The United States began requiring assessments for all students regarding their achievement in the early 1990s. This education reform movement focused on common knowledge of core subjects across grade levels. However, states held different standards which could be problematic if a student needed to move from state to state. In addition, educators realized that employers and colleges were beginning to demand higher level skills of high school graduates. Thus, the need to develop one set of national standards became a prominent need. The Common Core Standards began to be written in 2009 with a release date of June 2, 2010. The majority of states reviewed the new standards in the areas of English language arts and mathematics and adopted them within a few months. A total of 45 states and three territories are currently implementing the new standards, but in many different ways. The federal government offered incentive programs with a focus on education reform grants called Race to the Top. This provided a major push for the Common Core Standards to be adopted by the states as they would not be eligible for additional reform money without the adoption.