Goals 2000

Washington -- WE KNOW we don't need some character in the Department of Education with sandals and beads telling us how to educate our children," presidential candidate Pat Buchanan tells audiences.All of Buchanan's Republican rivals for the White House would also do away with the U.S. Department of Education -- or, as they say around here, "zero it out" of the federal budget. But Buchanan, who honed his sound bites as a newspaper columnist and TV talkmeister, likes to twist the knife before thrusting it home.

Judging from the education goals adopted in 1989 by the nation's governors and then-President George Bush, the arts are fairly low down among the nation's educational priorities. Arts education was not even included among the six "core" areas originally defined by a national panel of educators as subjects in which students should be proficient.The Clinton administration appears to be moving to rectify that neglect. The Goals 2000 education bill recently passed by the Senate and House greatly expands the role played by arts programs in schools by codifying a wide range of activities to be included in the nation's education goals.

Health, education and welfare: the least of these, judging from President Clinton's State of the Union address, is education. The president devoted hundreds of words to his health-care plan and to the welfare reform plan he'll submit to Congress this spring, but education got only passing mention.Congress faces two major tasks in education this year. One, mentioned briefly by Mr. Clinton, is enacting the "Goals 2000: Educate America Act," a plan to establish voluntary national school standards.

It's a Wednesday morning at Aberdeen Middle School, and the silence is almost deafening. The halls are empty, and not a single phone rings in the Harford County school as everyone from pupils to staff participates in the "Drop Everything and Read" program. The weekly 20-minute reading sessions have become a huge hit at the school. "Even my secretaries read," says Aberdeen Middle School Principal Gladys Pace. "I think that the students seeing the administration reading sends the message that reading is important."

IN MARCH 1994 Congress enacted Goals 2000, the culmination of a bipartisan effort to raise academic standards in the nation's schools. The Bush administration began the ambitious process, awarding grants to national groups of teachers and scholars in science, history, English, and other fields to develop national voluntary standards.The Clinton administration carried it on. Goals 2000, which became the centerpiece of the administration's education agenda, featured a 19-member National Education Standards and Improvement Council (NESIC)

Maryland students continue to improve their marks on the state's annual tests, but only four of 10 pupils are performing satisfactorily, according to the state Education Department's 1995 report card. Educational, political and business leaders -- including U.S. Education Secretary Richard W. Riley -- gathered yesterday at a news conference to praise the improved test scores as evidence that Maryland school reform is heading in the right direction. But they acknowledged that the state's schools have a long way to go. The Maryland School Performance Assessment Program tests -- given the past five years to all third- , fifth- and eighth-grade pupils -- are intended to assess students' thinking skills.

ONLY A MIRACLE will cause Maryland schools to reach the modest performance goals set early in the decade for 2000.And it's too late for a miracle to rescue Goals 2000, a set of targets established a decade ago by President George Bush and endorsed by all 50 U.S. governors.None of Maryland's 24 systems is likely to achieve the goal of scoring 70 percent on the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program tests by 2000. Similarly, none of the eight national standards of Goals 2000 has been met, and in the cases of teacher quality and school safety, the movement is in the wrong direction.

Howard, Carroll and Frederick counties, working as a consortium, will receive $228,000 in federal funds to train 135 teachers in a pilot project centered primarily on reading instruction for high school students.The program will allow teachers to work with their own students and schools to identify problems older students experience in reading in all subjects. Teachers will then try to find solutions and use them in class.The funding is part of $567,000 in federal Goals 2000 money that the Maryland State Department of Education awarded recently.

Baltimore could lose $8.8 million in school aid under the 1996 federal budget approved by the House of Representatives last month and now in conference with the Senate.Third District Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin and state school Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick held a news conference yesterday at a Baltimore County elementary school to protest the proposed cuts, which they said would cost Maryland $33 million.The largest share of the reduction, $14.5 million, would be in Title I, the government's major program for poor children, according to Dr. Grasmick.

Seventeen Maryland school districts -- including all of those in the Baltimore metropolitan area -- have received grants totaling $2.42 million for new school-improvement projects under the federal Schools for Success/Goals 2000 program, now entering its third year.The award, announced at this week's Maryland State Board of Education meeting, is part of this year's $5 million federal grant.The rest of the money will be used for existing programs and administration.Overall, Maryland schools have received $11.6 million in the three years of the Goals 2000 awards, about $10 million of which has gone to programs of local school systems.