THE COSTLY CRISIS IN OUR SCHOOLS

By ELIZABETH GLEICK

Almost 12 years after the landmark federal study ``A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform'' warned darkly of the ``rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future,'' we remain a nation at risk. We are a nation, that is, whose 13-year-olds have average math skills that rank below those in 14 other developed countries, according to one 1991 study. We are a nation whose college professors complain that before they can teach the classics, they must teach the basics. And while nearly all American adults can read and write at a basic level, according to a 1993 Educational Testing Service study, fewer than half can use a bus schedule or accurately record car-maintenance information.

All this is despite the fact that education is the biggest line item in most state budgets. Indeed, total U.S. spending on education in 1994 was estimated at $484 billion, almost double the $250 billion spent on defense. But of the average $5,300 spent per pupil each year, some experts estimate that less than half goes into the classroom. The rest goes to such important auxiliary services as athletic coaching and lunch programs--but also to the bureaucracy that both supports and entangles the nation's school system. ``What does this say about our priorities?'' asks Chester E. Finn Jr., who was an Assistant Secretary of Education for President Reagan and is now a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.``Is it any wonder people are getting sticker shock with the endless requests to spend more money for the same product?''

Today the proposals for reforming education are nearly as diverse as the members of America's 64.5 million-strong student body--privatization, home schooling and video instruction. While education remains largely a local matter, with only 7% of funding coming from the Federal Government, a debate is raging over the need to impose national standards whereby every pupil at a given level must master the same body of knowledge and pass the same set of tests. The education act signed by President Clinton last March offers incentives to the states to develop uniform standards for students; it also promotes teacher training and parental involvement. But if there are to be national standards, then whose? And what about those schools that must first cope with gunfights in the hallways before teaching the import of the Emancipation Proclamation? Diane Ravitch, the author of the forthcoming book National Standards in American Education, points to the growing successes of such community-based programs as charter schools. ``We have had a one-size- fits-all system, and it doesn't work,'' she says. ``The move toward tailoring schools for different students is a good way to go.''

The landscape is not bleak for everyone. Math and science proficiency has increased in the past decade, particularly among minority students, and SAT scores are also on the rise for blacks and Asian Americans. Compared with other industrial nations, Americans receive more education: in 1991 nearly two-thirds of recent secondary school graduates were enrolled in some sort of further education. The proportion of American college students who are minorities has been rising, from 15.7% in 1976 to 22.5% in 1992.

Still, those on the front lines--America's teachers--do not need to pore over test scores to know there is a terrifying and potentially enduring problem. ``You see students for whom the system has failed, and that's what enrages me,'' says Susan McCray, a teacher at Boston's urban Fenway Middle College High School, who struggles daily to convince her students that learning can be thrilling for its own sake--as well as a ticket to a better life. ``It has a real effect on real lives.''

--By Elizabeth Gleick

With reporting by DAVID BJERKLIE AND SHARON E. EPPERSON/NEW YORK, ANN BLACKMAN/WASHINGTON AND RICHARD WOODBURY/DENVER. CHARTS RESEARCHED BY DEBORAH L. WELLS, KATHLEEN ADAMS, ELIZABETH L. BLAND, RATU KAMLANI AND RICHARD RUBIN