ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, March 11, 1997 TAG: 9703110070
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MATTHEW BOWERS LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE
Lots of politicians are talking of new tests and new education standards. Now one candidate wants to offer students money for making good grades.
Jay Katzen is in the running to be Virginia's lieutenant governor, and he's got a proposal: Reward students scoring high on the state's new standardized tests.
He's not talking cheery letters on official stationery or fancy framed certificates, either.
He's talking cash. Moolah. Big bucks. The long green. For the students, their teachers and schools. Oh, and the seasonal equivalent - tax credits - for their parents.
Katzen, a Republican delegate from Warrenton, is calling it ``The 2-4-6-8 Excellence in Education Plan.''
That's $200 cash for students scoring in the ``excellent'' range on each of the 11th-grade Standards of Learning tests on core subjects - science, math, English, history and social science - that will start in the spring of 1998. The tests aren't written yet, and no ``excellent'' standards have been set; they will be tested on students this spring but not counted for or against them.
That's $400 per high-scoring student for the general budget of the high-scorers' schools.
That's $600 in tax credits for the parents of the students.
And that's $800 to the classroom budgets of the students' core-subject teachers.
Katzen estimates his proposal would cost $15.2 million a year, based on 10,000, or 17 percent, of Virginia's high school juniors scoring high enough to qualify. He calls it a ``working concept only,'' since the tests haven't been written or calibrated.
Katzen, a former foreign-service worker, international businessman and campaign volunteer for President Bush who is touring the state to push his proposal (he'll be in Roanoke today at 11 a.m. at the Roanoke Municipal Building), says he did not pay his three now-grown sons for good grades, but not all children are the same.
``You and I probably were in that category of learning for learning's sake,'' Katzen said. ``But as teachers tell me, children need different stimuli. This is another mechanism ... that brings together teachers and family in that process.''
It's also the latest in a series of state proposals to reward students monetarily for their grades, ratcheting up the old ``dollar-for-an-A'' debate.
Lt. Gov. Don Beyer, the expected Democratic nominee for governor, won General Assembly approval in the past session for up to $2,000 annual scholarships for community-college students who maintain B averages in high-demand technical programs. Attorney General Jim Gilmore, the expected Republican candidate for governor, proposes $2,000-a-year scholarships to students at Virginia's public or private universities, community colleges or trade schools if they keep up B averages and score in the top 20 percent on the state's new 11th grade standardized test.
Katzen - who faces retired Richmond businessman John Hager and Northern Virginia businessman Coleman Andrews in the June Republican primary - says his plan reflects the fact that education is the state's top priority at the end of the 20th century, and it rewards personal responsibility by students, educators and parents.
But state Sen. Kevin Miller, R-Harrisonburg, argued during this past General Assembly session against differentiating this way between B and C students - some C students may be working as hard as they can, while some B students may not be working to their potential, so inherent ability and not effort could wind up being rewarded, he said.
Katzen acknowledged his plan wouldn't work for everyone.
``I think this is not intended to provoke or prompt a reaction from every youngster,'' Katzen said. ``This will be a stimulus for those students where this will be a motivator.''
LENGTH: Medium: 77 lines KEYWORDS: POLITICS LT. GOVERNORby CNB