The National Education Goals Reports provide a trove of education data. Reading them also gives the researcher a feel for the big subjects of the tumultuous federal schooling debates of the 1990s.  Additionally, the movement to establish education standards grew out of the effort to reach education goals—standards being the benchmarks for progress thereto.(1) The National Education Goals reports were published by the National Education Goals Panel (NEGP). This organization formed after the historic 1989 Charlottesville education summit, which was attended by governors and President George H.W. Bush.  NEGP was established to report annually on the nation’s progress toward the nation’s education goals. The 1994 Goals 2000: Educate America Act (Sections 201-207) gave federal statutory recognition to NEGP, which further heightened its position in the education policy debates of the time. NEGP was effectively abolished by Section 1011 of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2002.

Hathi Trust has copies of 1991-1999 NEGP reports at: http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/002579549. You can rea them online or download PDFs of them!

And here’s an additional source for the reports: Additionally, the University of North Texas in partnership with the Government Printing Office maintains a mothballed version of NEGP’s website at: http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/negp/. This website provides much useful information on NEGP. Copies of NEGP’s many publications and data sets be found at: http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/negp/page9-3.htm. Copies of NEGP’s 1992-1999 reports may be found in ERIC. NEGP’s first education goals report (September 1991) is not available here.

Notes

(1) In January 1991, the National Council On Education Standards and Testing (NCEST) published Raising Standards for American Education, which advocated national standards and assessments.  NCEST was established by P.L. 102-62 in 1991, and shared some of the same members as NEGP (e.g., Roy Romer, Governor of Colorado). Its report may be downloaded from the Federal Education Policy History Website.