ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, March 27, 1996 TAG: 9603270039
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
THE ALLEN administration is still in a tizzy about Goals 2000, fearful that accepting the $6.6 million in federal money it offers to the state this year will sweep away the independence of Virginia's local school systems under some kind of secularly humanistic tidal wave of mind-controlling psychobabble.
Oh, please.
If that's the scheme, the jackbooted bureaucrats intent on godless outcome-based education had better go back to the lab. The drop of money lubricating Goals 2000 won't be sweeping away anything. But it might be a bit of help to school districts charged with implementing new state - not federal - standards.
Striking a blow for reason (not to mention partisan politics), the Democrat-controlled General Assembly included in its recently passed state budget a provision that Virginia will participate in Goals 2000 if two-thirds of the school boards in the state petition for a share of the money.
Beware, the administration intones. Beware of foreign entanglements - make that federal entanglements. One step down that path, and who knows where it will lead?
Probably not the seers in the Allen administration. But a safe bet would be that it will lead to more teacher training. Or expanded instruction in foreign languages. Or greater flexibility where federal standards have impeded local education reforms. That's where the program has led schools in other states, the overwhelming majority of which have chosen to participate in Goals 2000.
Avert your eyes now if you consider these a testament of evil; for the rest of you, here's a reminder of the objectives enumerated in Goals 2000:
* All children will start school ready to learn.
* High school graduation rates will be raised at least to 90 percent.
* All students will leave grades 4, 8 and 12 having demonstrated competency in eight core areas of instruction.
* American students will be first in the world in science and math achievement.
* Every school will be free of drugs, violence, guns and alcohol.
* All teachers will have access to programs for continually developing professional skills.
* Every adult will be literate and possess the knowledge and skills to compete in a global economy.
That any of these would be achieved by the year 2000 is at this point, of course, beyond hope. But there has been progress toward some of the goals in communities and states that take them seriously. And the objectives are a good rallying point and guide for enlisting parents, businesses and communities in efforts to raise educational expectations and toughen standards, as Gov. Allen is trying to do in Virginia.
Scaring off local school divisions from applying for Goals 2000 money may be preferable to a veto of the budget provision. But school boards in Western Virginia and elsewhere in the commonwealth shouldn't be fooled.
It's a simple matter for the state to apply to the federal government for the funds. To be sure, localities then would have to compete to get grants from the state, which might attach requirements of its own. The administration's stated interest, though, is streamlining government, so perhaps its rules would not be too onerous.
School officials should put politics aside and send in their petitions - but only if they can put a bit more money to good use. Don't run anyone over on the way to the post office.
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