THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, April 17, 1996 TAG: 9604170011
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 58 lines
Governor Allen, it's time to tell us exactly what it is that you object to in the federal Goals 2000 education program.
You've vetoed Democrat-inspired language in the state budget that would compel your administration to accept Goals 2000 money if two-thirds of the school districts want it. Democrats are threatening to fight you over this in court. This is the kind of costly embarrassment that should be avoided except on the deepest principle.
So what's not to like? Is it the concept that ``all children in America will start school ready to learn?'' Or that ``the high-school graduation rate will increase to at least 90 percent?'' Or that ``U.S. students will be first in the world in science and mathematics achievement?''
If those goals or others are what concern you, walk us through the logic. What is it that the federal government might do to twist a goal of graduating large numbers of children into a danger? What diabolical purpose might there be in aiming to make our students the world's best?
Or if your objection is not in the general purposes of the legislation but in the application, please quote us chapter and verse. Show us, precisely and not in general terms, which requests or dictates worry you.
Your superintendent of public instruction has distributed a memo suggesting that the process is not as simple as some Democrats claim, but beyond complexity, what is your objection?
For instance, one type of application requires local improvement plans that address several broad concerns. Among those concerns is ``ensuring that all students have a fair opportunity to learn.'' Another is ``improving teaching and learning.'' If you object to these, you must see a way such goals could be used by federal bureaucrats to damage education in Virginia. Tell us how.
Other governors, including some who are your philosophical soul mates such as David Beasley of South Carolina, have taken the federal government at its word when it forbids meddling in state or local education standards through Goals 2000. South Carolina education officials say federal administrators have lived up to that promise and that they'll yank the ripcord on the federal money anytime Washington reneges. Help us understand why we cannot enjoy the same trust, especially when it means that federal tax money paid by Virginians could be spent here and not in South Carolina.
The appearance is that you are kowtowing to an extreme faction in the Republican Party who equate any federal action in the field of education with an attempt to manipulate young minds. The danger is in allowing a generalized paranoia to trump common sense.
Granted, the $6.7 million available to Virginia is only pennies per schoolchild. But it has been a dictum of your administration that pennies matter. Please tell us, point by point, why Goals 2000 should be the exception.
KEYWORDS: GOALS 2000 by CNB