As a consequence of sobering PISA results, German federal states implemented educational standards in the past decade. This qualitative interview study aims to describe the German process of implementing educational standards at the classroom level. On the basis of a theoretical model about phases and conditions of acceptance and usage of feedback (Helmke, 2009) the acceptance and usage of that curricular innovation can be analyzed. Helmke (2009) defines four phases: receiving, accepting, reflecting and evaluating innovations, which is meant as a spiral form process. That study aims at defining those phases empirically and elaborating influencing conditions for them. We therefore conducted expert interviews in Germany in the federal state of Bavaria with teachers from the 3rd grade (N=20) on their understandings, acceptance and usage of the national educational standards. Results reveal problems of the implementation process. We only found few teachers with an elaborated acceptance and usage of the standards. According to the theoretical framework the results reveal that stable habits, collegial cooperation and professional beliefs account for the low level of acceptance and usage. Furthermore, a lack of accompanying measurements of the implementation process (e.g. teacher trainings) is supposed to be responsible for the little acceptance and usage of the standards.