Copyright 2000 Newsday, Inc.
Newsday (New York, NY)
October 2, 2000, Monday NASSAU AND SUFFOLK
EDITION
SECTION: VIEWPOINTS; Page A24
LENGTH: 1205 words
HEADLINE:
EDITORIAL / ISSUES 2000 / EDUCATION / THE TEST / BUSH OR GORE, TO BE AN
'EDUCATION PRESIDENT,' MUST CONFRONT THE NEEDS OF URBAN SCHOOLS.
BODY:
If the folks who wrote the scary "A Nation at
Risk" report in 1983 were evaluating the condition of U.S. education today, they
might be tempted to call it "Part of a Nation at Risk."
Because today,
the plunging scores that then alarmed Americans have leveled off and even ticked
upward. Where the crisis remains is in heavily minority, low-income schools,
mostly in the cities. Call it "Urban Schools, The Unresolved Dilemma," and the
challenge for the men seeking the White House -Vice President Al Gore, the
Democrat, and Texas Gov. George W. Bush, the Republican-is to find the courage
to confront it and devise programs that begin to solve it.
The problem
is profound; the challenge has never successfully been met. How can the schools
make up for the deficits that too many poor children display: the lack of family
structure (single parents or no parents), the pervasive peer-group bias against
appearing to be academically smart, the deprivation of intellectual stimulation
in early childhood ?
To their credit, both presidential hopefuls say
they care about education. To their discredit, they are calling each other names
like bullies in the school yard while trashing each others' programs. Basically,
Bush supports market-type incentives to solve educational problems, while Gore
favors more government intervention. Bush's record in Texas, however, suggests
he is on to something.
Federal Failure
Unfortunately, try as it
might for the last 35 years, the federal government has not been effective in
improving inner-city education. Despite spending billions of dollars, minority
kids are being left behind, ill- educated and unprepared to compete in the
high-tech global economy. For one thing, only seven cents of every school dollar
comes from Uncle Sam's pockets, because running public schools is (and should
remain) a state and local responsibility. The federal role is limited by law to
collecting data, monitoring educational progress, helping students go to college
and improving education for those who traditionally have been shortchanged:
minorities, the poor, the disabled. That's all.
The feds have tried. In
1965, Congress passed the Elementary and Secondary Education
Act, still the largest federal education program. Its Title I was
designed to funnel money to schools with large percentages of poor kids-in other
words, city schools. In 35 years, $ 120 billion has been spent on Title I,
largely to teach reading. In the face of oft-hostile state legislatures and
mayors, New York City schools needed the aid and were glad to get it.
But Title I did not close the achievement gap between poor and
middle-income students as it was supposed to do. Far from it. In part it's
because Title I money was spread so thin: 90 percent of U.S. school districts
have received it and a 1994 reform spread it even thinner. For another thing, it
wasn't so much a program as a funding stream. The next president should insist
on a stringent refocusing of Title I.
Success in Texas
The next
president can actually look to Texas for guidance. A program conceived by none
other than Ross Perot, the quirky billionaire and former presidential wannabe,
has had remarkable success in educating minority kids. As governor, Bush had the
smarts to carry it forward. The system of statewide tests and evaluations has
catapulted Texas into the lead in improving test scores of black and Hispanic
kids over the past ten years.
The program decertifies schools when a
majority of students flunk special state tests. More important, for certified
schools to remain in good standing, at least 80 percent of the Hispanics, 80
percent of the blacks, 80 percent of the whites, and 80 percent of the poor kids
must pass. This requirement has made schools work extra hard to help minority
kids, who in turn have outperformed minorities in other states in the National
Assessment of Educational Progress. These results were confirmed two months ago
in a major RAND study.
Candidate Bush would use Title I as a carrot and
stick: States would be required to test poor kids in math and reading, publish
scores yearly- including by race and by income-and would lose 5 percent of their
aid if performance didn't improve. States and schools that shine, though, would
get bonuses.
Gore is far less specific about setting standards and
making schools meet them. He says just that states should shut down
low-performing schools or risk losing aid. As we've seen in New York, where
schools have stayed on Albany's registration review list for ages, such vague
threats don't do much good.
Gore's Record
The Texas experience
is the root of Bush's platform. Gore's program, similarly, springs from his
history as Bill Clinton's vice president. His plan to hire 1 million new
teachers, for example, is a massive upgrade of Clinton's 100,000-new teacher
program; Gore-the darling of the teachers unions-includes a call for $ 5,000 to
$ 10,000 raises for teachers.
Gore is also pushing Clinton's welcome
proposal to repair crumbling urban schools by providing $ 1.3 billion to
leverage $ 7 billion- worth of loans and grants.
The two candidates
differ most clearly on vouchers-government grants to help pay tuition at a
private school on behalf of a child abandoning public school. Bush is for them,
on the theory that competition will improve public schools and, at any event,
the child using the voucher will benefit. Gore opposes them, saying they'd drain
public funds from public schools. That's a real risk, but it is grossly unfair
to trap kids in failing schools forever. This editorial page supports a limited
voucher program that would permit kids to escape the worst schools. Bush and
Gore both support charter schools- public schools released from government red
tape in exchange for results. Competition from charter schools may induce
neighborhood schools to shape up.
Congress Gets in the Act
Voters should recognize that, where education is concerned, Congress is
the 500-pound gorilla that loves to stomp on presidents' hopes and dreams.
President Lyndon Johnson proposed Title I for schools with high concentrations
of poor kids, but by the time Congress was done with it, virtually every
congressional district in the nation had received Title I funds, making lots of
constituents happy but blunting the program's impact.
Presidents do much
better with their bully pulpits. The big national emphasis on raising school
standards got its start under Bush's father and was carried on by Clinton.
Education researchers credit the standards movement with helping halt the
national plunge in test scores that showed the nation was " at risk."
For either George W. Bush or Al Gore, as president, to have a lasting
impact on the nation's education system, he must confront head-on the great
unresolved dilemma of U.S. education, its failed urban schools.
In
proposing Title I in 1965, President Johnson promised, "Poverty will no longer
be a bar to learning, and learning shall offer an escape from poverty." The
challenge to Bush and Gore is: Make that come true.
LOAD-DATE: October 2, 2000
