From the Washington state website for skill standards (http://www.wa-skills.com/):

Skill standards answer two critical questions:

• What do workers need to know and be able to do to succeed in today’s workplace?
  
  
• And how do we know when workers are performing well?

Other useful websites:

U. S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook:
http://www.bls.gov/oco/home.htm

NWCET (National Workforce Center for Emerging Technologies, Bellevue WA) website for IT skill standards:http://www.nwcet.org/products/skillStandards.aspIntroduction from the homepage of the National Research and Dissemination Centers for Career and Technical Education:

"Academic and skill standards are being developed across the country to help educators determine where to set the bar to measure student performance. Finding these standards documents for many disciplines and occupational fields can be challenging. This repository of standards has been created by the National Dissemination Center for Career and Technical Education to help you find the information you need."

http://www.nccte.org/repository/index.asp

NWCET (National Workforce Center for Emerging Technologies, Bellevue WA) website for IT skill standards:
http://www.nwcet.org/products/skillStandards.asp