This booklet describes nine "new currents" in education with the recommendation that local and state federations of the American Federation of Teachers create QuEST committees of teachers to study the implications of all these issues and develop statements and QuEST action programs on them as they relate to local and state situations. The issues are 1) Verticalism--the creation of various educational rankings which affect authority and decision making in schools; 2) Merit Pay (new style)--based on "output factors" as opposed to "input factors"; 3) Accountability--the shifting of primary learning responsibility from the student to the school; 4) Behavioral Objectives--statement of school outcomes in terms of overt, observable actions of learners which are to change as a consequence of instruction; 5) PPBS (Planning Program Budgeting Systems)--a systems analysis method for reporting district expenditures; 6) Performance Certification--based on specific competencies of individual students, as opposed to credit counting or program approval; 7) Educational Engineering--a total process for managing environmental and institutional changes; 8) Performance Contracting--between schools and private firms to remove educational deficiencies on a guaranteed performance basis; 9) Voucher Systems--for financing education through payments to parents who then select the school for their child. (JS)