GRAPEVINE

By DAVID ELLIS

The energetic new team at the Education Department is pushing George Bush to deliver on his 1988 campaign promise to improve America's schools. In a speech this week, the President is expected to unveil a 44-point plan to boost overall standards by the end of the decade. Education Secretary Lamar Alexander has persuaded Bush to call for a new core curriculum in math, the sciences, history and English. To make sure all states meet basic requirements, there would be national testing of every schoolchild in the fourth, eighth and 12th grades. Bush is expected once again to endorse a proposal to give parents a choice of schools for their children and a plan to hold teachers more accountable. Both are long-standing elements of the Republican education platform, and in their current form have been opposed by teachers' unions.

With reporting by Sidney Urquhart