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

DATE: SATURDAY, April 22, 1995                   TAG: 9504240020
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV7   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: RICK LINDQUIST STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RADFORD                                 LENGTH: Medium

BOSHER: SUPPORT THE SCHOOLS, THERE'S NO NEED TO `SAVE' THEM

William C. Bosher Jr., Virginia's superintendent of public instruction, exhorted regional school officials Wednesday to insist on schools safe from violence and disruptive behavior and to set high standards and expect pupils to meet them.

The public schools "don't need to be saved, they need to be supported," Bosher told the approximately 150 superintendents and school board members gathered at Radford University for the Virginia School Boards Association's Blue Ridge Regional Forum. The region includes the New River and Roanoke valleys and several surrounding school divisions.

Bosher, a former superintendent of schools in Henrico County and the son of a veteran school board member, was named to his present post by Gov. George Allen.

"Everything we teach should have some application," said Bosher, who describes himself philosophically as a "moderate, to the right."

School standards need to be rigorous, academic, measurable and in plain language, he advised. "Maybe we ought to just say what we expect," said Bosher, who made an analogy to his own experience of learning how to fly an airplane.

"They didn't care how many degrees I had when I went up for my first lesson 10 years ago," he said.

Instead of focusing on trying to instill self concept, school officials should look first at ensuring achievement, Bosher suggested. "Self concept is a result of achievement," he said, not something a youngster can learn.

He also said schools should not coddle or make exceptions for youngsters - whatever their backgrounds - but maintain high expectations.

"It's all about lifting expectations," he said.

However, he cautioned that the state's standards of learning are a basic set of expectations and not "the breadth and depth of a local curriculum.

"We're going to have to be more accountable for performance," he said.

Bosher also stressed safe schools as essential to learning and achievement, adding that until students and educators know they can be safe from school violence, academics are irrelevant.

Bosher said disruptive students should not be protected at the expense of those who want to learn. He pledged to push for "some relief for the local school board to mete out the discipline it sees fit," including expulsion.

He also called on the entire community, not just the 30 percent of homes with school-age children, to support improved public education. "We've got to get the owners involved," he told the dinner gathering.

by CNB