A Revolution Hoping for a Miracle

By Richard N. Ostling

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:

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.

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.

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.

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.

With reporting by Sam Allis and Ann Blackman/Washington and Katherine L. Mihok/New York