Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 9, 1994 TAG: 9404120010
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Then again, 12 years from now, they may stare blankly at each other, asking: "Focus 2006? What was that?"
Alas, the best-laid plans have a way of going astray - or, more accurately, of getting shoved to the back of a shelf and forgotten. At a recent meeting of the Montgomery County School Board, one member recalled an 1980s school-improvement blueprint that "the board never touched again once it voted to accept it."
Responsibility to ensure that this isn't the fate of the Focus 2006 report now rests with Montgomery County residents. Yes, the people.
It's their schools that are at stake, and the futures of their children and county. It's also essentially their report - a product of nearly 6,000 hours of volunteer time by more than 200 citizens from every segment of the county.
It's up to citizens to hold the school board's, the county supervisors' and new School Superintendent Herman Bartlett's feet to the fire for implementing as soon as possible the report's recommendations.
With approval last month of a proposed $46.2 million school budget, the Montgomery school board gave at least a nod toward one Focus 2006 priority: a significantly reduced pupil-teacher ratio. The report calls for no more than 20 students per teacher in all grades, kindergarten-through-12th grade. The new budget doesn't go that far, but it does include funds to limit K-3 classes to fewer than 25 pupils per teacher. That's a start.
The concern of some in Montgomery County is that Bartlett, who wasn't on board when the Focus 2006 effort was launched, may not be as committed as he should be to aggressively pushing the citizens' agenda to improve their schools. This concern is especially relevant given a county Board of Supervisors more practiced in squeezing budgets than meeting education needs.
Bartlett can prove the worriers wrong by embracing Focus 2006 as his own agenda, and he ought to. He and other officials should show solidarity with citizens who want to put aside petty bickering between the county's rural areas and towns to dramatically improve the entire school system.
Undeniably, the report's recommendations are ambitious. Full implementation of the 350-page document won't come on the cheap, and can't come overnight. In all probability, some of the proposals may not be totally achievable even in 12 years.
But Focus 2006 is very much in keeping with the Goals 2000 education-reform program launched by the nation's governors and former President Bush, and just signed into law by President Clinton. Indeed, the local planning effort could put Montgomery County ahead of most Virginia jurisdictions in preparing to meet the Goals 2000 national objectives.
County residents have cause to be proud of their farsighted report, the crafting of which involved 18 citizen task forces that looked at virtually every aspect of education. One of the most comprehensive such local efforts in recent memory, it provides an excellent road map for county officials to meet their constituents' expectations of public schools.
The thing is: County officials must be held accountable for using the plan.
by CNB