DATE: Sunday, March 2, 1997                 TAG: 9702280013

SECTION: COMMENTARY              PAGE: J4   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Editorial 

                                            LENGTH:   54 lines

TOUGHER STANDARDS THE ALLEN ADMINISTRATION HAS AVOIDED IDEOLOGICAL PITFALLS BY KEEPING PERFORMANCE PARAMOUNT.

In setting school accreditation standards, Gov. George F. Allen has commendably steered his state Board of Education away from ideological battles and has focused, instead, on basic accountability.

Many feared that the proposed standards, unveiled this week, would prompt polarizing divisions by concerning themselves with emotional issues such as family-life education and the powers of guidance counselors. Correctly, the administration left such disputes for another day.

What Superintendent Richard La Pointe instead submitted was a thoughtful accreditation plan that toughens graduation standards, aims at ending social promotion, and demands - largely through a regimen of student-achievement tests - that public schools be more accountable to the families they serve.

Some points in the plan remain to be fleshed out. And it will be several years before we can be sure that tougher graduation standards and more-frequent testing mean uniformly better-educated students. Nor is it entirely clear what will happen to schools where student achievement is far off the mark.

But the framework is promising, a fact underscored by the relative absence of initial opposition. At a time when debates over education span a huge philosophical divide, it is no small achievement that both those who would like the plan to be even tougher and those who prefer a different emphasis see merit in the ideas.

One potential controversy - timing - may have been put to rest when the state board agreed to delay until the class of 2,003 a key graduation requirement. Thereafter, students will have to pass a competency test in the 11th grade before they can graduate from high school.

The Virginia Education Association argued that it would be unfair to enforce the requirement earlier because a final decision on how the tests are written and graded will not be made for some time. Students and teachers deserve to know well in advance what information they're being held accountable for, the VEA said. La Pointe agreed, and the board acquiesed.

The accredition standards face a series of public hearings before they are put to a final vote in May. During that time, some of the particulars will no doubt be fine-tuned.

But the basic thrust of the Allen agenda - attempting to guarantee that every student who graduates from a Virginia high school can read, write, do math and understand basic science - shouldn't be negotiable.

If schools are unable to meet benchmarks of progress along the way, then parents, teachers, administrators and legislators need to know. That information will free (or force) them to tackle the tougher questions of why failure has occurred and what to do about it.

The Allen administration deserves credit for setting the course and for insisting to some within its own ranks that the dialogue not be sidetracked by emotional, ideological debates.

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