Campaign Focus Turns to Schools and Pollution : Everyone Has a Right to Education, Dukakis Tells Oakland Group

OAKLAND —  Telling a cheering crowd of teachers and school administrators Thursday that the presidential election offers a choice “between those who believe that education should be the property of a few and those who believe it is the birthright of every American,” Democratic nominee Michael S. Dukakis pressed what his strategists believe will be a key campaign issue.

Both parties have been trying to stress education this year, seeing it as touching on two of the electorate’s chief concerns--the anxiety over declining American economic competitiveness, which many link to inadequate schools, and the worries of baby boom generation parents over the stresses facing their families.

Vice President George Bush contends often that he would be the “education President” if elected, but Democrats hope to paint him as insincere by focusing attention on the education budget cuts of the Reagan Administration.

Thursday’s message from Gov. Dukakis was that he favors education and opportunity for children but that Republican nominee Bush does not.

The day was an example of the new strategy that the Dukakis campaign intends to follow for the roughly 10 weeks remaining before the presidential election. The strategy centers each of Dukakis’ days on one major speech and will noticeably reduce the number of press conferences that might detract from the day’s carefully planned message.

Dodges Jackson Issue

Doing that requires some trade-offs. To stress education, Dukakis had to pass up opportunities to attack Bush on offshore oil drilling. But the strategy allowed him to dodge stops where he might be forced to talk about the renewed controversy over the role of the Rev. Jesse Jackson in his campaign.

Earlier, Dukakis joined Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, Sen. Alan Cranston, Lt. Gov. Leo McCarthy and state Schools Supt. Bill Honig in a round table discussion of education issues with Los Angeles-area teachers at the California Museum of Science and Industry.

Dukakis later traveled to San Jose, where he attacked Bush for participating in Administration cutbacks and for the first time used the hit line of July’s Democratic National Convention: “Where was George?”

As the crowd chanted back, Dukakis accused Bush of undergoing “an election year conversion on the subject of education.”

Education Cuts Cited

Bush was “playing hooky. He was nowhere to be found” when the Administration reduced federal aid for college scholarships and cut remedial math and reading programs, Dukakis charged.

By contrast, he said, “we know that every time we help a youngster in this country to become a judge instead of a criminal, a pharmacist instead of a drug peddler, a teacher instead of a dropout, our families are strengthened, our communities are enriched and our nation is better--and stronger.”

Typically, Dukakis listed priorities that his Administration would follow in setting the federal education budget but provided no specific dollar figures.

California alone will need “an estimated 80,000 new teachers” over the next 10 years, he noted, but, “when I ask high school and college students these days how many of them are seriously thinking about a career in teaching, I’m lucky to get 5 hands out of 500.”

Proposes Teacher Fund

To remedy that, Dukakis proposes a National Teaching Excellence Fund and revival of the national teachers’ corps “to recruit the best of this generation to bring out the best in the next generation by providing college scholarships and loan forgiveness” to college students who teach after they are graduated.

He pledged to “dedicate our country to the basic principle that no youngster . . . who completes high school” and who is qualified to go to college “should ever be denied that opportunity because of financial need.”

To counter Dukakis’ comments, U.S. Secretary of Education William J. Bennett held a brief press conference at the Los Angeles Press Club Thursday and assailed the Massachusetts governor’s record on education. “We do not have in Mike Dukakis an education governor,” said Bennett, who is leaving his post on Sept. 20.

He caustically referred to what he said is the 46% dropout rate in Boston public schools and to the recent imprisonment of Gerard T. Indelicato, Dukakis’ former top education adviser, for defrauding the state of more than $80,000 intended for an adult education center.

To Follow Dukakis

Bennett promised to follow Dukakis around the country during the campaign in an effort to stress what Bennett contended is the marked improvement in schools during the Reagan era.

Dukakis, by concentrating on education Thursday, passed up a chance to expand on his attack Wednesday on Bush for allegedly flip-flopping on the emotional offshore drilling issue. Bush, who expressed reservations about offshore oil drilling when in California before last June’s primary, supported it in Texas last week.

Education writer Larry Gordon contributed to this story.