Topics in the News

Goals 2000: Educate America Act

The Proposal

On 25 February 1990, the National Governors' Association adopted a set of six goals designed to boost student achievement in the United States by the year 2000. The goals were developed by the governors in consultation with the White House, and were based on a plan developed at an education summit that President George Bush had held with the nation's governors in September 1989. As the government continued to further define the objectives and budgeting issues that accompanied the bold move, critics and supporters began the debate on the appropriateness of federal intervention in a state mandate-public education. Key among the questions was how progress on the goals would be determined and whether a clear delineation between church and state was made in light of implied support for vouchers.

A New Law

In March 1994, President Bill Clinton signed the bill into law. In addition to the original six goals, two were added that involved teacher training and the role of parents in a child's education. (The last objective caused great concern among conservative groups and was later amended.) Although considered by some an ineffective compromise, the law encouraged each state to set its own competency standards in lieu of a single set of national standards. The 1996 revision, designed to answer some criticisms about the role of the federal government in the process, managed to placate some critics, but raised other concerns about the original intent of fostering systemic, standards-based school reform. "It started off as a program with its own integrity, and now it's beginning to lose all integrity," said Michael Kirst, a professor of education at Stanford University in California. Deleting federal review of plans guarantees that "the federal government will have no idea what's going on in any state," he said. Scholar and former assistant in the Education Department Diane Ravitch said, "I just don't know what's left except a program in which the money passes from the Education Department to the states and from the states to the districts for whatever good things they want to do and the districts can define as good."

Progress Not Seen

Perhaps the greatest indictment of all came from the assessments of the country's progress. According to the annual reports submitted by the National Education Goals Panel, the independent group created by the Act to monitor the nation's advancement on the goals, it was unlikely that the country would meet most of its objectives by the year 2000. In 1996, after analyzing twenty major indicators of improvements in education, the committee said that American schools had improved in five of the areas, worsened in eight, and remained approximately unchanged in seven. The most progress had reportedly been made on efforts to raise the nation's high-school graduation rate. The previous year, the panel had reported that the strongest signs of progress were related to students' success in math and science classes. The percentage of students in the fourth grade meeting national math achievement standards had risen to 18 percent in 1992, up from 13 percent in 1990. During the same period, math achievement had climbed to 25 percent from 20 percent among eighth graders, and to 16 percent from 13 percent among twelfth graders. Panel members also indicated that increasing numbers of female college students were earning degrees in math and the sciences.

Making a Difference

Nonetheless, supporters of the law pointed to the increasing number of states with competency standards in core subjects and the move toward state-wide assessments of progress on those standards as evidence that the Goals 2000: Educate America Act was making a difference. Although those assessments caused their own debates, the public attention on the state of education in America could not be denied.

GOALS 2000: EDUCATE AMERICA ACT

1. All children will start school ready to learn.
2. The nation's high school graduation rate will increase to 90 percent.
3. Students in grades 4, 8, and 12 will demonstrate competency in nine core academic areas.
4. The United States will be first in international comparisons of math and science achievement.
5. Adult literacy will be universal.
6. Schools will be free of drugs and violence.
7. Teachers will have access to continual professional-development opportunities.
8. All schools will increase parental involvement in their children's education.

   The 1996 amendment to the act had the following provisions:

   1. School districts in states that were not participating in Goals 2000 were allowed to apply for aid on their own if they had the approval of the state education agency. 2) A requirement that states submit school-improvement plans to the U.S. Secretary of Education was removed. States were still to draft plans based on challenging standards and aligned assessments, but could get money by promising that it would be spent properly.
   2. Provisions specifying the membership of state and local panels charged with drafting the state and local plans were deleted.
   3. The National Education Standards and Improvement Council was formally eliminated,
   4. References to "opportunity to learn" standards for measuring school services, including a requirement that states create opportunity-to-learn "standards or strategies," were removed.
   5. No district, state, or school "shall be required…to provide outcomes-based education or school-based health clinics."
   6. The Goals 2000 law will not "require or permit any state or federal official to inspect a home, judge how parents raise their children, or remove children from their parents."

Source:

Mark Pitsch, "To Placate Conservatives, Measure Alters Goals 2000," Education Week on the Web, 1 May 1996, Internet website.

Sources:

Education Week on the WEB, 1996, Internet website.

The U.S. Department of Education, Internet website.