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

DATE: SATURDAY, October 28, 1995                   TAG: 9510300026
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: DAVID M. POOLE AND MARGARET EDDS STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

SCHOOLS: MORE MONEY OR TOUGHER STANDARDS?

Janice Smith and Jessica Snedecor personify the two policy choices Virginia voters are being offered in November when it comes to education - more money or tougher standards?

Democrats stress the former, emphasizing their plan to raise education spending to reduce class sizes, especially in lower grades, and put a computer in every classroom in the state. Republicans talk up the latter, saying the state's schools need to lay off the "frills" and buckle down on basic subjects, with more rigorous standards.

Candidates from both parties are talking up education as a top issue in this fall's General Assembly races, but they tend to see different problems afflicting public schools.

The opposing positions stem from the experiences of educators like Smith, a teacher at McCleary Elementary School in Craig County where computers are scarce; and students like Snedecor, who is taking remedial classes to make up things she didn't learn in high school.

Here's a closer look at the concerns driving both parties - and what the candidates say the state should do about them:

Each month, third-graders at McCleary Elementary School in Craig County each get about 30 minutes at the computer - if they are lucky.

That's far below the hour or two each week that educators say students will need to meet future state standards requiring computer literacy by the fifth grade.

Craig County has provided no funds for new computers for several years.

At McCleary Elementary, each third-grade classroom is equipped with one computer, an old Apple model that the school's principal calls "beyond obsolete."

Teacher Janice Smith said the 18 children in her homeroom would be much better off if the school had more computers, preferably in a lab setting where an entire class could work.

The way it works now, students take turns one or two at a time. The computers have software for math and reading games, but no keyboard-training programs. "They're pretty much on their own because I can't be away from the class that long," she said.

Jessica Snedecor took honors classes last year as a Chesapeake high school student, but this year as a college freshman, she's scrambling to catch up. Snedecor, who graduated from Indian River High School in the spring, is taking "developmental" classes at Tidewater Community College to bring her skills up to par. She's enrolled in developmental English and math.

She said her high school honors English teachers concentrated on reading and literature, to the exclusion of grammar. Snedecor recalls one math class in which the teacher "didn't care if everybody failed the test, she'd still give you a passing grade.

"I failed most of the tests and got a B. I walked out not knowing anything," she said.

While Snedecor said she had some good high school teachers, she said standards at times were too low.

If the public policy choice is between raising educational standards or giving schools more money, "I think the standards are more important," Snedecor said. "In high school, you'd have classes where you started off writing an essay once a week. Then after a while they'd slack off, and you wouldn't do anything at all."

Keywords:
POLITICS