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Successful education reform requires a sustained, long-term commitment. With GOALS 2000, we are out of the block and rounding the first turn, and we cannot afford to sacrifice the momentum achieved by nearly all the states and hundreds of communities.-Richard W. Riley, U.S. Secretary of Education
Teachers, parents, business leaders, and community members across the country have made their expectations clear: every child needs to reach higher standards. The future of our children, our democracy, and our economy depends on it. Throughout the nation, states and communities are leading the way to make higher academic standards a reality for every child. And GOALS 2000 funds are providing significant support for these efforts, such as those in the states and localities highlighted below.
At the state level, GOALS 2000 planning activities have created and strengthened partnerships and support for learning. Over the past two years, governors and chief state school officers have together assembled broad-based planning panels representing viewpoints from across their states to assess the current state of education and design a plan for raising student achievement.
As intended, states have built their plans on their own goals and strategies. Thus, you will not see the title "GOALS 2000" in every state. Instead you will see such state-driven initiatives as "New Directions for Education" in Delaware, "Academics 2000" in Texas, and the "Green Mountain Challenge" in Vermont.
Vermont's Green Mountain Challenge calls for developing world-class academic standards, comprehensive assessments, and an education system that provides all students an opportunity to meet the standards. In 1993, after more than 4,000 Vermonters provided input, Vermont adopted a Common Core of Learning that describes 20 "vital results" or learning goals. Local districts determine how best to reach the state standards, and the communities are invited to discuss student performance at an annual statewide school report night.
GOALS 2000 has afforded Vermont an opportunity to review, assess, and improve its reform activity, and to target three areas of weakness in its education system: dropout prevention, accountability, and local reform activity.
In New Mexico the GOALS 2000 planning process was a catalyst for bringing together many participants in the education system. The state panel learned about local projects sponsored by organizations such as the Panasonic Foundation, the Education Commission of the States, the Carnegie Foundation, and the National Science Foundation. They brought these project leaders together for the first time, enabling them to begin to collaborate, reduce duplicative efforts, and leverage small grants to have a larger impact.
Bringing together the many partners that contribute to children's learning is an essential component of improving education. 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.
Kansas has established content standards that all its children are expected to reach. To attain this goal in Wichita, the schools, higher education institutions, and community members are working together to improve staff development. 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. A $20,000 GOALS 2000 grant supports efforts to recruit staff and design staff development programs so that teachers acquire the skills they need to help all students reach the state's standards.
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, who met intensively for a year and designed a four-year plan to improve student learning. The plan included strategies, action steps, time lines, and clear responsibilities for working towards the National Education Goals.
Joe Buccaran, principal of Slidell High School and currently Louisiana's state principal of the year, describes how GOALS 2000 helped energize his school:
"I've been in education for 33 years. For the first time, we all wound up on the same page. 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."
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.
"Our youth will continue to pay the price if we fail to articulate clear expectations for knowledge and competence. The stark reality is that youth who cannot perform against high workplace expectations are not going to be employed."--Business Coalition for Education Reform, May 10, 1995, letter to Congressman Goodling in support of the GOALS 2000 Act
Students and schools respond to the expectations set for them. Developing challenging academic standards is the linchpin of local and state improvement activities under GOALS 2000. Once developed, academic standards become a goal for students, teachers and parents, and provide a focal point for rigorous assessments, better curriculum and instruction, improved teacher training, and accountability.
The momentum set by states and localities for implementing high academic standards and related assessments continues to mount. A 1995 Phi Delta Kappan poll indicated that 87 percent of the public supports higher standards in core academic subjects. At the 1996 National Education Summit (site disabled) the nation's governors and business leaders called for raising expectations by setting tough academic standards for all students.
GOALS 2000 honors a variety of approaches to developing and implementing challenging standards that satisfy different state and community needs, as evidenced below.
Delaware is implementing high standards statewide as the centerpiece of New Directions for Education, an improvement initiative launched in 1992. Curriculum framework commissions spent three years developing internationally competitive standards in English/language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies with four benchmark points--grades K-3, 4-5, 6-8, and 9-10. The state has targeted more than $940,000 of its GOALS 2000 funds to enable schools to design and pilot-test their own curriculum geared to meeting the new state academic standards.
Colorado, having a strong history of local control over education decisions, passed legislation in 1993 that called for developing model state standards while giving districts flexibility to develop their own standards that "meet or exceed" the state model. The state established a Standards and Assessment Development and Implementation Council that took the input of 14,000 citizens throughout Colorado over two years to develop a model set of state content standards. Schools and districts are now in the process of developing or revising their own standards--often with the assistance of GOALS 2000 funds--to ensure that they meet or exceed the state's standards.
A local example: Colorado awarded a $21,238 GOALS 2000 grant to Windsor to develop standards and assessments. All of the district's staff and 100 community members participated in developing final academic standards in language arts, math, science, and social studies. More than half of the staff helped create assessments of writing tied to standards. A standards development committee of parents and community representatives worked independently from educators to develop a set of priorities for academic standards. Teachers were then able to draw upon their work.
Texas has long had a set of "essential knowledge and skills" that includes broad state goals for student learning. The state is currently using about $2.1 million in GOALS 2000 funds to evaluate and revise its standards, making them more relevant to the knowledge and skills students will need to be successful in the 21st century. Essential Knowledge and Skills Clarification Teams, comprising 325 individuals from across Texas, have been established in each academic subject area to ensure that the standards are rigorous and focus on the knowledge and skills that students should demonstrate.
Nevada's comprehensive improvement plan, Nevada 2000, outlines key strategies, benchmarks, and time lines for developing challenging standards in each of the state's core academic subjects. As a result of its GOALS 2000 planning process, the state has established a Teaching and Learning, Standards, and Assessments Advisory Team--comprising educators, parents, legislators, business and industry representatives, and community members--to evaluate and revise Nevada's Course of Study to include challenging standards for student performance in each subject area by 1999.
Measuring student achievement against challenging standards is a critical part of continuously improving instruction and holding schools accountable. While 43 states used some sort of statewide assessment in 1994-95, most have not developed or adopted assessments that are connected to their tougher standards. One of the reasons most often cited by states is that the cost of developing these better forms of assessments is high.
States have used the GOALS 2000 planning process to further their assessment development activity, but most of the GOALS 2000 grant money goes directly from states to school districts for local activities. To support the development of state assessments, the Department of Education ran a discretionary grant program funded with first-year GOALS 2000 monies. Although the impact of such awards cannot yet be assessed, many of the projects, like the two below, focus on an area of particular difficulty for districts and states.
Delaware is using its GOALS 2000 assessment development grant to help the state design, develop, and evaluate assessments to best meet the needs of students with disabilities and limited English proficiency, in mathematics at grades 3 and 8, and in science in grades 5 and 10.
Minnesota, currently developing a rigorous set of graduation standards for high school students, is using its assessment development grant to modify new assessments. The goal is for all students, including those with disabilities and limited English proficiency, to participate in the state's assessments and graduation standards.
Delaware 201,785 Maryland 224,707 Michigan 257,228 Minnesota 253,257 North Carolina 80,267 North Dakota 223,039 Oregon 322,019 Pennsylvania 181,014 State Consortium* 242,684 TOTAL $1,986,000
* This consortium of 22 states is managed by the Council of Chief State School Officers
States, school districts, and schools can develop more accurate and useful information for the public regarding school performance. They can also more effectively develop rewards for high-performing schools and intervene in those that are low performing. And when states have a system for holding schools accountable for student achievement, they can provide additional flexibility to schools to innovate and remove barriers to student learning.
Already some states are promoting greater school accountability as part of their GOALS 2000 efforts. For example:
Ohio has identified 127 districts for targeted assistance based on student performance on 4th- and 9th-grade proficiency tests. These districts are receiving GOALS 2000 grants to help improve student achievement. Each district has made a public commitment to adopt challenging performance standards, including 75 percent of their students passing all sections of the Ninth Grade Proficiency Test by the end of the 9th grade. An Ohio Department of Education liaison works closely with each district as a broker of services and a "critical friend" to help think through improvement strategies and link communities with other districts and service providers.
New Mexico has built its GOALS 2000 plan around its new accountability system. The state requires every community and school to develop its own education improvement plan, with widespread community input, that is tied to challenging academic standards. Every year schools and districts report student achievement in relation to community goals, and state accreditation will reflect accountability for community-defined learning results rather than compliance.
Explaining how GOALS 2000 money, by supporting the development of state and locally determined high standards, improves the learning environment, Barbara Wicks, a teacher from Maine, said:
"Literally thousands of state residents of all demographic descriptions have had input in the development of the statement of standards. A group of 300+ teachers gathered twice in the last half-year to translate the statements into action. Some teachers have remarked that the resulting effects on their classroom environments and activities are among the most productive and professionally worthwhile of their careers. This work has provided a forum for all students, teachers, and parents to begin sharing goals and standards while maintaining determination on how to reach them."
As standards are raised, it is essential that schools focus on learning and foster effective practices for reaching all students. The following states and others are developing assessments that accurately measure student performance against the tougher standards; upgrading curricular materials to reflect higher expectations; and providing teachers with training to update their knowledge base and teaching skills.
In Connecticut, the Region 15 Public Schools formed a consortium which received $23,000 to improve student performance through inter-school visits and the exchange of instructional materials and assessment strategies. Teachers and administrators from nine urban, suburban, and rural districts in partnership with several colleges, universities, and professional organizations, addressed questions about standards, assessments, and follow-up actions. Samples of students' work were a subject of discussion. Two districts in the consortium now use electronic mail to share information. A teacher described the value of the collaboration for improving learning: "...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."
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 help teachers and administrators implement the Massachusetts Educational Reform Act of 1993 through professional development activities. Teachers and administrators are getting hands-on training in problem solving, interdisciplinary teaching, and assessment strategies. 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 at the University of Arkansas at Monticello is being completely restructured 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.
Educational technology provides an ever-expanding horizon of learning opportunities for children and adults alike. 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. The 1996 amendments to the GOALS 2000 Act clarify that funds may be used to acquire technology and implement technology-enhanced curricula and instruction. In effect, many local GOALS 2000 grants already include a technology component to help students reach challenging standards.
In Oregon the Gresham-Barlow School District is helping students reach the high academic standards reflected in the state's Certificate of Initial Mastery (CIM) requirements by focusing its $50,000 grant on helping teachers use technology. Two teachers from each of the district's 17 schools 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 teaching 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 with six weeks of intensive training in using technology throughout the curriculum.
Michigan's West Iron County Public Schools 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 utilize interactive multimedia and computer-assisted instruction.
In 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.
Although GOALS 2000 has only been in effect a short time, the program has changed the face of education as we know it. I applaud your efforts to help children everywhere reach the high academic standard we have set for them.-Tommy G. Thompson, Governor of Wisconsin, in his October 18, 1995 letter to the Department of Education
[Urban and Rural Local Reform Initiative Grants]