THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, May 3, 1996 TAG: 9605030019
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 58 lines
Gov. George Allen and Co. had hoped that the adoption of a new federal budget would drive a stake through the heart of the program they most love to hate: Goals 2000.
Republican revolutionaries in the House some months ago passed a spending bill awarding the grand sum of zero to the plan, which urges coordinated improvement of the nation's schools. Last winter during the state legislature's debate over taking Goals 2000 money, critics hinted that discussion was pointless. Funding was about to be eliminated.
Surprise. Next year's budget is signed and sealed and Goals 2000 money is very much intact. There's a slight dropoff, from $371 million to $350 million in overall funding, and a few hundred thousand less for Virginia. Preliminary estimates are that the Commonwealth will be due $6.2 million versus the $6.7 million Allen turned down this year.
That's still enough to power Democratic fax machines. Correctly, the party has seized on the tossing away of millions in education money as a senseless act that makes Republicans look extreme. Only social conservatives who fear any federal intrusion in education want to turn down the cash. Unfortunately for Allen, that's an important bloc in his own party, but a minority of the general population.
There is an escape hatch for the governor, however, and Allen should leap through it. As part of the budget negotiations, several changes were made to the Goals 2000 law, and some of them address objections raised by Allen and others. For instance:
The National Education Standards and Improvement Council, derided by Allen as the national school board, has been eliminated.
Detailed instructions on who is to develop a ``state improvement plan,'' including teachers, principals, parents, representatives of teachers' organizations, and so forth, are gone. New instructions say simply that there should be a broad-based planning group working closely with the governor and the state's top education official.
There's even an alternative to the Secretary of Education's approving state plans. Now, state officials can simply file a statement with the secretary affirming that they're meeting the provisions of the law and have in place a process for keeping the public informed of their progress.
Supporters of Goals 2000 say those changes and others underscore what has always been the case: This is a flexible program that gives localities great leeway in constructing solutions to a national problem.
But Allen can argue that Washington has yielded to conservative pressure to make the fine print of the law match the rhetoric. Some in his party would not want to accept this money under any circumstances, but Allen should listen to a larger constituency.
Virginia schoolchildren and his political party will be the losers if he does not. by CNB