In 1989 President Bush and the nation's governors agreed to achieve education goals by the year 2000 that brought about the effort led by the U.S. Secretary of Labor to form the Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS) in 1990. The Commission was to determine skills students needed to succeed in the world of work. A preliminary report of the Commission was issued in the spring of 1991, and the final report in April of 1992.

The commission argued that a high-performance work place requires workers who have a solid foundation in the basic literacy and computational skills, in the thinking skills necessary to put knowledge to work, and in the personal qualities that make workers dedicated and trustworthy.

The Commission also argued that a solid foundation is not enough. The high performance workplace requires competencies - the abilities to manage resources, to work amicably and productively with others, to acquire and use information, to master complex systems, and to work with a variety of technologies.