THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, February 7, 1997 TAG: 9702071062
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: 71 lines
We now have the second education president in a row. George Bush gave himself that moniker in the campaign of 1988, but didn't really follow through as president. President Clinton has apparently decided to dedicate his second term to improving education in America.
Sort of. It is one of his top priorities along with balancing the budget, fixing entitlements, passing campaign-finance reform by July 4 and keeping dozens of previous promises.
There's certainly much to be said for the president using the bully pulpit to promote higher standards, better-educated teachers, charter schools and volunteer programs to tutor poor readers. But budgetary constraints and the traditional control of education by states and localities means there are severe limits on what an education president can do.
Clinton's proposed tax credits and deductions for tuition would further complicate an already bewildering tax system, could give incentives to higher tuitions when lower tuitions are needed and wouldn't necessarily aid the students who need it most. Pell Grants and funds for Head Start and Goals 2000 could prove useful. So could low-cost loans or grants to help school systems meet building needs that threaten to overwhelm them as a baby boomlet works its way through the grades.
Clinton's plan to develop but not impose national standards and national tests to assess progress will turn off those who fear a federal plot to take over schools, but a hodgepodge of incompatible standards and assessments is costly and does a disservice to a mobile society.
Parents ought to be able to tell how their neighborhood school and their child's performance stack up against competitors down the road, across the state, throughout the nation and around the world. Now, that's difficult because apples are being compared with oranges.
A recent report by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) did make an attempt to compare state educational performance, and the results offer some insights. Virginia finished in the middle of the pack with B and C grades. It is likely that the more-prosperous and more-highly educated Washington suburbs made the state as a whole look better than many of its parts actually are.
The NAEP report has praise for Gov. George F. Allen's push to establish state standards. The American Federation of Teachers conceded that the standards are ``extraordinarily clear and well grounded in content.'' The challenge now is to follow through with equally admirable assessment instruments. Also, the state does not yet incorporate its K-12 standards into the teacher-training curriculum. It should.
The state was also recognized for beginning to shift its accrediting standards from trivia such as locker-room quality to actual academic performance. Virginia earned a solid B for the adequacy, equity and allocation of resources, but it received only C marks in quality of teaching and school climate. Among the more disturbing findings are these:
In 1994 NAEP assessments, only 26 percent of fourth-graders were reading proficiently and only 19 percent were proficient in math. In each area, more than 40 percent were performing below acceptable levels. On such academic measures, Virginia ranked 24th - behind neighboring Maryland and North Carolina.
Only 61 percent of secondary teachers had a degree in the subject they were teaching in 1994, and 35 percent of K-6 classes had more than 25 students - far too many for effective learning in the early grades.
NAEP also faulted Virginia for not having embraced charter schools and for not doing enough to promote site-based management. It also found that Virginia about matched the national average with 35 students per computer.
Not all of Clinton's education proposals make sense. And affording them while balancing the budget would be a neat trick. But making education the theme of the next four years and working out ways for states and the federal government to cooperate in improving the quality of our schools is a worthy goal. Clinton is right. The future of the country depends on competing in an increasingly technical world. Better-educated Americans will be the edge.