Given that standards-based education has been commonplace since the early 1980's, most practicing education professionals cannot remember a time where standards did not exist. Standards have historically served as a mechanism for accountability and academic achievement. In physical education, while not required in initial educational reforms, the development of standards was seen as a way to combat the marginalization of our subject. Despite this, we lack evidence demonstrating the impact of standards on physical education programming and student learning. Further, we rarely take the time to consider why standards are commonplace in education, and how they are developed. This paper brings to life the historical timeline of relevant educational reforms, offers a critical perspective of standards in physical education, and proposes several questions in order to challenge the status quo and encourage productive discourse around standards-based physical education.