The awards to Maine educators and students last week in Washington were a well-deserved tribute from the National Education Goals Panel and were evidence of what Maine residents can accomplish, no matter who the competition.

Former Gov. John McKernan may have come closest to a major reason that Maine has done so well in these and other national standards, noting that Maine governors have consistently made education a priority. The support goes back as least as far as Ken Curtis and includes Joe Brennan, Gov. McKernan himself and Angus King today.

“We had consistent [support for education] for a number of years and it’s finally paying off,” McKernan said. The support has not always come in the form of money, fairly dispersed, but through a recognition that a top-notch education system is Maine’s best chance to succeed.

The goals panel formed a decade ago as the 1980s culmination of worry that began with the report A Nation at Risk. With the help of the Bush administration, the nation’s governors — with Gov. McKernan in the forefront — sought specific standards by which to measure improvement in schools by 2000. Though it took the panel several years to devise solid measurements for progress, it eventually provided important yardsticks for improvement. Both the goals and the end year back then seemed a long way off — the progress now seems to have come in a remarkably short time.

The eight measures by which states were ranked are the following: readiness to learn; high-school completion; student achievement; teacher preparation; mathematics and science; adult literacy; safe schools; and parental participation. Maine finished first for its pre-K readiness to learn programs and did very well in the other categories. Along with Connecticut and North Dakota, Maine had the best overall performance in the nation.

And though the governors deserve credit for the fact that Maine was rated the top state in achieving the panel’s eight goals, school officials and teachers who have stuck to their crafts through the good times and bad are to be commended as well. Maine expects high rankings these days by any national standard, but it wasn’t many years ago that it was just one of many middling states trying to keep students from dropping out. The fact that Maine does well not only in its education programs but also in areas of health and safety for its children — it has been named the best place to raise a child — is a huge compliment to parents statewide.

Maine has several major challenges in its immediate future for improving schools, but it shouldn’t miss this chance to congratulate itself on a job well done.