Goals 2000 was developed in the face of a barrage of criticism of the public schools by people with the best of intentions and with great hopes for the future of American education. The effects of the Goals 2000: Educate America Act cannot match its supporters' intentions and its implementation threatens to escalate conflict over schooling. Goals 2000 has so fundamentally reallocated power in American schooling that it might justly be labeled a reconstitution of schooling. It has come about without a Constitutional amendment or the informed consent of the American people, and it is a movement that is inconsistent with the principles of constitutional democracy. Goals 2000 reflects an increasing public and professional willingness to let government rather than teachers and families determine the content and direction of education. The following chapters outline the origins and effects of the Goals 2000 legislation: (1) "Education Headline News"; (2) "School Wars: The Education Empire Strikes Back"; (3) "Goals 2000"; (4) "Renouncing Our Constitutional Heritage"; (5) "The Legacy of Local Control"; (6) "Conscience and Community"; and (7) "The Re-Constitution of American Schooling." A central purpose of the book is to expose the dissonance between the principles of constitutional democracy and the structure of American schooling. The book concludes that Goals 2000 will trivialize conscience and undermine community in American schooling and will set the nation on a short route to chaos. (Contains 70 references.) (SLD)