Goals 2000: Educate America Act

Dana Veneziani
Dr. Jay Dugan
Curriculum Evaluation

Goals 2000: Educate America Act

In 1989, a coalition of state governors concerned about the ailing state of America's public schools proposed a solution, "The Goals 2000: Educate America Act." This program would set educational goals for the nation's public schools to be achieved by the year 2000, create a framework for implementing the goals, and provide incentives for the states to cooperate in meeting the goals.

"The Goals 2000: Educate America Act (P.L. 103-227)" was signed into law on March 31, 1994 by President Bill Clinton and was amended in 1996. The Act provided resources to states and communities to ensure that all students reach their full potential. It was based on the premise of outcome-based education (OBE) that students will reach higher levels of achievement when more is expected of them. OBE is a recurring education reform model. It is a student-centered learning philosophy that focuses on empirically measuring student performance, which are called outcomes.

Congress appropriated $105 million for fiscal year 1994. First-year funds became available to states July 1, 1994. In the first year, individual states will submit applications describing the process by which the state will develop a school improvement plan, make sub-grants to local schools, as well as grant awards for pre-service and professional development. Many saw this as the predecessor to No Child Left Behind which mandated measurable improvement in student achievement across all groups. Goals 2000 established a framework in which to identify world-class academic standards, to measure student progress, and to provide the support that students may need to meet the standards. The Act codified in law the six original education goals concerning school readiness, school completion, student academic achievement, leadership in math and science, adult literacy, and safe and drug-free schools. It added two new goals encouraging teacher professional development and parental participation.

The goals stated in the Summary of Goals 2000 include:

• All children in America will start school ready to learn.
  
• The high school graduation rate will increase to at least 90 percent.
  
• All students will leave grades 4, 8, and 12 having demonstrated competency over challenging subject matter including English, mathematics, science, foreign languages, civics and government, economics, the arts, history, and geography, and every school in America will ensure that all students learn to use their minds well, so they may be prepared for responsible citizenship, further learning, and productive employment in our nation's modern economy.
  
• United States students will be first in the world in mathematics and science achievement.
  Every adult American will be literate and will possess the knowledge and skills necessary to compete in a global economy and exercise the rights and responsibilities of citizenship.
  
• Every school in the United States will be free of drugs, violence, and the unauthorized presence of firearms and alcohol and will offer a disciplined environment conducive to learning.
  
• The nation's teaching force will have access to programs for the continued improvement of their professional skills and the opportunity to acquire the knowledge and skills needed to instruct and prepare all American students for the next century.
  
• Every school will promote partnerships that will increase parental involvement and participation in promoting the social, emotional, and academic growth of children.
  

In 1996, President Clinton introduced a competitive grant entitled the Technology Literacy Challenge Fund (TLCF). The president allocated 2 million dollars to ensure that every child in every school utilize technology to achieve high standards by the dawn of the 21st century. The president urged a variety of stakeholders from the private sector, schools, teachers, students, community groups, state and local governors and the federal government to work in a partnership toward achieving high levels of technology in schools.

In early November 1999, the National Center received a tip that although the House had refused to fund or reauthorize it, Goals 2000 funding was being put back into the 1999 Education/Labor/HHS Appropriations bill. Other contacts on Capitol Hill confirmed this discouraging report. Several congressional offices told the National Center, "Clinton wants Goals 2000. It is his pet project. There is no way we can repeal Goals 2000."

During the years 2000-2005, controversy boiled around the terms "Goals 2000" and "Outcome Based Education." However, few Congressmen and Senators looked beyond the verbiage to discover that Goals 2000 set up a system of state standards (or outcomes) based on attitudes and beliefs, not on academics, and that the resulting state assessments are subjective and often ideological. The teaching of knowledge-based, objective truths found in traditional mathematics, classical literature, original historic documents, etc., was becoming increasingly rare.

With the final language of President George Bush's No Child Left Behind Act (H.R. 1) came the withdrawal of all authorization for Goals 2000. However, even though Congress had withdrawn its authorization for Goals 2000, if funding was not also withdrawn, the crippled, but alive Goals 2000 program would stagger on. Then, just before leaving town on December 21, 2001, Congress passed the Fiscal Year 2002 Education Appropriations Conference Committee report which eliminated spending on Goals 2000. The long awaited victory came. Goals 2000 no longer authorized and now no longer funded, was dead.

References:

http://www.hslda.org/
http://www.ncrel.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/