AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy Overview AMERICA 2000 is a long-term strategy to help make this land all that it should beÄa nine-year crusade to move us toward the six ambitious national education goals that the president and the governors adopted in 1990 to close our skills-and-knowledge gap. The strategy anticipates major change in our 110,000 public and private schools, change in every American community, change in every American home, change in our attitude about learning. This strategy is bold, complex and long-range. It will start quickly, but results won't come quickly. It will occupy us at least for the rest of this decade. It will spur far-reaching changes in weary practices, outmoded assumptions and long-assumed constraints on education. It will require us to make some lifestyle changes, too. Yet few elements of this strategy are unprecedented. Today's best ideas, dedicated education reforms, impressive innovations and ambitious experiments already point the way. We already know the direction in which we must go; the AMERICA 2000 strategy will help us get there. AMERICA 2000 is a national strategy, not a federal program. It honors local control, relies on local initiative, affirms states and localities as the senior partners in paying for education and recognizes the private sector as a vital partner, too. It recognizes that real education reform happens community by community, school by school, and only when people come to understand what they must do for themselves and their children and set about to do it. The federal government's role in this strategy is limited asÄwiselyÄ its part in education always has been. But that role will be played vigorously. Washington can help by setting standards, highlighting examples, contributing some funds, providing flexibility in exchange for accountability and pushing and proddingÄthen pushing and prodding some more. The AMERICA 2000 strategy has four parts that will be pursued simultaneously. They can be visualized as four giant trainsÄbig enough for everyone to find a place on boardÄdeparting at the same time on parallel tracks on the long journey to educational excellence. All four must move swiftly and determinedly if the nation is to reach its destination: 1. For today's students, we must radically improve today's schools, all 110,000 of themÄmake them better and more accountable for results. 2. For tomorrow's students, we must invent new schools to meet the demands of a new centuryÄa New Generation of American Schools, bringing at least 535 of them into existence by 1996 and thousands by decade's end. 3. For those of us already out of school and in the work force, we must keep learning if we are to live and work successfully in today's world. A "Nation at Risk" must become a "Nation of Students." 4. For schools to succeed, we must look beyond their classrooms to our communities and families. Schools will never be much better than the commitment of their communities. Each of our communities must become a place where learning can happen. Our vision is of four big trains, moving simultaneously down four parallel tracks: Better and more accountable schools; a New Generation of American Schools; a Nation of Students continuing to learn throughout our lives; and communities where learning can happen. THE CHALLENGE: AMERICA'S SKILLS AND KNOWLEDGE GAP Eight years after the National Commission on Excellence in Education declared us a "Nation at Risk," we haven't turned things around in education. Almost all our education trend lines are flat. Our country is idling its engines, not knowing enough nor being able to do enough to make America all that it should be. Yet we're spending far more money on education. Total spending for elementary and secondary schools has more than doubled since 1980Äwhile the number of students has remained about the same. In real terms, education spending has increased approximately 33 percent more per public school student. As a nation, we now invest more in education than in defense. But the results have not improved, and we're not coming close to our potential or what is needed. Nor is the rest of the world sitting idly by, waiting for America to catch up. Serious efforts at education improvement are under way by most of our international competitors and trading partners. Yet while we spend as much per student as almost any country in the world, American students are at or near the back of the pack in international comparisons. If we don't make radical changes, that is where we are going to stay. Meanwhile, our employers cannot hire enough qualified workers. Immense sums are spent on remedial training, much of it at the college level. Companies export skilled work-or abandon projects that require it. Shortcomings are not limited to what today's students are learning in school. The fact is that close to 85 percent of America's work force in the year 2000 is already in the work force today. These people are the products of the same education system. Perhaps 25 million adults are functionally illiterate. As many as 25 million more adult workers need to update their skills or knowledge. While more than 4 million adults are taking basic education courses outside the schools, there is no systematic means of matching training to needs; no uniform standards measure the skills needed and the skills learned. While the age of technology, information and communications rewards those nations whose people learn new skills to stay ahead, we are still a nation that groans at the prospect of going back to school. At best, we are reluctant students in a world that rewards learning. And there is one more big problem: Today's young Americans spend barely 9 percent of their first eighteen years in school, on average. What of the other 91 percent, the portion spent elsewhereÄat home, on playgrounds, in front of the television? o For too many of our children, the family that should be their protector, advocate and moral anchor is itself in a state of deterioration. o For too many of our children, such a family never existed. o For too many of our children, the neighborhood is a place of menace, the street a place of violence. o Too many of our children start school unready to meet the challenges of learning. o Too many of our children arrive at school hungry, unwashed and frightened. o And other modern plagues touch our children: drug use and alcohol abuse, random violence, adolescent pregnancy, AIDS and the rest. No civil society or compassionate nation can neglect the plight of these children who are, in almost every case, innocent victims of adult misbehavior. But few of those problems are amenable to solution by government alone, and none by schools alone. Schools are not and cannot be parents, police, hospitals, welfare agencies or drug treatment centers. They cannot replace the missing elements in communities and families. Schools can contribute to the easing of these conditions. They can sometimes house additional services. They can welcome tutors, mentors and caring adults. But they cannot do it alone. At one level, everybody knows this. Yet few Americans think it has much to do with them. We tend to say that "the nation is at risk, but I'm okay." Complacency is widespread with regard to one's own school, one's own children, one's own community. This leaves us stuck at far too low a level, a level we ought not tolerate. One of the lessons of the education reform movement of the 1980s was that little headway can be made if few of us see the need to change our own behavior. Yet few of us can imagine what a really different education system would look like. Few of us are inclined to make big changes in familiar institutions and habits. Until last year, few could even describe our education goals. As a nation, we didn't really have any. In 1990, the president and the governors adopted six ambitious education goals. AMERICA 2000 is a strategy to achieve them. AMERICA'S EDUCATION GOALS By the year 2000: 1. All children in America will start school ready to learn. 2. The high school graduation rate will increase to at least 90 percent. 3. American students will leave grades four, eight, and twelve having demonstrated competency in challenging subject matter including English, mathematics, science, 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 modern economy. 4. U.S. students will be first in the world in science and mathematics achievement. 5. 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. 6. Every school in America will be free of drugs and violence and will offer a disciplined environment conducive to learning. The four-part AMERICA 2000 Education Strategy will enable us to achieve these goals. I. FOR TODAY'S STUDENTS: BETTER AND MORE ACCOUNTABLE SCHOOLS Goals served: All six, but especially #2 (90 percent graduate from high school), #3 (competence in core subjects) and #4 (first in the world in science and mathematics). Strategy: Through a 15-point accountability package, parents, teachers, schools and communities will be encouraged to measure results, compare results and insist on change when the results aren't good enough. Specifics: World Class Standards: Standards will be developed, in conjunction with the National Education Goals Panel. These World Class StandardsÄfor each of the five core subjectsÄwill represent what young Americans need to know and be able to do if they are to live and work successfully in today's world. These standards will incorporate both knowledge and skills, to ensure that, when they leave school, young Americans are prepared for further study and the work force. American Achievement Tests: In conjunction with the National Education Goals Panel, a new (voluntary) nationwide examination system will be developed, based on the five core subjects, tied to the World Class Standards. These tests will be designed to foster good teaching and learning as well as to monitor student progress. Encouragement to use the tests: Colleges will be urged to use the American Achievement Tests in admissions; employers will be urged to pay attention to them in hiring. Presidential Citations for Educational Excellence: Citations will be awarded to high school students who do well on American Achievement Tests. Until those tests become available, Presidential Citations for Educational Excellence will be awarded based on Advanced Placement tests. Presidential Achievement Scholarships: Once enacted by Congress, these scholarships will reward academic excellence among needy college and university students. Report Cards on results: More than reports to parents on how their children are doing, these report cards will also provide clear (and comparable) public information on how schools, school districts and states are doing, as well as the entire nation. The national and state report cards will be prepared in conjunction with the National Education Goals Panel. Report Card data collection: Congress will be asked to authorize the National Assessment of Educational Progress regularly to collect state-level data in grades four, eight and twelve in all five core subjects, beginning in 1994. Congress will also be asked to permit the use of National Assessment tests at district and school levels by states that wish to do so. Choice: If standards, tests and report cards tell parents and voters how their schools are doing, choice gives them the leverage to act. Such choices should include all schools that serve the public and are accountable to public authority, regardless of who runs them. New incentives will be provided to states and localities to adopt comprehensive choice policies, and the largest federal school aid program (Chapter 1) will be revised to ensure that federal dollars follow the child, to whatever extent state and local policies permit. The school as the site of reform: Because real education improvement happens school by school, the teachers, principals and parents in each school must be given the authorityÄand the responsibilityÄto make important decisions about how the school will operate. Federal and state red tape that gets in the way needs to be cut. States will be encouraged to allow the leadership of individual schools to make decisions about how resources are used, and Congress will be asked to enact Education Flexibility legislation to remove federal constraints that impede the ability of states to spend education resources most effectively to raise achievement levels. The Business Roundtable, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and other private groups representing the private sector are to be commendedÄand encouragedÄin their important efforts to create state and local policy environments in which school-by-school reform can succeed. Merit Schools Program: Individual schools that make notable progress toward the national education goals deserve to be rewarded. Congress will be asked to enact a new program that will provide federal funds to states that can be used as rewards for such progress. Governors' Academies for School Leaders: Academies will be established with federal seed money, so that principals and other leaders in every state will be able to make their schools better and more accountable. Governors' Academies for Teachers: Academies will also be established with federal seed money, so that teachers of the five core subjects in every state will be ready to help their students attain the World Class Standards and pass the American Achievement Tests. Differential pay for teachers: Differential pay will be encouraged for those who teach well, who teach core subjects, who teach in dangerous and challenging settings or who serve as mentors for new teachers. Alternative teacher and principal certification: Congress will be asked to make grants available to states and districts to develop alternative certification systems for teachers and principals. New college graduates and others seeking a career change into teaching or school leadership are often frustrated by certification requirements unrelated to subject area knowledge or leadership ability. This initiative will help states and districts to develop means by which individuals with an interest in teaching and school leadership can overcome these barriers. Honor teachers: The federal government will honor and reward outstanding teachers in all five of the core subjects with Presidential Awards for Excellence in Education. II. FOR TOMORROW'S STUDENTS: A NEW GENERATION OF AMERICAN SCHOOLS Goals served: All six. In fact, they are the principal standards against which every New American School will be measured. Strategy: We will unleash America's creative genius to invent and establish a New Generation of American Schools, one by one, community by community. These will be the best schools in the world, schools that enable their students to reach the national education goals, to achieve a quantum leap in learning and to help make America all that it should be. A number of excellent projects and inspired initiatives already point the way. These include Washington State's Schools for the 21st Century, Theodore Sizer's Coalition of Essential Schools, James Comer's School Development Program, Henry Levin's Accelerated Schools, RJR Nabisco's Next Century Schools, the Saturn School of Tomorrow in St. Paul and other commendable efforts. But this strategy goes beyond what these pioneers have begun. It enlists communitiesÄaided by the best research and development the nation is capable ofÄin devising their own plans to break the mold and create their own one-of-a-kind high-performance schools. It relies on clear, rigorous measures of successÄthe World Class Standards and American Achievement Tests discussed under Part I. The goal is to bring at least 535 such schools into existence by 1996. And it calls on leaders at all levels to join in this effort. Specifics: Research and development: America's business leaders will establishÄand muster the private resources forÄthe New American Schools Development Corporation, a new nonprofit organization that will award contracts in 1992 to three to seven R & D Teams. These Teams may consist of corporations, universities, think tanks, school innovators, management consultants and others. The president will ask his Education Policy Advisory Committee, as well as the Department of Education, to examine the work of these R & D Teams (and similar break-the-mold school reform efforts), and to report regularly on their progress to him and to the American people. New American Schools: The mission of the R & D Teams is to help communities create schools that will reach the national education goals, including World Class Standards (in all five core subjects) for all students, as monitored by the American Achievement Tests and similar measures. Once the R & D is complete and the schools are launched, the operating costs of the New American Schools will be about the same as those of conventional schools. Breaking the Mold: The R & D TeamsÄand the communities and states with which they workÄcan be expected to set aside all traditional assumptions about schooling and all the constraints that conventional schools work under. They will naturally need to consider the policy environment within which schools can thrive. Time, space, staffing and other resources in these new schools may be used in ways yet to be imagined. Some schools may make extensive use of computers, distance learning, interactive videodiscs and other modern tools. Some may radically alter the customary modes of teaching and learning and redesign the human relationships and organizational structures of the school. Whatever their approach, all New American Schools will be expected to produce extraordinary gains in student learning. Note: A New American School does not necessarily mean new bricks and mortar. Nor does a New American School have to rely on technology; the quality of learning is what matters. AMERICA 2000 Communities: The president will call on every community in the land to do four things: adopt the six national education goals for itself, establish a community-wide strategy for achieving them, develop a report card for measuring its progress and demonstrate its readiness to create and support a New American School. Communities that accept this challenge will be designated (by the governors of their states) as "AMERICA 2000 Communities." The First 535+ New American Schools: Each AMERICA 2000 Community may develop a plan to create one of the first 535+ New American Schools with limited federal support for start-up costs. In that plan, they will be expected to suggest their own answer to the question: What would it take to develop the best school in the world in this community, a school that serves the children of this community while also meeting the national education goals? Governors, in conjunction with the secretary of education, will review these community-developed plans, with the assistance of a distinguished advisory panel, and will determine which AMERICA 2000 communities in each state will receive federal help in starting New American Schools. At least one New American School will be created in each congressional district by 1996. This distribution assures that every type of community in every part of the country will have the chance to create and establish one of the first 535+ New American Schools. The governors and the secretary will take added care to make sure that many such schools serve communities with high concentrations of "at-risk" children. Funding: American business and other donors will make sufficient funds available through the New American Schools Development Corporation to jump start the R & D TeamsÄat least $150-200 million. Congress will be asked to provide one-time grants of $1 million to each of the first 535+ New American Schools to help cover their start-up costs. State, local, and private sources will enable thousands more such schools to begin by the end of the decade. Bringing America On-Line: The secretary, in consultation with the president's science advisor and the director of the National Science Foundation will convene a group of experts to help determine how one or more electronic networks might be designed to provide the New American Schools with ready access to the best of information, research, instructional materials and educational expertise. The New American School R & D Teams will be asked for their recommendations on the same question. These networks may eventually serve all American schools as well as homes, libraries, colleges and other sites where learning occurs. III. FOR THE REST OF US (YESTERDAY'S STUDENTS/TODAY'S WORK FORCE): A NATION OF STUDENTS Goals Served: All six, but especially #5 (adult literacy, citizenship, and ability to compete in the workplace). Strategy: Eighty-five percent of America's work force for the year 2000 is already in the work force today, so improving schools for today's and tomorrow's students is not enough to assure a competitive America in 2000. And we need more than job skills to live well in America today. We need to learn more to become better parents, neighbors, citizens and friends. Education is not just about making a living; it is also about making a life. That is why the president is challenging adult Americans to "go back to school" and make this a "Nation of Students." For our children to understand the importance of their own education, we must demonstrate that learning is important to grown-ups, too. We must ourselves "go back to school." The president is urging every American to continue learning throughout his or her life, using the myriad formal and informal means available to gain further knowledge and skills. Specifics: Private-Sector Skills and Standards: Business and labor will be asked to adopt a strategy to establish job-related (and industry-specific) skill standards, built around core proficiencies, and to develop "skill certificates" to accompany these standards. The president has charged the secretaries of Labor and Education to spearhead a public-private partnership to help develop voluntary standards for all industries. Federal funds are being sought to assist with this effort, which will be informed by the work of the Labor Department's Commission on Work-Based Learning and the Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills. Skill Clinics: The strategy will promote one-stop assessment and referral Skill Clinics in every large community and work-site, including many federal agencies. In the Skill Clinics, people can readily find out how their present skills compare with those they'd like to haveÄor that they need for a particular jobÄand where they can acquire the skills and knowledge they still need. Federal Leadership: Federal agencies will set an example for other employers by embarking upon a government-wide program of skill upgrading. The president has asked the director of the Office of Personnel Management to lead this important initiative. Recommitment to Literacy: The nation's efforts will be strengthened by developing performance standards for all federally aided adult education programs and making programs accountable for meeting them. The National Adult Literacy Survey will be expanded so that we have better information on a regular basis about the condition of literacy among adults. The administration will also work with Congress and the governors to enact sound literacy and adult education legislation. National Conference on Education for Adult Americans: A major conference will be called to develop a nationwide effort to improve the quality and accessibility of the many education and training programs, services and institutions that serve adults. IV. COMMUNITIES WHERE LEARNING CAN HAPPEN Goals Served: All six, but especially #1 and #6 (children starting ready to learn) and (drug- and violence-free schools). Strategy: Even if we successfully complete the first, second and third parts of the AMERICA 2000 education strategy, we still will not have done the job. Even with accountability embedded in every aspect of education, achieving the goals requires a renaissance of sound American valuesÄproven values such as strength of family, parental responsibility, neighborly commitment, the community-wide caring of churches, civic organizations, business, labor and the media. It's time to end the no-fault era of heedlessness and neglect, and as we shape tomorrow's schools, to rediscover the timeless values that are necessary for achievement. Government at every level can play a useful role, and it is incumbent upon all of us to see that this is done efficiently and adequately. But much of the work of creating and sustaining healthy communities, communities where education really happens, can only be performed by those who live in them: by parents, families, neighbors and other caring adults; by churches, neighborhood associations, community organizations, voluntary groups and the other "little platoons" that have long characterized well-functioning American communities. Such groups are essential to the building of relationships that nurture children and provide them with people and places to which they can turn for help, for role models and for guidance. Specifics: AMERICA 2000 Communities: The president is challenging every city, town and neighborhood in the nation to become an AMERICA 2000 Community by: (1) Adopting the six national education goals for itself (2) Establishing a community-wide strategy for achieving the goals (3) Developing a report card for measuring the community's progress (4) Demonstrating the community's readiness to create and support a New American School Designation by Governors: Designation as an AMERICA 2000 Community will be made by the governors, with 535+ of them getting help in creating the first New American Schools by 1996. Recognition: The president and the administration will promote AMERICA 2000 Communities with national attention to and rewards for community planning and progress with special emphasis on the creation of such communities in areas of concentration of at-risk children. The Cabinet: The Domestic Policy Council's Economic Empowerment Task Force, working with the National Governors' Association and other state and local officials, will seek ways to maximize program flexibility and effectiveness in meeting the needs of children and communities, including streamlined eligibility requirements for federal programs, better integration of services and reduced red tape. Individual Responsibility: Increased attention will be focused on adult behavior, responsibility for children and family and community values essential for strong schoolsÄincluding involvimg parents as teachers of their children and as school partners. Who Does What? The four-part AMERICA 2000 strategy depends upon the strong and long-term commitment of all Americans. The President, the Department of Education and the entire Cabinet will help keep the focus on this strategy, spotlight areas of trouble as well as examples of excellence, and reward progress and spur change. The Congress will need to pass the AMERICA 2000 Excellence in Education Act, containing most of the federal initiatives in support of this strategy. Since most of the important changes need to occur outside Washington, we hope that every member of Congress will also press for the kinds of state and local changes that need to be part of this strategy, will foster the establishment of AMERICA 2000 Communities in their states and districts and will serve as mentors to the New American Schools in their districts. The Governors, too, are key. They will designate the AMERICA 2000 Communities. They (with the secretary of Education) will decide where the first 535+ New American Schools are located. With their legislatures, they will have the opportunity to support the new schools as they do the old. They will catalyze the creation of Governors' Academies for School Leaders and Governors' Academies for Teachers of core subjects. In no state is an Education President or federal program as important as a committed Education Governor. The Business Community is also vital. It will jump start the R & D Teams that will design the New American Schools. The business community will use the American Achievement Tests in hiring decisions, develop and use its own skill standards and, perhaps most important, will provide people and resources to help catalyze needed change in local schools, communities and state policies. And at the community level, it will take all of usÄprincipals, teachers, students, businesses, office-holders, the media, the medical and social service communities, civic and religious groups, law enforcement officials, caring adults and good neighborsÄto effect the planning and follow-through that every AMERICA 2000 Community will need. Most of all, it will take America's parentsÄin their schools, their communities, their homesÄas helpers, as examples, as teachers, as leaders, as demanding shareholders of our schoolsÄto make the AMERICA 2000 education strategy workÄto make this land all that it should be. GLOSSARY OF KEY TERMS American Achievement Tests: The anchor for a new system of voluntary national examinations at the fourth, eighth and twelfth grades in each of the five core subjects, tied to the World Class Standards. AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy: An action plan to move America toward the six national education goals through a populist crusade, by assuring accountability in today's schools, unleashing America's genius to jump start a new generation of American schools, transforming a "Nation at Risk" into a "Nation of Students" and nurturing the family and community values essential to personal responsibility, strong schools and sound education for all children. AMERICA 2000 Communities: Communities, designated by the governors, that meet the president's four-part challenge: that (1) adopt the six national education goals for themselves, (2) create a community-wide plan for achieving them, (3) develop a Report Card to measure their progress, and (4) demonstrate their readiness to create and support a New American School. 535+ such communities will open New American Schools by 1996. Better and More Accountable Schools: A 15-part improvement package for today's schools, designed to move America toward the six national education goals, including World Class Standards, American Achievement Tests, Report Cards and school choice. Federal Role: While the federal government's role in education is and should remain limited, the administration is committed to providing R & D, assessment and information, assuring equal opportunity and, above all, leading the nationwide effort to achieve the six education goals. 535+ by 1996: At least 535 New American Schools will be up and running in AMERICA 2000 Communities across the countryÄat least one in each congressional districtÄby 1996, as well as in Puerto Rico, the District of Columbia and the U.S. territories. From a "Nation at Risk" to a "Nation of Students": AdultsÄtoday's work forceÄ"go back to school" for further study, to learn a new skill to help them earn their living, or to acquire additional knowledge to live a better life. Governors' Academies for School Leaders: State or regional Academies launched with federal seed money, which train principals and other school leaders in the design and execution of school improvement strategies, accountability mechanisms, and school-site management. Governors' Academies for Teachers: State or regional Academies in each of the five core subjects, launched with federal seed money, which train teachers in the five core subjects to ensure that they possess the knowledge, the skills, and the tools they need to help students meet the World Class Standards and do well on the American Achievement Tests. Job Skill Standards and Job Skill Certificates: Standards to be established jointly by management and labor for each industry, beginning with the fundamental categories and definitions developed by the Department of Labor's SCANS Commission, which will help workers see what skills are needed to perform a job and to evaluate their own grasp of those skills. Certificates will be given (by the private sector) to those who acquire the skills and meet the standards. New American Schools Development Corporation: A non-profit, non-governmental organization, created by American business leaders and other private citizens, which will receive funds, sponsor a competition and establish, support and monitor three to seven R & D Teams. The mission of these teams is to help AMERICA 2000 Communities invent and create their own new American schools. New Generation of American Schools: A major nationwide effort to invent and create 535+ schools by 1996 (and many more thereafter) that are the best in the world. Located in AMERICA 2000 Communities, these schools will reach the national education goals at operational costs not exceeding those of conventional schools. Populist Crusade: A national crusade led by the presidentÄschool by school, neighborhood by neighborhood, community by communityÄto transform American education and to spur fundamental changes in the ways we educate ourselves and our children. This crusade also will be a restoration of what we think is important, a return to sound values and community spirit. R & D Teams: Partnerships of corporations, universities, think tanks, school innovators, management consultants and others, selected through a competitive process by the New American Schools Development Corporation to receive up to $30 million each over three years to conceptualize and invent New American Schools. Report Cards: A public reporting system on the performance of education institutions and systems, which provides maximum information at the school, district, state and national levels. School as the Site of Reform: The individual school is education's key action-and-accountability unit. The surest way to reform education is to give schools and their leaders the freedom and authority to make important decisions about what happens, while being held accountable for making well-conceived efforts at improvement and for achieving desired results. Skill Clinics: Just as health clinics diagnose health and refer people to appropriate care, skill clinics will be centers in every community and large workplace where people can go to get their own job skills evaluated, find out what skills they need to learn to hold a certain job or get a better one and find out where they can go to gain those skills. Skills and Knowledge Gap: Too many of us lack the knowledgeÄespecially of English, mathematics, science, history and geographyÄand the skills necessary to live and work successfully in the world as it is today. Unleash America's Genius: Bringing the best minds and creative energies from education, technology, management and other fields together in a pioneering effort to create a New Generation of American Schools that are the best in the world. World Class Standards: Definitions of what American students should be expected to know and be able to do upon completion of schooling, meant to function as benchmarks against which student and school performance can be measured. SOME QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Q. How much will the AMERICA 2000 plan cost? A. The Department of Education will support appropriate activities under existing programs in this year's budget to get AMERICA 2000 off the groundÄand the president is requesting $690 million for the strategy in the 1992 budget. That does not include programs in many other departments (e.g. Labor, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development), which are essential to the success of AMERICA 2000. Nor does it include the $150-200 million from the business community to jump start the New American Schools R&D Teams. But two other points need to be made. First, state and local governments provide more than 90 percent of all education fundingÄa responsibility both the president and the governors have concluded should not be altered. But AMERICA 2000 is not expected to raise state or local spending. Second, both state/local funding and federal funding have increased dramatically in recent years without significant results. Since 1980, public funding is up 33 percent per student (after inflation). The answer does not lie in spending more money on old waysÄbut to redirect our resources and our energies to new approaches. With state, local and private sources doing their parts, and the federal government doing its part, the elements of this strategy that may need money will have what is required. Excellent schools, let's remember, don't have to cost more than mediocre ones. Nobody says education is free, but ingenuity, commitment and accountability matter more than money. Q. Aren't the New American Schools going to be more expensive than today's schools? A. No. It will be a requirement for the R & D Teams that the new schools they design can operate at costs no more than conventional schools. Q. Is the R & D for New American Schools likely to stress technology and glitz rather than teaching and learning? A. Schools should certainly avail themselves of the help that technology can furnish. (Some say that schools are one of the few institutions in society largely untouched even by the Industrial Revolution, much less by the Information Age.) But technology is no cure-all for educational and social problems. Great schools are built by people, people who care and who act. A great school is one where adults teach children sound values and good character as well as knowledge and skills. The secret ingredient is human, not electronic. We expect that the R & D Teams will begin by erasing all conventional assumptions and constraints about schooling: the schedule (and calendar), curriculum, class size, the pace of learning, teacher/student ratios, adult roles, teacher recruitment, health and nutrition, discipline, staff development, organizational and management structures, resource allocation, students-as-tutors, the nature of instructional materials and much more. Q. Why should there be only 535+ New American Schools? A. We want there to be thousands. These are just the first 535+. In time there could be 110,000. We believeÄand hopeÄthat many states and communities will move quickly toward their own New American Schools. Q. What's the plus sign in "535+?" A. We propose to provide federal start-up funds not just for one New American School for every Senator and Representative that a state has, but also for the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. territories. Q. Is it worth becoming an AMERICA 2000 Community if you don't win one of the first 535+ New American Schools? A. It sure is. Every neighborhood, town or city that cares about its children, its schools and its future will want to become an AMERICA 2000 Community. The act of creating such a communityÄby meeting the president's four-part challengeÄwill itself do immense good. Consider, for example, what it means to devise a community plan to ensure that all children enter school ready to learn...that all the schools are safe and drug free...that all adults will be literate. We predict that, by the year 2000, there will be literally thousands of AMERICA 2000 Communities. They will be the pace-setters, the beacons, the heartbeat of this education strategyÄand of their children's future. Q. Will choice apply to private schools as well as public? Will it apply to religiously affiliated schools? A. It will apply to all schools except where the courts find a constitutional bar. The power of choice is in the parents' leverage both to change schools and to make change in the schools. The definition of "public school" should be broadened to include any school that serves the public and is held accountable by a public authority. Q. What do you say to those who argue that school choice mainly benefits the well-to-do and the white? A. Rich parents, white and non-white, already have school choice. They can move, or pay for private schooling. The biggest beneficiaries of new choice policies will be those who now have no alternatives. With choice they can find a better school for their children or use that leverage to improve the school their children now attend. Q. Aren't the places that most need radical changes in their arrangements for childrenÄthose with the highest concentrations of at-risk girls and boysÄthose least able to make such changes? A. It has been demonstrated in a number of communities that we must never underestimate the effectiveness of a community that decides to transform itself. It's true, of course, that the AMERICA 2000 strategy can do the greatest good for troubled rural and inner- city areas, and we all need to be sure that they get whatever catalyst help they need to take part. Q. Will the American Achievement Tests compete with the work of the National Education Goals Panel? A. No, we expect to follow the panel's lead in developing the World Class Standards and the American Achievement Tests. Q. Do national tests mean a national curriculum? A. NoÄalthough surveys and polls indicate that most Americans have no objection to the idea of a national curriculum. The American Achievement Tests will examine the results of education. The tests have nothing to say about how those results are produced, what teachers do in class from one day to the next, what instructional materials are chosen, what lesson plans are followed. The tests should result in less regulation of the means of educationÄbecause they focus exclusively on the ends. Q. When will the new tests be ready? A. In 1994, we will have available a system of high quality individual tests, at least in reading, writing and mathematicsÄeducation's traditional "three R's"Äfor states and localities that want them. Because the new American Achievement Tests probably cannot be perfected that quickly, we will ask Congress to authorize the rapid deployment of an individual version of tests used by the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Q. Do we really need another test? Aren't tests biased against minorities? A. A nationwide system of high quality national examsÄmore than one version, but calibrated to the same standardsÄwill probably begin to take the place of some of today's numerous testing schemes. As for bias, the new tests will be screened to eliminate it. Bear in mind that minority parents also want to know how well their childrenÄand the schools their children attendÄare doing in relation to the national education goals and standards. Sometimes less-than-satisfactory news serves to catalyze needed changes. Q. Can all six national goals really be reached? A. They are all ambitious. Some, like literacy for all adults, and leading the whole world in math and science, are very challenging. But each is a worthy national objective, and we should not rest until all are achieved. The AMERICA 2000 strategy will give us the tools we need to achieve them. Q. How much of this is just politics? A. Better education benefits the entire nation, not one particular political party. AMERICA 2000 is a non-partisan education reform strategy. There is plenty of room on these four trains for every American, and we begin with the assumption that everyone will want to climb aboard. Sure, we'll argue about the details in the formal political process and elsewhere, and the strategy will doubtless be improved through those arguments. But let's talk them through in a spirit of wanting a first-rate education for all our children, in every corner of this great land. Q. What's the single most important part of the AMERICA 2000 strategy? A. The most controversial may be school choiceÄat least until it's well understood. The knottiest is probably standards and testing, which is technically quite complex. The most dramatic is the R & D for New American Schools. But the most important may be the AMERICA 2000 Communities! Washington cannot achieve the six education goals for the nation; that has to happen at the local level. It's another of those historic American challenges, and it starts in every community, every school, every household. Q. What can parents do to help? A. A thousand things. Parents are the keys to their children's education, and there is no part of the AMERICA 2000 strategy in which they do not have an important role. As for what they can do todayÄthey could read a story to their children, check to see that tonight's homework is done, thank their child's teacher, talk with their children's teachers and principals about how things are going in school, and set some examples for their children of virtuous, self-disciplined and generous behavior. Q. What can the media do to help? A. Recognize that education is an ongoing storyÄa local story and a national story. The details are seldom dramatic. But this is the challenge that will tell the story of America's future. By focusing on the story every day, and assigning their best reporters to cover it, the media can help win the battle.