THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, September 28, 1994 TAG: 9409280470
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JON GLASS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 53 lines
A panel charged by Gov. George F. Allen to recommend ways to revamp Virginia's education system met at First Colonial High School on Tuesday to compare notes on its progress.
``We've got a long ways to go,'' said Dimitrios N. Rerras, a Virginia Beach businessman appointed to the Governor's Commission on Champion Schools.
But the real work of the commission, meeting as a whole for only the second time since its formation in May, will not begin until the public has a chance to tell members what should be done to improve public schools.
The commission will hold statewide public hearings in October and November. Only after those sessions will commission subcommittees begin issuing recommendations to Allen.
``People really have a lot they want to say, and they need to be heard,'' state Secretary of Education Beverly Sgro said. ``These public hearings are not just going to be a sham and an excuse for us to get out around the state. There's not a set agenda in any committee that I can pick up on.''
Since the commission's first meeting in July, seven subcommittees have met separately several times to review likely reform targets, including funding, school safety and discipline, curriculum, school administration, professional teaching standards and support services, and transition to work.
Sgro said she expects at least three pieces of legislation to spring from the Commission on Champion Schools' work in time for the General Assembly's regular session in January. The commission's preliminary recommendations are due to Allen in early December.
School funding has long been a contentious subject, and probably will continue to be, regardless of recommendations to address it, Sgro said. Discussion by the commission has included disparities between affluent and poor school districts, the financial effect on districts losing students and funding differences among schools in the same district.
Toughening academic standards is another key issue. Four school systems, including Virginia Beach and Newport News, were selected to lead the way in revising standards for language arts, social studies, math and science. The commission hopes the new standards will be in place by next school year.
``This is not the same old, same old,'' William C. Bosher Jr., state superintendent of public instruction, told the group. Officials reviewing math standards, for example, are expected to recommend that lower-level high school courses, like consumer or general math, be eliminated and that students be required to pass algebra to graduate.
``That is substantive change,'' Bosher said.
KEYWORDS: EDUCATION by CNB