ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, May 8, 1996 TAG: 9605080065
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: RICHMOND
SOURCE: ROBERT LITTLE STAFF WRITER
Despite the relaxed requirements attached to federal Goals 2000 education money, Gov. George Allen said Tuesday the program is still too restrictive for Virginia to accept its $6.2 million share.
In a letter to the state Board of Education, Allen asked members to prepare a list of conditions that federal officials must meet before the state will accept the Goals 2000 money. The list will be presented on a "take-it-or-leave-it basis," the letter said.
Virginia is one of two states to reject money from the federal education program, mostly because Allen says he objects to federal mandates - conditions he said would give federal officials influence in Virginia classrooms.
"At stake is whether we will receive available federal funding on Virginia's terms, or on the federal command-and-control terms," Allen said in a released statement.
President Clinton and Congress agreed to relax Goals 2000 requirements that states create education reform plans and submit them to the federal government.
But Allen said he is still concerned that Goals 2000 lets Washington control how states craft those reform plans. Many conservative groups have held out the otherwise obscure program as an embodiment of federal intrusiveness.
Democrats and many education leaders have argued that Goals 2000 comes with no onerous strings attached and that the state should take the money.
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