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

During the 1994-95 school year, each participating state will develop a long-term, comprehensive plan to improve all features of education throughout the state. This plan will describe processes by which the state will develop, adapt, or make improvements in the following areas:

• Develop or adopt challenging content and performance standards for all students.

• Develop and implement student assessments that are aligned with the state's content standards, involve multiple measures of student performance, include all students with diverse learning needs (and make adaptations and accommodations to permit such participation), are consistent with nationally recognized professional and technical standards for assessment, and support improvements in curriculum and instruction. How the implementation and impact of the assessments will be monitored is also to be described.

• Align state or local curricula, instructional materials, and state assessments with the state content standards and student performance standards.

• Familiarize teachers with the state content standards and student performance standards, and develop the capacity of teachers to provide high quality instruction.

• Provide assistance and support to local school districts and schools in order to strengthen their capacity to offer all students opportunities to meet the state's student performance standards.

• Examine the effectiveness and equity of the state's school finance program.

• Develop, select, or recommend instructional materials and technology tied to the state's standards, for possible use by schools and school districts.

• Provide professional development opportunities linked to the state's standards -- opportunities for teachers, principals, parents, and other adults, including through the use of technology and distance learning.

• Improve its system of teacher and school administrator preparation and licensure, and of continuing professional development programs, including the use of technology, so that all teachers, administrators, and related service personnel develop the subject matter and pedagogical expertise needed to help all students meet the state's content and performance standards.

• These standards will include factors that the state deems appropriate to ensure that all students receive a fair chance to achieve the knowledge and skills described in the state content and performance standards. Implementation of opportunity-to-learn standards or strategies will be voluntary on the part of the states, school districts, and schools. Nothing in the GOALS 2000: Educate America Act mandates equalized spending per pupil or national school building standards.

• Align responsibility, authority, and accountability throughout the education system, so that decisions regarding "how to move all students toward the state's high standards" are made closest to the learners.
• Create an integrated and coherent approach to recruiting, retaining, and supporting educators and their ongoing professional development, giving special attention to recruiting and retaining qualified minorities.

• Focusing public and private community resources on prevention and early intervention to address the needs of all students by identifying and removing unnecessary regulation and obstacles to the coordination of services.

• Increasing the access of all students to social services, health care, nutrition, related services, and child care, and locating such services in schools, cooperating service agencies, community-based centers, or other convenient sites designed to offer parents and students one-stop shopping.

• Ensure equal access to curricular materials, learning technologies (including distance learning), and professional development for all school districts in the state.

• Develop partnerships with Indian tribes and schools funded by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, where appropriate, to improve consistency and compatibility in curriculum among public elementary and secondary schools, and such schools funded by the Bureau at all grade levels.

• Provide flexibility to individual schools and school districts, so that each may adapt and integrate state content standards into courses of study appropriate for individual schools and communities.

• Facilitate the provision of waivers from state rules and regulations that impede the ability of schools or districts to carry out their own local Goals 2000 improvement plans.

• Meet the needs of school-aged children who have dropped out of school, bring such children back into the education system, and help these students meet state content and performance standards.

• Include in its GOALS 2000 Action Plan a description of how such school-to-work programs will be incorporated into the comprehensive, standards-driven school improvement efforts of the state. In particular, the state plan must include a description of how secondary schools will be modified to provide career guidance, and to integrate academic and vocational education and work-based learning, if such programs are proposed in the state's school-to-work plan.

• Specific targets for improving student performance and for gauging progress in implementing the improvement plan, and timelines against which the state's progress in carrying out its plan can be measured.

• Strategies for coordinating the integration of academic and vocational instruction pursuant to the Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Applied Technology Education Act.

• How the state will monitor progress toward implementing the state and local GOALS 2000 Action Plans, and procedures it will use to improve schools that are not meeting the state content standards voluntarily adopted by the state within the established timelines.

[Benefits Down the Road] [Appendix 2: Help With Standards]