Initial goals: | Action to date: |
Create voluntary national tests for 4th grade reading and 8th grade mathematics. | While the original time line scheduled pilot-testing to begin this year, a deal with Congress puts off its start until at least Oct. 1, 1998. Some House Republicans plan to renew efforts to kill the plan next year. |
Provide $105 million over five years to the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards to meet its goal of certifying 100,000 master teachers. | The fiscal 1998 education appropriations law gives $18.5 million to the board: $16 million to develop new assessments and $2.5 million to subsidize teachers’ preparations for the exam. The balance of the $105 million must be approved in future annual spending bills. |
Recruit and train 1 million volunteers to tutor young children through America Reads at a cost of $2.4 billion over five years. | The House passed a literacy bill with a focus on teacher training rather than volunteer recruitment. The Senate hasn’t acted. The fiscal 1998 education appropriations law sets aside $250 million for whatever literacy bill the president signs this year. If work is not finished by July 1, 1998, the funding will be diverted into special education programs. |
Expand Head Start to 1 million children by 2002. | The fiscal 1998 spending bill increases Head Start spending by $374.5 million, for a 9.6 percent increase. |
Create 3,000 charter schools by 2000. | Officials estimate that 700 schools are operating under charters. To spur the creation of new schools, the federal government will spend $80 million, $29 million more than last year but $20 million shy of what Mr. Clinton requested. |
Support character education and school uniforms. | A new $40 million after-school program will help reduce juvenile crime, the administration said. |
Create $5 billion in interest subsidies for school construction. | Proposal removed from the budget during negotiations with Congress. |
Offer tax credits and deductions to encourage enrollment in colleges and job training. | A tax-cut bill Mr. Clinton signed in August will offer several new tax incentives, including: a tax credit for the first $1,000 and half of the next $1,000 spent in each of the first two years of higher education; a tax credit of 20 percent of up to $10,000 of higher education costs beyond the first two years of education; and savings incentives for college costs modeled after individual retirement accounts. |
Pass a “GI Bill’’ for American workers to promote skill training. | House passed a bill with job-training vouchers. The Senate plans to address the issue in 1999. |
Connect every classroom in the country to the Internet by 2000. | About 65 percent of schools, but only 14 percent of classrooms, have Internet access, according to year-old Department of Education data. |