THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, May 30, 1996 TAG: 9605300368
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: 52 lines
Federal education officials said they will reject the Virginia Board of Education's demand for federal Goals 2000 education money with no strings attached.
Michelle Easton, chairwoman of the board, said the federal government's response proves that Goals 2000 was never the unconditional windfall its supporters claimed.
``The federal officials and supporters of this program repeatedly said this is a no-strings-attached federal program,'' Easton said Wednesday. ``We just asked them to affirm that. So I guess this proves it's a strings-attached program.''
The board voted 6-2 last Thursday to ask the U.S. Department of Education to allow the state to use about $6.7 million in Goals 2000 money for computer equipment, with no restrictions.
But Mike Cohen, senior adviser to the U.S. secretary of education, said Tuesday that the board was asking too much.
``There's no way that we could or would agree to that,'' Cohen said. ``They're not asking for a block grant. They're asking for a blank check.''
State Superintendent of Public Instruction William C. Bosher Jr. refused to comment, saying he had received no official word from the federal Education Department.
Republican Gov. George F. Allen and the state board, which is controlled by his appointees, have repeatedly criticized the Goals 2000 program as unwarranted federal meddling in local education affairs.
A spokeswoman for Democratic Lt. Gov. Donald S. Beyer Jr., a supporter of the program, said the decision from the federal government was not surprising.
``The expectation was there was no way the U.S. Department of Education could go along with the board's resolution,'' Beyer's spokeswoman said. ``It went way beyond Goals 2000 and would have prevented the state from even doing some rudimentary record-keeping.''
Beyer said Tuesday at a news conference in Arlington that the board's resolution amounts to a ``poison pill,'' assuring the federal government rejection.
``It is clear the board was simply setting up the U.S. Department of Education to turn down Virginia's application,'' Beyer said.
Virginia is the only state refusing to participate in the program. New Hampshire, which had been holding out, agreed Wednesday to allow individual school districts to apply directly for the money.
More than 90 local school divisions in Virginia have endorsed taking the Goals 2000 money, as have the Virginia Association of Counties, the Virginia Education Association, and the Virginia Association of School Superintendents. by CNB