Standards-based education

modern scientific vocabulary of lifelong learning is wide. There are a lot of related terms in the field of education standardization, the meaning of which though being rather close, may still differ greatly. The article reviews linguistic, historical, social, cultural and pedagogical senses of such widely used English concepts as «standards-based education», «an outcome-based education», «competency-based education» / «competency-based learning». The author tries to differentiate the meaning of the terms «standards-based education», «competency-based education» and «performance-based education». The difference in interpreting competency-based approach within Russian and American academic communities is observed. The author analyzes the standardization methods applied in our native and foreign education systems, compares «American» and «Russian» school system standardization models, their advantages and disadvantages, and describes the results of standards-based school reform in the USA. The author applies interdisciplinary approach, comparative analysis method, word frequency analysis, web-based search method. The research base includes over 70 Russian and English scientific sources including general education standards and professional teacher standards elaborated in Australia, Great Britain, New Zealand, the USA, as well as the Russian first- and second-generation state educational standards, the professional standard «Teacher (teaching activities in the field of pre-school, primary general, basic general, secondary education) (preschool teacher, teacher)» (Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of the Russian Federation of October 18, 2013). The article may be of some interest for school and university teachers and educators, postgraduates in pedagogy, translators of pedagogic literature, education managers and standards-policy-makers and all the readers interested in standardization in education field.