The North Carolina School Improvement Panel, under the direction of the State Board of Education, established the Ready for School Goal Team in September 1999. The Goal Team was charged with two main objectives: defining school readiness for the state of North Carolina and developing a plan to assess school readiness statewide.

Why the interest in school readiness? In 1989 the National Education Goals Panel established eight education goals. The first goal stated that "By 2000, all children in America will start school ready to learn." Since this goal was established, it has received national attention in terms of understanding what school readiness really means, how we best measure it, and what we should do to support school readiness. Within North Carolina, school readiness is highlighted in multiple ways. Smart Start, North Carolina's early childhood initiative, is working to ensure that all children are healthy and prepared to succeed when they enter school. The North Carolina First in America initiative includes school readiness as one of five major education goals for the state. Finally, the Sate Board of Education's strategic plan, ABCs Plus, includes school readiness as a priority.

None of these three organizations—Smart Start, the Governor's Office, or Public Schools—is solely responsible for school readiness. School readiness is a shared responsibility of families, early childhood programs, schools, and other community organizations. Thus, the Goal Team included a diverse group of people who represented both the early childhood and K-12 communities. Members were from private and public child care and education programs, Head Start, Smart Start, and the public school system. Members also included experts in early childhood development and representatives of the community college and university systems. The complete membership list appears below.

The Goal Team achieved its primary objectives: defining school readiness and developing a plan to assess school readiness. The Full Report of the Ready for School Goal Team provides detailed information about the team's work, the school readiness definition, and assessment recommendations. The Executive Summary provides a brief overview of the Goal Team's recommendations. Both documents are available as PDF files and can be viewed and printed with Adobe Acrobat Reader. This software is available free from Adobe. If you do not have Adobe's Acrobat Reader software, please click on the Get Acrobat Reader icon.