The NCEE in the late 1980s proposed an education reform model based on "world class standards".Students would be taught according to new process-base "higher order thinking" skills rather than be taught facts as has been done traditionally. Public education would become a part of a seamless human resources system where school would lead into work. Rather than passing students through based on age and participation, which many business leaders claimed led to Graduates who cannot read their diplomas, "learning outcomes" would result in earning a Certificate of Initial Mastery by grade 10 which would effectively replace the high school diploma.
Under outcome-based education, it was predicted that All Will Succeed. Students who received their CIM would be eligible to continue two years of high school in a career track of choice. This was loosely modeled on the European apprenticeship system where only a very few students go on to 4-year colleges, and most students end their formal education by grade 10. The difference in the NCEE model is assuming that most Americans wanted the 10 year education/labor training system from Europe, rather than the 4-year college model which even most Germans opt for today. The original model would also have created a federal standard for all eight job categories, and effectively require a WASL test for each of those job categories in order to get a high paying job.
Since then, every state has moved away from NCEE, now claiming that the AIMS, MCAS, XYZPDQ is a "local" idea, created by leaders from business, educators, and parents who demand a "meaningful diploma". Every state has also struck down the concept of the CIM as being a bad idea, instead adopting the equivalent idea of requiring all 12 graders to have passed a 10th grade test which is designed to fail at least 50% of students at the start, but pass over 95% at the end of "reform".