ABSTRACT
Six years after the publication of A Nation at Risk, the watershed report of Ronald Reagan’s National Commission on Excellence in Education, there was still no clear national direction for K-12 education. The Charlottesville summit helped generate political consensus for national educational goals, which the President used to advance his legislative agenda known as Goals 2000. In 2002, Conley founded the Educational Policy Improvement Center at the University of Oregon, Eugene, to provide assistance to schools as they transitioned from a content-based curriculum to an approach focused on college and career skills. The American Diploma Project was launched in 2002 as a joint undertaking of three education policy organizations (Achieve, Inc., the Education Trust, and the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation). Organizing members were a mix of education organizations and high-tech companies, including America Online, the National Education Association, Dell Computers, Apple Computers, Microsoft, and Cisco Systems.
