Goals Progress Report Shows Mixed Results

By Mark Pitsch Washington

When President Bush and the nation's governors set national education goals in 1990, they were portrayed as benchmarks to be met by 2000. But halfway through the decade, the National Education Goals Panel reported last week, that objective remains far out of reach.

As in previous years, the panel's annual report on progress toward meeting the national goals reveals a mixed bag of results. While more parents are reading to their preschool children and there are fewer children born with one or more health risks, for example, more 10th graders report that they have used illicit drugs and more teachers say they have been threatened or injured in class.

The goals panel's fifth annual report, "Building a Nation of Learners," tracks 43 such "indicators" that the panel has designated as the basis for assessing progress toward the goals. The report compares figures from 1990, the year six of the eight goals were established, to the...