Observations on the Department of Education's Fiscal Year 2000 Performance Plan

HEHS-99-136R: Published: Jul 20, 1999. Publicly Released: Aug 18, 1999.

Additional Materials:

Contact:

Cynthia Maher Fagnoni
(202) 512-7202
contact@gao.gov

 

Office of Public Affairs
(202) 512-4800
youngc1@gao.gov

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the fiscal year (FY) 2000 performance plan for the Department of Education, focusing on: (1) assessing the usefulness of the agency's plan for decisionmaking; and (2) identifying the degree of improvement the agency's FY 2000 performance plan represents over its FY 1999 plan.

GAO noted that: (1) Education's FY 2000 performance plan provides: (a) a general picture of intended performance across the agency; (b) a general discussion of strategies and resources the agency will use to achieve its goals; and (c) general confidence that agency performance information will be credible; (2) for example, most performance indicators in the plan include baseline or trend data and projections against which to assess performance; (3) similarly, the description of each objective includes a discussion of how external factors, such as the level of state and local funding for schools, will affect Education's ability to achieve the objective; (4) Education's FY 2000 performance plan shows moderate improvement in addressing the weaknesses GAO identified in its assessment of its FY 1999 plan; (5) in reviewing the 1999 plan, GAO observed that it: (a) did not provide a complete picture of the intended performance of its programs; (b) did not fully discuss how strategies and resources would help achieve its performance goals; and (c) did not provide sufficient confidence that its elementary and secondary education performance information would be credible; and (6) among the most important improvements, the FY 2000 plan: (a) includes baselines or trend data for most performance indicators; (b) identifies within individual program performance plans the strategic objectives the program supports; (c) adds discussions of how external factors impact each objective; (d) rewrites some key strategies to more closely show their relationship to the objective they support; (e) adds more detailed discussion of Education's strategies and timelines for improving its performance information; and (f) discusses the data limitations for 97 of the 98 total performance indicators.

Nov 16, 2018

Nov 15, 2018

Nov 5, 2018

Oct 25, 2018

Sep 28, 2018

Sep 20, 2018

Sep 17, 2018

Sep 12, 2018

Sep 5, 2018

Aug 30, 2018

Looking for more? Browse all our products here