Goals Update
Goals 2000 has effectively helped some states achieve reforms they would not have made otherwise, according to a report that gives the 4-year-old program a boost before it faces critics in Congress next year.
The program, the centerpiece of President Clinton’s first-term K-12 agenda, is intended to help states pay for a variety of K-12 reform efforts. It received high marks from state and local administrators cited in the report released late last month by the General Accounting Office.
“Goals 2000, in its present form, seems to be accomplishing what Congress intended,” the GAO wrote. “State and local officials said that Goals 2000 funding provided valuable assistance and that, without this assistance, some reform efforts either would not have been accomplished or would not have been accomplished as quickly.”
It’s too early to tell how Goals 2000 will fare in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act reauthorization set for next year.
Single copies of “Goals 2000: Flexible Funding Supports State and Local Reforms,” HHS-99-10, are free from the GAO, PO Box 37050, Washington, DC 20013, or by calling (202) 512-6000. Additional copies are $2 each. The report is also on the GAO’s World Wide Web site: www.gao.gov/new.items/newtitle.htm.
Return engagement
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A familiar figure is returning to the Department of Education to serve--once again--as general counsel. Judith A. Winston, who left the position temporarily in August 1997 to become the executive director of President Clinton’s Initiative on Race, will return to the post Jan. 4. The initiative will conclude its work and release a report at the end of this year.
Ms. Winston, a civil rights lawyer who graduated from the Georgetown University law center in Washington, joined the department as general counsel in 1993.
Jamienne S. Studley, who now serves as acting general counsel, is leaving to become the president of Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. She, too, has worked at the department since 1993; she is a graduate of the Harvard University law school.
The general counsel oversees the department’s legal services and supervises more than 80 staff lawyers.
--Joetta L. Sack