oth took place in the White House. Mr. Porter suggested holding the 1989 education meeting there, too.

鈥淭he president said, 鈥業 don鈥檛 want to do it in Washington. That will send the message that Washington is where the solutions will come from,鈥� 鈥� Mr. Porter recalled.

The increase in the federal footprint came years later, Mr. Cohen said, as policymakers鈥攑articularly in Congress鈥攂ecame frustrated with the pace of educational progress. The nation 鈥渄idn鈥檛 seem to be getting the results we wanted,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e tightened the screws again and again,鈥� first with NCLB and then with the Obama administration鈥檚 waivers.

National Panel

Soon after the summit, it became clear that there needed to be some entity to track the nation鈥檚 progress toward the goals, if the country was going to sustain the momentum.

Also, Democratic governors in particular wanted a mechanism to hold the federal government鈥攁nd themselves鈥攁ccountable if there wasn鈥檛 going to be a major infusion of federal money to help meet the goals, something the Bush administration largely took off the table, Mr. Cohen said.

To do that, the governors and the White House created the National Education Goals Panel, originally consisting of six governors and four members of the administration, along with several members of Congress who served ex officio.

But it was clear from the panel鈥檚 first report, issued in the fall of 1991, that a lack of clear assessment measures complicated the task.

鈥淭he national goals panel had a [task] that was almost impossible to achieve,鈥� said Roy Romer, a Democrat who participated in the summit as governor of Colorado and later chaired the goals panel. 鈥淲e didn鈥檛 have national systems of measurement that were accurate,鈥� and the goals themselves had 鈥渦nrealistic expectations of students.鈥�

At a 15th-anniversary event commemorating the summit, Richard W. Riley, the former governor of South Carolina who later served as Mr. Clinton鈥檚 secretary of education, from 1993 to 2001, would put his finger on the limitations of the goals approach.

鈥淓ven though we failed to achieve those goals, that failure taught us something about how hard it is to achieve education reform at the national level,鈥� he said. 鈥淚f you don鈥檛 put money and teeth behind the goals, not much is going to happen. Also, education improvement takes time.鈥�

Implications for Today

How close is the nation to fulfilling the vision of the summit and the national education goals it spawned?

The common core and its aligned tests are an obvious heir of Charlottesville, those who were involved with the summit say. Beyond sharing the aim of a national approach to a more rigorous education system, the common-core initiative also was spurred by a multistate partnership, with federal encouragement and assistance.

The common standards have been hit with conservative criticism. So were the policies promoting standards that the first President Bush pursued after the summit and that President Clinton advanced with his Goals 2000 initiative.

That doesn鈥檛 mean the standards movement hasn鈥檛 come a long way since 1989, said James B. Hunt Jr., an early leader in the effort who served as governor of North Carolina from 1977 to 1985, and from 1993 to 2001.

鈥淚 think we鈥檝e got pieces of it,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e have set goals, and put in approaches to measure their progress and reward success and require changes if we鈥檙e not succeeding. I think all of the fuss about common core has sort of obscured that for now.鈥�

But Marshall S. Smith, who served in top posts in the Education Department during the Clinton administration and as an informal consultant to policymakers in developing the goals, said the political climate is markedly different now.

鈥淓ven though the goals themselves were outrageous in their stretch, people came out of Charlottesville with a good feeling that the country could move on them,鈥� Mr. Smith said. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 think we have that sense across the country now.鈥�