Gwinnett County Public Schools Associate Superintendent Jonathan Patterson said the job of a teacher is harder than it’s ever has been.

Expectations have grown over time. In 2002, a statement from language arts Academic Knowledge and Skills read elementary students should be able to “make and defend inferences and conclusions.” That passage in the 2019 AKS now reads that students should be able to “quote accurately from a text when explaining what the text says and when drawing inferences from the text.”