THE PAST FIVE YEARS years of education reform have been dominated by what is broadly known as systemic reform. Systemic reform can be divided into two major concepts. First, it is seen as sweeping and across-the-board change in education, often occurring in the form of state or federal omnibus reform bills. Second, systemic reform suggests that education policy is integrated around a set of clear and definable outcomes. Systemic reforms usually involve some form of decentralization, empowering educators and leaders at the local level to make independent decisions in order to succeed in reaching mandated guidelines. The most notable example of systemic reform can be seen at the federal level with Goals 2000, which mandates distinct goals such as preparing pre-school children to be "ready to learn" and increasing national graduation rates by 90 percent. In turn, many states such as California have adopted its own statewide initiative to complement the Goals 2000 plan.