Goals 2000 - End of Goals 2000

End of Goals 2000

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 However, even though Congress had withdrawn its authorization for Goals 2000, if funding was not also withdrawn, the crippled, but alive Goals 2000 program would stagger on.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.

Additionally, in an article from the Washington Post dated December 10, 1999 by Kenneth J. Cooper stated the following:

The nation has not met any of the eight educational goals for the year 2000 set a decade ago by President Bush and the governors of all 50 states, although measurable progress has been made toward the goals pertaining to preschoolers and student achievement in math and reading, a national panel announced yesterday.

The National Education Goals Panel’s final report before the 2000 deadline showed that more children were “ready to learn”—healthier and better prepared through preschool or parental reading—when they entered kindergarten. Students also demonstrated higher math proficiency, particularly in elementary and middle school, and a slight improvement in reading proficiency in middle school.

In the case of two goals, teacher quality and school safety, the panel reported the nation has actually gone backward. The percentage of teachers holding a college degree in the main subject they teach dropped from 66 percent to 63 percent, and there was a significant increase in student use of illicit drugs, from 24 percent to 37 percent in 10th grade. . . .