
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, June 27, 1993                   TAG: 9306280254
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

WORLD CLASS? OR THIRD-CLASS SCHOOLS?

RECENTLY, I had the opportunity to listen to Dr. Joseph Spagnolo, Virginia's superintendent of public instruction, and his minions. They put on a dog-and-pony show for higher-education institutions in Fredericksburg. This meeting was to orient institutions to the "World Class Education Initiative."

Although not a Perot supporter, I could only think this was a perfect example of Big Government force-feeding localities things that are "good for them." Once again, instead of the localities determining their needs, the state has generously done the determining for them.

As I looked around the meeting, I could only think that there sat the people who have led us to where we are in education . . . and now claim to be the people who will gloriously lead us into the next century. How's that for a sobering thought.

The information packet given each participant was filled with interesting data. For example, there was the draft of the "natural world" curriculum in which the students' outcome is to be the ability to "appreciate the aesthetics and diversity of the environment and their relationship to physical, social and economic well-being."

Pray tell: How do we measure outcomes like that?

Before one begins to think that I advocate no change, let me assure you that I absolutely believe there must be.

Localities should determine the educational needs of their citizens, and the state should provide an equitable funding solution for all schools. Isn't one student in Southwest Virginia worth the same as one student in Northern Virginia? Or Tidewater?

Our teachers, too, need to have the burden of state-required paperwork lifted from their backs so that they can once again teach . . . and have the materials necessary to do so. It is ludicrous that they must often buy supplies from the money in their own pockets to enhance the classroom experience.

Based upon this administration's track record in funding education, the World Class Education Initiative will produce two classes of education: one first class, the other third.

As an employee of an institution of higher education, I see students who have graduated from high school and need developmental course-work to be mainstreamed into the general student population. That is not unique here. Every college must today offer developmental course-work to make up deficiencies in students' basic educational background.

Our schools must drill students with the basics that prepare them for their future endeavors. It makes no difference whether students want to go on for a liberal arts education, a career education or vocational education. They should be prepared at the secondary level to meet the challenges ahead.

My father's generation put a man on the moon.

I'm afraid that my generation would be hard put to get that same man around the block.

LARRY W. STEELE\ ROANOKE

by CNB