ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, February 20, 1997 TAG: 9702200019
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-13 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Ray L. Garland
SOURCE: RAY L. GARLAND
GREAT are the uses of adversity. Gov. George Allen cut his mounting losses over refusing to accept federal Goals 2000 money for schools by relenting and opened a new front on "charters" for nontraditional public schools.
For those who've lost track, Goals 2000 was passed at the urging of President Clinton in 1994 to give small amounts of federal money to states that would harmonize their school-improvement plans with national guidelines, supervised by a clutch of new boards and commissions. Allen and other conservatives smelled a rat, saying the small sums at stake did not justify the degree of supervision over state programs implicit in the plain language of the federal law.
But refusing even so modest a sum as $8 million in the context of state and local spending on public schools approaching $7.5 billion a year was a godsend to Democrats anxious to embarrass Allen and to reclaim the governorship behind Lt. Gov. Don Beyer. It was, moreover, an issue most people could grasp: Somebody else is getting "our" money, and the governor is being silly not to take it.
Democrats had a good argument in pointing to more than $350 million in federal education dollars Virginia was already receiving for a variety of purposes - to which federal regulations were attached. One could argue that the difference is these relate to specific programs, while Goals 2000 deals with broad issues of education policy.
Cutting to the chase, why did Democrats and the Virginia Education Association fight so hard to enroll Virginia in Goals 2000 when so little money was at stake? The first part is easy: It was a political issue on which they could hardly lose. But the VEA would dearly love a larger federal role, especially if it somehow cracked that old nut of very different levels of funding between rich and poor school divisions.
The VEA knows that so long as Republicans control Congress, scant progress will be made toward increasing federal influence over school policy. But majorities can be overthrown and the mood of the nation can change. Indeed, it is changing. Politicians of both parties now fall all over themselves trying to convince voters they are the best friend education ever found. The idea of federal leadership in education is by no means dead, witness recent presidential pronouncements touting it.
Well, what's wrong with that? The first thing wrong is the remarkable diversity of the country. National learning standards which might be laughably easy for students in Iowa could be impossibly difficult for those in Washington, D.C. Besides, no one has yet demonstrated a convincing correlation between spending levels and student performance.
Why would some future Congress want to use its leverage to force states and localities to spend more on schools? For one thing, there are powerful constituencies that would applaud such a policy. For another, it would allow members of Congress to say they're doing something for education without having to raise federal taxes to pay for it. That chore would fall mainly on those below, and most voters would never see a connection.
You must understand that those wanting something from government generally prefer decision-making concentrated at the top. Teachers are no different from truckers in wishing to deal with one Congress rather than 50 state legislatures and thousands of local bodies.
But just when Democrats thought Allen was cornered, help arrived from an unlikely quarter when Clinton made another big pitch in his State of the Union message for more federal assistance for charter schools. This gave the governor an opening to hoist Beyer and the Democrats on their own rhetoric over Goals 2000. If the president's request for $100 million to aid charters is approved, Allen argued, Virginia could qualify for several million a year. This would otherwise go to the 25 states that have approved charters.
There was only one fly in the ointment: The House Education Committee had three times refused - including this year - to authorize the granting of charters to those Virginians wishing to organize a free public school that would enjoy a degree of independence to design its own program.
"No problem," said the governor. "Now that we see this federal pot of gold for charters, I'll send down a last-minute bill to put us in line for our share of the swag." Or words to that effect, as Allen wrote Beyer and Clinton, asking for their help persuading Democrats on the Senate Education Committee to report the bill.
No sale. On a straight party-line vote, Democrats defeated charters once again. They also passed their own bills reducing the governor's power of appointment to the state Council of Higher Education and delaying new, tougher accreditation standards for public schools that Allen's Board of Education is set to impose.
Though the last two are unlikely to survive the governor's veto, it's hard to see how he can prevail on charters until Republicans control the legislature. While refusing federal funds for charters may give GOP candidates some talking points, the issue has yet to resonate with voters.
So, why do Clinton and Allen warmly embrace charters? For liberals, it's a way to show you aren't so wedded to the teachers' union that you won't consider any alternative to the traditional public-school format. Besides, you don't think charters will amount to much. For conservatives, it's a means to champion innovative school reform without taking the high political risk of endorsing tax-funded vouchers good at real private schools.
Vouchers may be all right in private higher education, where they have been used for 25 years. But the VEA knows charters are an opening wedge in breaking the near-monopoly in grades K-12 that public schools now enjoy. They don't want to end up like Ma Bell, fighting for a share of the market they once owned.
Ray L. Garland is a Roanoke Times columnist.
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