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

GOALS 2000: Supporting State and Local Education Reform

Throughout the past decade, states and communities across the country have mounted efforts to improve education. Sparked by the release of A Nation at Risk in 1983, given further momentum by the Education Summit in 1989 between the nation's governors and President Bush and the establishment of National Education Goals, these efforts are beginning to pay off.

Student performance has improved in several areas. The overall math and science achievement of our nation's youths is at a 20 year high, according to the only nationally representative assessment of academic performance, the National Assessment of Educational Progress. In addition, the number of high school students taking core academic courses tripled since 1983. The dropout rate of 16- to 24-year-olds declined by 21 percent in the last decade.

Though significant, progress to date is insufficient -- student achievement is still too low, the gap between the highest and lowest achievers is unacceptably large, and the pace of improvement is still too slow. Every American child needs a quality education to realize his or her full potential, to build a foundation for lifelong learning, and to become a responsible citizen and productive employee. America's ability to address its challenges of economic competitiveness, crime, and welfare dependency ultimately depends upon the quality of public education and the knowledge and skills of all its citizens.

The Federal Role

Education is and must remain a local matter and a state responsibility. It must also be a national priority if efforts to improve education are to succeed. The federal government can serve as a partner, with a limited and carefully defined role, to support and strengthen local and state improvement efforts, not direct or control them. It can provide information and resources to encourage the spread of successful education practices as rapidly as possible. Together, the states, communities, and federal government can remove obstacles in the path of education, and open new opportunities for learning.

The GOALS 2000: Educate America Act, signed into law by President Bill Clinton on March 31, 1994, forges this new partnership. The Act enjoyed the backing of almost every major national parent, education, and business organization. Both houses of Congress passed this legislation by roughly a 3 to 1 vote, in each house with strong bipartisan support. This partnership role rests on the assumption that public education works best when parents, educators, taxpayers, and policymakers at the local and state levels decide how to make their schools better. It focuses on improving the education system for all students, rather than on supporting specific categories of students with identified "disadvantages." It reflects a commitment to raising academic expectations for all students, rather than maintaining the tyranny of low expectations for some.

GOALS 2000: A New Partnership

In striking this new partnership, states and the federal government make specific commitments.

The State's Commitment

* Develop its own challenging academic standards for all students

At the heart of GOALS 2000 is the effort to raise academic standards. For parents and communities interested in raising the level of their children's achievement, challenging academic standards are a vehicle to embed these high expectations into their children's curriculum and schooling. Standards can make clear to students, parents, teachers, and the public what students are expected to know and be able to do by certain grade levels. Standards help ensure that students know what is required for success in higher education, in the workforce, and for participation in our democratic society.

Under GOALS 2000, academic standards are set at the state and local levels. They are not established or reviewed by any federal agency. States may draw upon the standards proposed by national organizations such as the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics or the Center for Civics Education to develop their own standards, but GOALS 2000 provides no requirements or incentives to do so. In addition, while some states may establish uniform standards to be applied statewide, others, with strong traditions of local control, will assist local school districts in establishing their own.

* Develop its own comprehensive approach to reform

Helping all students reach more challenging academic standards will require significant changes in how schools and the entire education system operate. At the 1989 Education Summit with President Bush, every governor pledged to launch a comprehensive approach to education reform, and since then virtually every state has redoubled its improvement efforts. Under GOALS 2000, each state is asked to develop a comprehensive education reform plan that builds on its existing efforts.

While GOALS 2000 provides a broad framework for reform, the overall approach and the specifics of the plan are left up to the state and its local communities. GOALS 2000 supports approaches such as Vermont's Common Core of Learning, Oregon's Certificate of Initial Mastery, Massachusetts' charter schools approach, and specific improvement strategies such as public school choice, portfolio assessments, and deregulation of local schools.

* Develop its standards and reforms with broad-based, grass- roots involvement

Educators, parents, employers, higher education, community groups, and local and state officials all have a stake in the success of public education, and must be part of the improvement process. GOALS 2000 encourages this increased involvement by asking states to create or use existing broad-based planning panels or advisory groups to help develop state-level education improvement plans. Similarly, local school districts are asked to involve a broad range of participants in developing and implementing local education reforms. Some efforts to promote increased involvement include regional forums, town meetings, teleconferences, and newsletters.

The Federal Commitment

* Provide financial assistance to support state and local education reforms

The government provides seed money to support state and local reforms aimed at developing challenging standards for all students. Congress appropriated $105 million for Fiscal Year 1994, the first year of GOALS 2000, and $403 million for the second year. The second year funds will be available to participating states on July 1, 1995(*). President Clinton has proposed increased funding for GOALS 2000 to $750 million for Fiscal Year 1996.

Though only a small part of the federal government's total contribution to elementary and secondary education, these funds make a difference. States distribute them to local school districts on a competitive basis to provide incentives for local improvement and grass-roots reform.

During the second year of participation, at least 90 percent of the funds must be distributed directly to local school districts. The funds will be used to develop and implement local approaches to education improvement or, in conjunction with institutions of higher education and other partners, to provide preservice training or continuing professional development for teachers.

Eighty-five percent of the funds that a local district receives must in turn be given to individual schools. Each school -- not the state, central office, or federal government -- is responsible for deciding how best to use these resources to improve schools and help students reach challenging standards. Funds can be used for a wide variety of activities that fit locally defined approaches to education improvement.

* Provide flexibility

One important principle incorporated in GOALS 2000 is accountability for results in exchange for expanded flexibility in how to achieve them. Traditionally, federal laws and regulations have spelled out in detail what states, local school districts, and schools may or may not do. As a result, they have focused accountability on compliance more than on increased learning.

For the first time in history, under GOALS 2000, the secretary of education has the authority to waive statutory and regulatory requirements of many other federal education programs, such as Title 1, the Safe and Drug Free Schools Act, or the Carl Perkins Vocational Education Program. Waivers are granted if the requirements of other programs interfere with the ability of a state, school district, or individual school to carry out its own approach to educating students to challenging standards. In order to be eligible, a state develops a statewide education reform plan. Once the plan is completed, every school district and school in the state -- regardless of whether it receives funds under GOALS 2000 -- is eligible to request federal waivers, as long as the state has approved its local education improvement plan.

GOALS 2000 also includes the Ed-Flex Demonstration program, which extends this waiver authority even further. Under this program, the secretary delegates the new waiver authority to six states. In this way, the federal government can learn how to better support effective local reforms and responsible state leadership. In February 1995, Oregon was selected as the first Ed-Flex state. Its local school districts or schools that encounter federal obstacles to their improvement efforts can request waivers from state education officials in Salem, Oregon rather than from federal officials in Washington, D.C.

New Ways of Doing Business

Implementing GOALS 2000 has also brought about some significant changes in how the U.S. Department of Education is doing business. For example:

* No new regulations are being issued

To preserve flexibility for states and localities included in the GOALS 2000 Act, the Education Department is not issuing regulations to specify how states must implement the law.

* The application process is streamlined

In the past, applying for federal education funds required completing lengthy paperwork, answering numerous questions, and filling out scores of assurances. This process was reinvented for GOALS 2000. States need answer only four questions to receive first-year funds. On average, state funding awards have been granted in less than a month following submission of the application. Forty-six states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico have applied for and received funds under this streamlined process. Ohio has applied and will receive funds shortly.

For those who ask "What can I do to improve our schools?" there is GOALS 2000, which offers new tools and opportunities to states and communities to improve teaching and learning, and achieve high standards in education. States and communities have responded to this offer, as demonstrated in the chart below and the examples on the following page.

Subgrant Awards

If your browser can facilitate graphics, the chart of subgrant awards is here (9189 bytes). If not, an ASCII text of the subgrant awards chart is here.

Note: * Congress' 1995 rescission package includes GOALS 2000 funds.

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[47 States and $85 Million] [Helps States Take Action]