Cynthia Coburn, in her 2016 article in the "American Journal of Education"--"What's Policy Got to Do With It?"--states that the field of policy implementation suffers from the propensity to learn the same lessons over and over again. This repetition of mistakes, I argue, stems from a failure to account for predictable patterns in how policies become unpopular. Through an analysis of 52 interviews with state, regional, and district officials in California, Texas, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts, I investigate the decline in the popularity of K-12 standards-based reform. I consolidate existing policy implementation theories and describe three important dimensions--detail, drive, and durability--for understanding how standards and associated policies "succeed" or "fail." Using these dimensions, I reveal how policy design and implementation choices can strengthen or weaken standards-based education policies. [For the corresponding grantee submission, see ED598544.]