THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, February 15, 1997 TAG: 9702150242
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY WARREN FISKE, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: 86 lines
Gov. George F. Allen submitted last-minute legislation on Friday that will force the General Assembly to reconsider establishing charter schools in Virginia.
Allen's action sets the stage for a divisive partisan debate on education that is expected to carry into this fall's elections.
The move to create the special class of schools - which would be publicly funded but could be privately owned and excused from many regulations - comes three weeks after an identical measure was killed in the House education committee.
Lawmakers had thought the matter was dead for this year's legislative session, which ends next Saturday.
But the Republican governor decided to test his luck again - this time in the Senate. The chamber's Education and Health Committee is expected to vote on the measure Sunday.
Allen decided to resurrect the issue after President Clinton announced in his State of the Union address Feb. 4 that he would seek $100 million in new federal grants this year to help states create charter schools.
Allen said the grants - if carried through to the last full year of Clinton's term in 2000 - could make as much as $30 million available to Virginia to establish the schools.
``This should give added incentive to those who only care about the amount of money we spend on education,'' said Allen, taking a shot at Democratic legislative leaders who oppose charter schools.
``Charter schools are right for Virginia and right for our children,'' he said. Twenty-five states have such schools.
Many Virginia Democrats and leaders of the state NAACP have argued that the legislation would create an elite, racially segregated class of public schools. They also have tagged the legislation as a thinly disguised effort to seek public tax support for private schools.
``My assessment of charter schools is that it's just private school vouchers dressed in sheep's clothing,'' said House Majority Leader C. Richard Cranwell, D-Roanoke County.
Allen, joined by many Republicans, countered that the state will be ineligible to receive federal funds if charter schools are exclusionary. He said the schools would provide parents and students with much needed instructional alternatives within the public system.
For example, Allen said, charter schools could offer different hours and class sizes than standard public schools.
The legislation would give local school boards the option of creating charter schools. The boards would also be empowered to exempt the schools from local regulations. Even so, each special school would be required to achieve at least the state average on standardized tests or risk losing its charter.
Earlier this year, an identical bill was defeated on a tie vote in the House committee when 11 of 13 Democrats voted against it and all 9 Republicans on the panel supported it.
Allen acknowledged it will take ``a heck of an effort'' to get the bill through the Senate, which has 20 Democrats and 20 Republicans. Many Democrats accused Allen of an election-year ploy to force Lt. Gov. Donald S. Beyer Jr. - the presumptive Democratic nominee for governor - to cast a risky tie-breaking vote.
Beyer said he would support the legislation if he is convinced the charter schools would not be exclusionary or ``a tool for religious schools or private schools to garner public support.''
Other Democrats said the governor was playing politics with education. They accused Allen of trying to diffuse fallout over his two-year refusal to accept federal Goals 2000 money - making Virginia the only state to decline the grant to help improve standards.
Allen had argued that by accepting the money, Virginia risked ceding some control of its public schools to the federal government. He reversed himself last month and joined the program after being widely criticized by Democrats. His delay cost the state $8.3 million.
Allen is using the same argument in reverse for charter schools. He said the Democrats' rejection of the concept last year has cost the state about $3 million in federal aid.
Democrats noted that the money would not have been automatically available to Virginia even if it had charter schools. That's because the state must compete for the charter grants while, with Goals 2000, any state that applied for the money automatically got a share.
In December, the governor said he would not pursue charter schools this year because the issue would ``distract'' attention from other items in his education agenda.
Now, Allen is using Clinton's support of charter schools to suggest that the president's Democratic colleagues in Virginia are extreme in their opposition to the program.
``Do they really believe that Bill Clinton is a segregationist?'' said Allen, normally a critic of the president. ``How absurd.''
KEYWORDS: GENERAL ASSEMBLY EDUCATION CHARTER SCHOOLS