A r c h i v e d I n f o r m a t i o n

Goals 2000: Increasing Student Achievement Through State and Local Initiatives - April 1996

Local Improvements in Teaching and Learning

The Goals 2000 reform efforts are vastly different because they're controlled by us, they're controlled by the people, not by the top-down sorts of things that we've had in the past. ...I don't recall ever having a national focus like the current Goals 2000 national focus. And I believe that this is going to succeed because one of the greatest things a government can do for its people is to give them hope, and to give them a vision, and that is what these Goals do.

-- Anne Jolly, Teacher, Mobile, Alabama¹³

Goals 2000 funding was used to get our grassroots folk involved in the education process. Fishermen and university presidents sat down at the same table and talked about what needs to happen for our students to be successful.

--Elaine Griffin, Alaska Teacher, National Teacher of the Year, 1995¹⁴

Supporting improvements in schools and classrooms is the ultimate focus of Goals 2000. Through Goals 2000, schools receive support to increase student learning through competitive subgrants from the state to districts that promote locally developed improvement strategies and innovations to help students reach high standards. The bulk of Goals 2000 funds--90 percent after the first year--goes directly from the state to local schools and districts. By awarding funds on a competitive basis, states can place priorities on the awards and target funds to start up or accelerate local improvement initiatives.

Most states have awarded at least one round of grants to districts. Although funds are just now being used by schools, early results are positive. Relatively small grants are triggering significant reforms by giving schools funds for planning and training to focus all activities on raising academic achievement. Often, the toughest money for districts to find is for local reform efforts. Thus local interest in Goals 2000 funding has been overwhelming: local requests to states exceeded first-year funds by as much as 200 to 600 percent depending on the state.

In its first two years, Goals 2000 has provided critical resources for a wide range of school improvement efforts to raise academic achievement, including:

building new local partnerships among schools, parents, businesses, colleges, and communities to improve education;
upgrading teacher skills, student assessments, curriculum, and instruction to help schools prepare all students to meet challenging standards; and
getting educational technology into schools to help students reach high standards.

Activity under Goals 2000 is just beginning, but entire schools and communities are mobilizing to improve the futures of their children by designing coherent, common sense approaches to teaching and learning.

Building New Local Partnerships Among Schools, Parents, Businesses, Colleges and Communities To Improve Education.

Schools alone cannot improve student learning. Families are critical as children's first and primary educators and need to be involved in all aspects of their education. Businesses offer real-world learning experiences, leadership, and resources to improve student learning and school efficiency. And community organizations offer services to ensure that students enter school buildings ready to learn and continue learning after school hours.

Goals 2000 encourages schools to reach out to the broader community to involve parents, families, businesses, and community members in school improvement activities. As school planning committees are using Goals 2000 funds to design and implement strategies to improve teaching and learning, early indications show broader community involvement in schools. Examples from the states show how.

Kansas has established content standards that all children in the state are expected to reach. To attain those goals in Wichita, the schools, higher education, and community members are working together to improve staff development in the Wichita Public Schools. The Horace Mann, Irving, and Park Foreign Languages Magnet school in Wichita is the site of a professional development school that is being run collaboratively by several members of the community, including school staff, students, teacher education faculty, preservice education students, social service agency and business representatives, parents, and neighborhood residents. This $20,000 grant supports efforts to recruit school staff and design staff development programs that give teachers the skills they need to help all students reach the state's standards that were launched with the state's Quality Performance Accreditation Initiative.
A consortium of districts in northern Iowa is using a $65,628 Goals 2000 grant to collaboratively improve student achievement, engage and prepare all school personnel in school improvement, and increase family involvement in learning. The districts are pooling their knowledge by sharing successful strategies and lessons they have learned. Each district is also going to its community to develop a comprehensive school improvement plan. Community needs now drive resource decisions so that local, state, federal, and private resources can more effectively support student learning.
North Dakota awarded a $15,340 grant to Walsh and Pembina Counties for comprehensive school improvement activities. School staff contacted religious leaders, business people, civic leaders, families, and community members who traditionally had not been involved in education. They formed a local planning panel made up of 70 citizens, including teachers, counselors, administrators, family members, civic leaders, and employers. The panel met intensively for a year and designed a four-year plan to improve student learning which included strategies, action steps, timelines, and clear responsibilities for working towards the National Education Goals.

The Community Is Key at Slidell High School in Louisiana

Joe Buccaran, principal of Slidell High School and currently Louisiana's state principal of the year, describes how Goals 2000 helped energize his school:

"Goals 2000 provided the stimulus for us to roll up our sleeves and look deep into our school to find what we needed to do. We asked for a lot of community input for school improvement. ... It's remarkable how Goals 2000 opened the door to so many things. It's about examining your school and its students and determining what needs to be done.

"First, we agreed on what we wanted for our school and our students. Next, we thought about what stood in the way of achieving higher standards of learning and--as one student said--`skills to pay the bills.' We knew one problem was the school's isolation from homes and businesses. So we devised an action plan that involved parents and business. We knew we had to open our doors to the community, and now we have people beating those doors down to get involved. I've been in education for 33 years. For the first time, we all wound up on the same page."

The Goals 2000 committee set priorities for teaching and learning and proposed ways to reach them. Their initiatives include a partnership with local employers that ensures community involvement and helps students identify career goals early on; ongoing, teacher-initiated professional development to keep teachers' skills and knowledge up-to-date; "Tiger Families" that foster a sense of community by pairing students with teachers throughout students' high school years; and highlighting the school's successes.

Bringing together the many partners that influence children's learning is an essential component of improving education. Parents, community members, and business leaders bring valuable resources to teachers and school staff, often providing the extra support that they need to help all students reach high academic standards.

Upgrading Teacher Preparation, Assessments, Curriculum, and Instruction To Help Schools Prepare All Students To Meet Challenging Standards.

As standards are raised, teachers need training to update their knowledge base and utilize state-of-the-art instructional techniques. Assessments must be developed that accurately measure student performance against the tougher standards. Similarly, curricular materials need to be upgraded to reflect higher expectations. It is essential that administrators learn how to create a school environment that focuses on learning and fosters effective practices for reaching all students.

Most states and school districts view teacher preparation, certification, and ongoing professional development as critical for putting their reform strategies into action, but it is often difficult to secure funding for sustained, quality teacher improvement efforts. Hence most states are using much of their first year Goals 2000 funds for local teacher preservice and inservice professional development activities.

"Goals 2000 monies provided funding for staff development that allows me to make learning more meaningful with hands-on activities. My students are becoming better 'thinkers.' Thus, they are developing self-confidence and an enjoyment for learning."

--Sharon Johnson, Teacher, Texarkana, Texas
1995 National Teachers' Forum, Washington, DC

Descriptions of some examples of these local effort follow.

In Connecticut, the Region 15 Public Schools put together a consortium of nine school districts including urban, suburban, and rural districts in conjunction with a partnership with several colleges, universities, and professional organizations. This consortium received $23,000 to improve student performance through a collaboration of teachers and administrators who together addressed questions around standards, assessments, and follow-up actions to improve student performance. Samples of students' work were brought to the table for discussion. The grant supported inter-school visits and the exchange of instructional materials and assessment strategies. Two districts in the consortium now use electronic mail to communicate and share information within and across districts. Strong links were forged between members of the consortium during the first year of the grant. As one teacher described, "...it has contributed to our standards setting...when we have the opportunity to see what other students are producing, we see that our students' work we once considered `best' can be improved."
Maine has used Goals 2000 funds to develop challenging academic standards. More than 300 teachers have gathered together twice in the last year to translate the standards into action. A $15,000 Goals 2000 grant to the Oxford Hills District is supporting the development of model instructional strategies and assessment techniques at its new Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School (OHCHS). At OHCHS, a combination of the area's high schools and technical schools, faculty are creating a new curriculum and a new academic environment so that all students can reach the state's challenging academic standards.
In Massachusetts, the Fitchburg Public Schools--in collaboration with the Leominster and Lunenburg Public Schools, and Fitchburg State College--are using $150,000 (over three years) to build the capacity of current and prospective teachers and administrators to implement the Massachusetts Educational Reform Act of 1993. A team of K-12 teachers from all three districts is organizing professional development activities that support district education reform goals related to the state Act. Teachers and administrators are getting hands-on training in problem solving, interdisciplinary teaching, and assessment strategies at the Mathematics and Science Learning Lab and at Fitchburg State College's Professional Development Center. They are using this training to develop a curriculum that supports the state's new curriculum frameworks for math, science, and technology. Technology workshops are also being offered to parents and community members.
In Arkansas the preservice teacher education and licensure program is being completely restructured at the University of Arkansas at Monticello. Teacher education programs are a critical part of preparing teachers to help all students reach the state's academic standards. A collaboration of nine partner school districts in southeast Arkansas and the University received a $50,000 grant to establish "laboratories" in the partner schools through which prospective teachers learn about effective teaching from master teachers, students, and parents. The University is changing its curriculum and its admissions policies, as well as developing an induction program as a result of this process.

Urban and Rural Local Reform Initiative Grants

Many urban and rural communities that have high concentrations of poor and/or limited English proficient students have high dropout rates and low levels of student achievement. While problems in these schools are severe, they can be overcome through higher expectations, better instructional opportunities, and greater community and parent involvement and collaboration to address diverse student needs. To develop model approaches, five urban and five rural districts received competitive grants directly from the Department using $2.1 million of first-year Goals 2000 national leadership funds. (See Appendix C.)

The Chicago Public Schools received $605,903 to help all students reach Illinois' academic standards in the Illinois State School Quality Initiative. Through this project, Chicago plans to have a minimum of 100 schools develop and implement school improvement plans -- with the involvement of teachers, parents, and community members -- that are responsive to the educational needs of limited English proficient and economically disadvantaged students. Over the course of four years, Chicago intends to: increase the high school graduation rate to 80 percent; raise the student daily attendance rate; increase the percentage of students meeting or exceeding state standards in core subjects; and increase the percentage of graduates employed or engaged in advanced training or higher education a year after graduation to 90 percent.
The Box Elder Public Schools and the Heart Butte District #1 in Montana each received grants -- totalling $84,308 and $69,369 respectively -- to raise student achievement. Both districts mainly serve Native American students, more than half of whom are limited English proficient and/or economically disadvantaged. Community-wide panels are developing strategies for schoolwide reform and measures to track progress of their reform initiatives. They are also refocusing their curriculum and developing various model assessments tied to challenging standards in ten subject areas to meet Montana's goals for student learning.

As these examples illustrate, schools become more effective when challenging standards, curriculum, teacher training, and assessments reinforce one another. Not only will teachers and students know where they are going, but they will be given the vehicles to get there.

Getting Educational Technology Into Schools To Improve Teaching and Learning.

Technology is another important tool that schools are utilizing to accelerate learning. Educational technology provides an ever-expanding horizon of learning opportunities for children and adults alike. It can be a powerful mechanism for demonstrating academic concepts, developing skills, and engaging students in learning basic and advanced academic concepts. Technology can be used to raise the mastery level of students with special needs, such as those with disabilities or limited English proficiency. It can also be used to tailor lessons, thus motivating students who have not traditionally enjoyed learning while also challenging others, including gifted and talented students. Furthermore, technology can increase communication among teachers, parents, schools, and communities, as well as improve efficiency so that schools can focus maximum resources on teaching and learning. Many local Goals 2000 grants include a technology component to help students reach high standards.

The Gresham-Barlow School District in Oregon is focusing its $50,000 grant on helping teachers use technology to teach students the high academic standards reflected in the state's Certificate of Initial Mastery (CIM) requirements. Each of the district's 17 schools identified two teachers new to using technology as part of their lessons. Faculty at Portland State University helped these teachers learn how to evaluate their teaching strategies within their own classrooms. Then teachers attended a series of workshops on integrating technology with instruction. Now they are designing at least one unit tied to a CIM proficiency that uses technology extensively. The teachers will monitor how well their students meet CIM requirements and modify their strategies accordingly.
Schools in Springfield, Illinois see technology as one tool for helping students reach high standards. The Springfield School District 186 is using $158,471 in Goals 2000 funds to provide teams from 15 schools, each made up of four teachers and administrators, with six weeks of intensive training in Project Lincoln, the district's own approach to using technology throughout the curriculum. Participants spend approximately half of their time working in school teams to develop new curriculum units that utilize technology and schoolwide plans to improve student learning.
The West Iron County Public Schools in Michigan are using Goals 2000 funds to integrate the use of technology into their lessons. The Computers as Tools (CATS) professional development program trains teachers to cooperate in team teaching and thematic instruction and to actively utilize interactive multimedia and computer-assisted instruction.

Developing Statewide Strategies to Expand the Use of Educational Technology

In the first year of Goals 2000 each participating state received a supplementary grant of at least $75,000 to develop, as part of its overall education improvement plan, strategies for the use of educational technology in schools. In some cases the Goals 2000 technology planning grant has been a catalyst for states to think about statewide technology strategies for the first time; in others, the grant helped update existing plans.

One example of how technology has been incorporated into a state reform effort is Utah, where the state's Goals 2000 technology award was used to further implement the state's Educational Technology Initiative (ETI). A recent evaluation of the ETI indicates that it has had a positive impact on education at all levels as it has become entwined with the state's efforts to raise student achievement levels.

So far state plans have included such strategies as using technology as a tool for teaching academic content and using technology to make accommodations and adaptations in instruction to meet the needs of students with disabilities. Some states are using technology to broadcast courses, thus bringing lessons from other places into local classrooms. States are also developing communication networks -- using electronic mail and the Internet--for teachers and administrators to share information, successful strategies, and lessons learned from local and state programs. In addition, technology is an essential tool for tracking school progress and holding schools accountable for student achievement.

The many examples in this section highlight the variety of ways that schools and communities are improving education. Increasing numbers of citizens are investing their energy and resources into helping all children learn at high levels. Given a focus on high standards, strong parent and community involvement, and flexibility for innovation, schools can make vast improvements. Goals 2000 is adding momentum to such locally driven, standards-based school improvement activity.

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[State Leadership For Local Improvement]

[Flexibility for Improvement: A Better Federal Partnership with States and Communities]