Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, September 8, 1995 TAG: 9509080066
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAN CASEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
With knapsacks full of school supplies, and butterflies in their stomachs, Roanoke and Roanoke County students probably walked into classrooms this week unaware of the political bullets whizzing over their heads.
On Tuesday, there was state Sen. Brandon Bell, R-Roanoke County, standing next to a neatly chalked blackboard in the foyer of his campaign headquarters, offering a list of cures for public school systems' ills.
Bell lumped his rival, Roanoke Vice Mayor John Edwards, with the Democratic-controlled General Assembly, which he said has shirked education reform efforts, resulting in a system that "is not performing up to par."
On Wednesday, Edwards fired back outside Cave Spring High School in Roanoke County. He accused Bell of being a stooge for Gov. George Allen and championing efforts to "undermine our public education system."
Then on Thursday, Bell brought space shuttle astronaut Jon McBride - a likely Republican candidate for governor in West Virginia next year - to Roanoke's Addison Aerospace Magnet School. Edwards later cracked that the event symbolizes his opponent's "outer space" approach to education reform.
Early but muted skirmishes in this Senate campaign have focused on finger-pointing over trial lawyers, environmental legislation and crime. This week, education - and what Democrats and Republicans have proposed or failed to do - moved to the forefront.
"The three top issues in this campaign are education, education, and education," Edwards said on Wednesday.
Bell, who defined his first term by introducing legislation calling for controversial education reforms, doesn't dispute that. But he adds, in perhaps the biggest understatement of the campaign: "My opponent and I have a fundamental difference of opinion on education."
Their disagreements cut a wide swath across school issues:
Bell wants to move more school spending decisions to the local level by turning over the state's lottery proceeds to local government. Edwards argues that the initiative, championed by Allen during his April veto session, would have allowed local governments to spend the funds elsewhere and ultimately could have cost schools money.
Bell wants tougher statewide academic standards written into law. Edwards criticizes them as "one-size-fits-all state-mandate curricula for local schools, despite different needs of localities." It's also hypocritical, given Bell's desire to return more control to local school boards, the vice mayor argues.
Bell supports legislation requiring criminal background checks for all new public school employees. But local school boards already have the option of doing that, if they want to, and far more cheaply, Edwards says.
Bell wants a law protecting teachers from frivolous lawsuits by students and their parents, which he argues would improve classroom discipline. "Student know '[teachers] can't touch me,''' he says. Edwards says that's already law under a 1988 state Supreme Court ruling.
Nowhere, however, are the two candidates' differences as stark as on the issue of "charter schools."
The publicly funded learning institutions, which would be operated by private groups under contract with local school boards, would be free from state-mandated regulations, which Bell says often are onerous and counterproductive.
The freshman senator has championed the development of a charter schools program in Virginia. He introduced charter schools legislation in 1994 and 1995. Both bills died, although a legislative panel is continuing to study the issue. Allen has embraced the idea.
In 1994 Bell also introduced another bill allowing school vouchers for low-income students - in effect, public funding for private schools. It also failed, and Bell has since backed away from that approach.
Bell is seeking to frame the argument as a battle between caring parents and dedicated teachers - both which the Roanoke Valley is "blessed" with, he said - and power-hungry "educrats" in Richmond bent on protecting their turf.
"In Richmond we have a centralized bureaucracy and a General Assembly that is desperately fighting to protect their status quo education system. ... [Charter schools] would allow parents and teachers more control over the results of their schools," Bell said
But Edwards, who favors greater statewide funding for education, says funding for charter schools would come at the expense of school system budgets and create a two-tiered education system. Charter schools also could drain funding from city magnet schools like Addison, he argues.
Edwards also has charged that Bell, in supporting charter schools, is ignoring the wishes of the local school boards, governments and people he represents.
"Had he cared to represent the people of the Roanoke Valley, rather than some narrow ideology, he would have heeded the loud voices of the school boards of both Roanoke city and Roanoke County, as well as ... Roanoke City Council and the county Board of Supervisors, all of which unanimously passed resolutions condemning this legislation," Edwards said.
Actually, on the Board of Supervisors, the vote was 4-1 on a resolution expressing "concern" over the concept and supporting whatever position the county School Board adopted. It later rejected Bell's charter school legislation.
Bell responds that at least he is offering ideas to the debate. Edwards, he adds, has only criticisms.
Activists on both sides of the issue say the fracas is healthy.
"The debate is being framed between two fundamentally different approaches towards funding and organization of education in the commonwealth," said Gary Waldo, a local representative of the Virginia Education Association. The VEA supports Edwards and has pegged his election as "critical."
"I think it's to the candidates' credit that they are raising these issues and giving people a clear choice in November," Waldo said.
Roanoke County resident Betty Price, a private remedial education teacher and a Bell supporter, also is glad that education has moved up the issues list. Price earlier this year participated in forming the Charter Schools Advocacy Group - a creation of Bell's campaign.
She said she has since had had doubts about whether charter schools would cure public education ills. She's particularly fearful that by splitting funding, charter schools may weaken rather than strengthen school systems, she said.
But Price also is certain of one thing: The current education system is broken, especially when it comes to basics such as reading.
"There's a lot that's not happening in elementary education that should be," Price said. "We're dumbing down [the school system] and we're trying to be all things to all people."
She added:
"I don't want to see schools fragmented. I know it's going to go to this if the education bureaucracy doesn't listen to parents and teachers. ... I think that the whole thrust on charter schools is parents saying, 'Darn it, you've got to do it this way or we're going to push it on you.'''
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB