Summarizes research reports that discuss students' ignorance about U.S. government, document modest progress toward Goals 2000 objectives, suggest changing and/or limiting school boards' roles, enumerate major societal threats to children, and reveal parents' lack of knowledge about charter schools and vouchers. (MLH)

The existential contexts of education reach far beyond the conceptions of Goals 2000 or the appalling actualities of family breakdown, homelessness, violence, and other "savage inequalities." Classroom encounters with the arts can move the young to imagine, extend, and renew. If the arts' significance for growth, inventiveness, and…

National standards and assessments (President Clinton's Goals 2000 Act) are being proposed to improve schools. This article reviews the bill and examines equity issues, including disparities in instructional conditions among racial/ethnic groups. Using tests to change teaching and learning reflects overreliance on top-down policy, distrust of…