This paper considers the implementation of Student Performance Standards (SPS) in Queensland, Australia, and their implications for teacher education. Student testing procedures in various Australian states and territories are described. A theoretical framework, grounded in Australian educational history, is elaborated for understanding the political ramifications of SPS. S. J. Ball's explication of market, management and, particularly, curriculum controls over public education is applied to show how explicit emphasis on student performance is linked to wider forces promoting an instrumentalist and managerialist view of schooling. The emergence of statewide testing is seen as: a quality control measure designed to ensure that schools are producing human resources tailored to the needs of a post-fordist economy; an attempt to shape the quality, character, and content of classroom practice; and a potential step toward monitoring the performance of teachers and schools, making comparisons among them, and linking these comparisons to performance-related pay awards. The paper concludes that SPS constitutes a not entirely desirable response to a series of complex educational and political changes within and outside Australia. SPS represents in microcosm what is a broader challenge to the celebration of diversity and the recognition of heterogeneity that ought to underpin any teacher education program. (Contains 16 references.) (JDD)