In 1994, aggressive leadership from the National Association for Music Education resulted in the adoption of the nine National Standards for Music Education. Now, almost two decades later, much has changed. Standards have been studied and critiqued, and scholars have undertaken a great deal of research to identify best practices not only for teachers in classrooms, but also for administrators evaluating the success or failure of those teachers. The structure of government funding for education has been altered significantly, first by No Child Left Behind and now by the Obama administration's Race to the Top. Practically nobody claims that the nine music standards are outdated, but practically everybody agrees that they need to be updated. And so a team of experts is currently at work revising the national standards for education in all of the arts, including music. There are many reasons for this. First and foremost, the adoption by 45 states (so far) of the 2010 Common Core standards in math and English language arts created a new benchmark, due in part to those standards' use of updated academic vocabulary and their pronounced focus on text.