THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Saturday, September 21, 1996          TAG: 9609210006
SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A14  EDITION: FINAL 
TYPE: Editorial 
                                            LENGTH:   57 lines

WHERE VIRGINIA'S GOALS 2000 MONEY WENT OUR LOSS, THEIR GAIN

Once again, the Allen administration has been thwarted in its efforts to find an acceptable escape from a political problem of its own devising: its refusal to accept Goals 2000 money.

Democrats, who intend to ride Allen's refusal for all it is worth - and then some - in next year's statewide elections, are gleeful. We remain at a loss to understand why Democrats are being handed such potent ammunition.

The latest round of exchanges came last week as the U.S. Department of Education provided a list of the states that are benefiting from the administration's stubborn refusal to accept $6.7 million allotted for Virginia.

Naming names was sure to stir even greater resentment than the awareness that, theoretically, someone somewhere was benefiting from Virginia's loss. Specifically, as staff writer Matt Bowers reported, Californians are getting $797,641 of Virginia's Goals 2000 money. Texans are getting $553,378. New Yorkers are receiving $513,129, and so on down through North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Maryland and Washington, D.C.

This may be, as the administration points out, only pennies per pupil. But when every other state in the union has accepted the money, it is harder and harder to make the case that the funds come with dangerous strings attached.

Is Virginia alone so clear-sighted? Is the vision of every other state so clouded?

An amendment being offered by Sen. Judd Gregg, R-New Hampshire, promised to extricate Allen from the predicament. The rider would have clarified that the Goals 2000 money could be used solely for technology - computer purchases, for example.

But Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Penn., who chairs the subcommittee with authority over the legislation, refused to include the change. Specter oversaw difficult negotiations earlier this year to make the Goals 2000 plan more acceptable to critics. He was not in a mood for further changes, although it is still possible that Gregg's idea could be adopted on the Senate floor.

Advocates of Goals 2000, which rewards communities that come up with educational improvement plans, say the Gregg amendment was unnecessary. At least three states, Alabama, Idaho and Wyoming, are already using almost 100 percent of their money for educational technology.

But Education Secretary Richard Riley insists that the point of Goals 2000 is to make sure local communities come up with the best plan for the money's use. If that's technology, so be it. What neither Riley nor Specter is willing to leave out, apparently, is the step in which localities make that decision.

By refusing the Goals 2000 money, Allen is satisfying an important part of the Republican constituency: some religious conservatives who see the program as an attempt to control the minds of children.

But the longer this controversy goes on, the greater the political risk becomes. Goals 2000 may be a small program, but it is an easily understood metaphor for an administration putting ideology ahead of pragmatic educational needs and realities.

KEYWORDS: GOALS 2000 by CNB