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- EDUCATION, Page 52A Revolution Hoping for a Miracle
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- George Bush announces an ambitious plan to provoke radical change
- in America's troubled schools -- but without the money that
- might really make a difference
-
- By RICHARD N. OSTLING -- Reported by Sam Allis and Ann Blackman/
- Washington and Katherine L. Mihok/New York
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- George Bush may be the savior of Kuwait, but in 1992 the
- voters will want to know what he is doing to save America. One
- early promise was to be "the education President," but his marks
- for that endeavor have been decidedly mixed. The President has
- apparently been doing his homework. Last week, striving to
- fulfill his promise to launch a major domestic initiative, he
- presented an ambitious national plan called ``America 2000: An
- Education Strategy" to improve troubled U.S. elementary and
- secondary schools. Bush spoke of bringing about "a revolution
- in American education." The goal is lofty enough, but the
- President hopes to perform a miracle: he is offering relatively
- little federal money to back up his plan.
-
- Even so, there was a sense of relief that he was planning
- something. The blueprint, says California education
- superintendent Bill Honig, "is comprehensive, long-term and hits
- the important issues." Albert Shanker, president of the American
- Federation of Teachers, calls it "a historic turning point in
- American education" and the boldest education initiative ever
- to come from the White House. If not a turning point, America
- 2000 is at least a talking point that forces attention on one
- of the country's most serious problems. After his lackluster
- domestic performance to date, Bush intends to push broad
- educational changes through the power of the Federal Government
- and the clout of new Education Secretary Lamar Alexander.
-
- Though revolution is too strong a term for the plan, it
- does call for firm steps to shake up the muscle-bound education
- establishment. It also aims to encourage creativity and
- competition among schools and make them more accountable to
- parents and taxpayers. The most controversial ideas:
-
-
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- ACHIEVEMENT TESTS. A panel backed by the nation's
- Governors is already working to set standards for what
- youngsters need to know in the traditional core subjects of
- English, geography, history, math and science. Bush then wants
- to monitor performance through nationwide tests, beginning with
- fourth-graders in 1993; eighth- and 12th-graders would be
- included later.
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- Although test taking would supposedly be voluntary, Bush
- hopes that the scores will become a routine part of college and
- job applications, pressing students and schools to do better.
-
-
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- REPORT CARDS. The government will exert further pressure
- by compiling results of these tests in public reports. This
- will allow comparisons of the performance of states and of the
- nation's 110,000 public schools. Again the idea is that citizens
- will demand progress.
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-
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- NEW SCHOOLS. The President wants to "reinvent the American
- school." Federal grants of $1 million each would go to start 535
- brand-new experimental schools by 1996, with at least one in
- each congressional district. Meanwhile, businesses would
- contribute $150 million or more to a research-and-development
- fund. The schools would "break the mold," says Bush. Sponsors
- could be public or private. Once reforms are working, he hopes,
- a populist ground swell will demand that they be imitated.
-
- Much of the rest of America 2000 is either conventional,
- cosmetic or fuzzy. Bush reiterated his desire that states
- replace public school monopolies with parental "choice" among
- competing public and private schools. The report recycled some
- widely used remedies -- merit pay and alternative-teacher
- certification, for example. The President also urged greater
- efforts to improve adult literacy and job skills, and he
- recognized -- without promising big money -- that community ills
- must be addressed if pupils are to perform.
-
- The President plans to ask Congress for $690 million to
- carry out his new strategy in fiscal 1992, but that money will
- simply be shifted from existing programs. To boost the use of
- choice, Bush wants Congress to give the currently allotted $6
- billion in federal aid for learning-disabled students to parents
- rather than to school districts. Federal funding provides only
- 7% of public school spending -- and Bush intends to keep it that
- way.
-
- Both Bush and Alexander believe more money will not repair
- U.S. education. In 1983 a report titled A Nation at Risk
- shocked the country into big spending increases by warning that
- mediocre schools threatened the future of the U.S. Since 1980,
- per-pupil spending has gone from $2,272 to $4,639, a huge jump
- even allowing for inflation. But by most measures, overall
- student performance has barely improved and in some respects
- worsened.
-
- Obviously, something was needed besides the budget boosts
- and back-to-basics plans of the 1980s. To address the education
- crisis, Bush in 1989 summoned all the nation's Governors for the
- first meeting of its kind since the Depression. As a result, the
- Governors last year agreed on six ambitious -- and probably
- unrealistic -- education goals to be met nationwide by the year
- 2000, among them purging all schools of drugs and achieving a
- 90% high school graduation rate. The new plan is aimed at
- meeting all six goals.
-
- Fortunately, Bush now has an able team committed to
- tackling his program. In the 50-year-old Alexander, the
- President chose an energetic, politically wired secretary who
- plumped for educational progress as a two-term Governor of
- Tennessee, then ran the 40,000-student state university system.
- Alexander put together America 2000 following his selection for
- the job in December. His deputy secretary will be a front-rank
- businessman, Xerox chairman David Kearns, with seasoned educator
- Ted Sanders as No. 3. The research assistant secretary will be
- Diane Ravitch, a clearheaded Columbia University scholar. "For
- the first time, there is real leadership at the national level,"
- says Thomas Kean, former New Jersey Governor and president of
- Drew University.
-
- Some congressional Democrats, who traditionally guard
- education as their special province, felt outflanked by Bush's
- initiative, but not Senator Edward Kennedy, who last week rammed
- a $472 million education bill through committee. Other Democrats
- appear willing to give Bush's new ideas an open hearing, but
- insist that increased social help for the disadvantaged is
- essential to boost education.
-
- "Choice" is especially controversial. Arkansas Governor
- Bill Clinton is worried that Bush seems to want almost
- unlimited aid vouchers for private school parents. Secretary
- Alexander (who has two children in private schools) goes further
- yet. He believes that "a child ought to have a choice with
- public dollars of any school that is willing to be publicly
- accountable." Aid for students in religious schools, he says,
- is "as American as apple pie." Alexander contends that increased
- school options will benefit poor families the most, though many
- educators question whether those families will know how to work
- the system to their advantage.
-
- As for accountability, there are sure to be furious
- debates about who draws up the exams and what they contain.
- Minority groups, upset over the ubiquitous SAT, are worried by
- super-tests. Educators grumble about "teaching to the test"
- instead of full-orbed instruction. Says Mary Futrell of George
- Washington University, "We're on a fast track to a centralized
- curriculum in this country. It will be bad if the test wags the
- curriculum."
-
- The most glaring fault in the Administration's plan is
- that it says next to nothing about helping classroom teachers.
- "If you're going to make the schools better, you're going to
- have to make the teachers better too," says Thomas Wolanin of
- the House education committee staff. Or as respected Chicago
- principal Marva Collins puts it, "We need those already teaching
- to admit that it has to be done differently." That will not be
- easy, nor will the various aspects of the plan produce quick
- results. "There will be no great transformation by the next
- presidential election," says Secretary Alexander. "You should
- settle in for the long haul." That appears to be what he and the
- President expect to do.
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