U.S. complacency about education hit by panel

Americans' complacency about existing educational achievement and the need to raise their expectations are primary themes running through the 1992 National Education Goals Report, issued last week. But also noted is some progress toward meeting the six goals for the year 2000 set in 1990 by President Bush and state governors. "We need to create high expectations, to reach for and demand higher standards," says South Carolina Gov. Carroll A. Campbell Jr., immediate past chairman of the National Education Goals Panel, a bipartisan group of federal and state officials charged with assessing and reporting annually on progress by the U.S. and the states toward meeting the goals. Campbell makes his point by drawing from an example in this year's report. "Japanese mothers," he says, "are much more likely to value education and stress to their children the importance of doing well in school than American mothers. And if their children are not doing well, Japanese ...