The purpose of this contribution is to investigate the Standards and Accountability Movement, as it relates to the roles of administrators and the creation of school culture, against a broader neoliberal, historical context using a combination of historical evidence and critical theory. Employing a critical, comparative-historical analysis, this investigation analyzes the recently revised Professional Standards for Educational Leaders (PSEL) against the standards for educational leadership outlined in Worth McClure's Master's thesis from the early 20th century. As a critical educational studies piece, this analysis traces lines between these two historical documents underscoring that such ideas thus do indeed transcend temporal limitations which is cause for concern for educational leaders and those being trained in leadership programs in the United States which use the PSEL standards. Further, it highlights a historical blind spot that centers on a power imbalance linked to a century-old tradition of selling old ideas as solutions to newer, current, complex challenges facing schools, merely representing logical old wine in recycled, upscale, and expanded bottles. This work concludes with implications for administrators and discussions related to the stagnation of policy in terms of modern democracy building.