Excellence refers to emphasizing specific curricular areas in hope of best ensuring economic growth and national unity. Excellence may be viewed through a variety of historical contexts, but is generally a reaction to schooling aims and practices that impair students' ability to compete in the local, national, or global marketplace, and strives for the development and transmission of national unity and civic literacy. A central means of doing this is through the creation and implementation of content-area standards assessed through standardized testing and/or a national curriculum. The excellence movement in the United States has had a profound effect on educational policy nationally and curriculum studies within the academy as many of the initiatives, curriculum, and research agendas constructed are grounded upon the central notions of ...