A study was conducted to determine the educational objectives that the school districts in New Mexico consider most important. Secondary purposes were to determine whether the two methods yielded similar or different priorities and whether there were any systematic differences in the views of certain districts and/or kinds of raters. Twenty-seven school districts formulated important objectives in social studies, communication skills, math, and science. Each of the 153 objectives was printed on a card, and the cards were divided into 4 decks for each of the subject areas. Within each of 31 additional district, four teams of raters were formed, each consisting of a student, a teacher, an administrator, and a community representative. Each team member, sorted each deck of cards into three piles--below average importance, average importance, and above average importance--with a minimum of five in each pile. Each team also researched a consensus as to the 5-15 objectives it considered most important. The procedure was then repeated with the 27 districts involved in developing the objectives. The results indicated that certain objectives tended to be considered much more important than others and that this trend was consistent across different kinds of raters and districts and the two methods (i.e., individual raters vs. group consensus). (KM)