The Southern Regional Education Board adopted Challenge to Lead education goals to focus and hold attention on educational improvement in its 16 states. This report provides an overview of Kentucky's progress toward meeting these important goals. Challenge to Lead asserts: "With almost half of the new jobs created in America in the 1990s, Southern Regional Education Board, SREB, states have an economic vitality not dreamed of just two generations ago." Since then, the nation and the South have experienced significant economic challenges. Many believe that educational progress is the key to long term economic vitality, particularly in transforming the region's economy from its historically agricultural and manufacturing roots into a knowledge based enterprise. SREB states need an educational system that will stimulate economic activity and ensure a higher quality of life for all. SREB states have made remarkable gains when they have identified goals, worked toward them and reported on progress year after year. To push and expand on these accomplishments in the next decade, SREB states issued Challenge to Lead in step with regional economic and educational needs and consistent with the No Child Left Behind Act.