Gore and Bush Prescribe Differing Education Cures

From now until election day, George W. Bush and Al Gore will talk so much about public education that it may seem like they’re running for superintendent of schools rather than president of the United States.

They’ll sound the same, using education buzzwords like “accountability” and “high standards.” But make no mistake, they are vastly different. And their differences put the two candidates on opposite sides of one of the central debates among education policy experts.

Simply put, the question is whether resources--financial and otherwise--or resolve make the biggest contribution to educational outcomes. A recent Rand Corp. analysis of national test scores found, not surprisingly, that both are essential.

But the stark differences between the candidates can be seen in the cures they’d recommend for the lowest-performing schools--places where the hope of learning often ends in failure.

Bush, the Republican presidential nominee who is on a tour touting his education plan, would get tough. If after three years test scores hadn’t improved at a failing school, federal dollars for the disadvantaged that had gone to the school would be turned over directly to parents. And they could transfer to another public school, taking the money with them, or use it for tutoring or private school tuition. In other words, vouchers.

Bush’s camp downplays the voucher aspect, saying it’s only one of several options states could make available to parents.

Conversely, Gore would provide failing public schools with more resources. If outside experts and retraining and after-school classes didn’t do the trick in three years, the school would be shut down and reopened with new teachers and administrators. Members of the new regime would get onetime bonuses of as much as $20,000 to get them to take on the task.

“This is a serious debate between two very different philosophies about how to improve schools all across America,” said Jon Schnur, a former White House policy expert who is advising the Democratic presidential nominee on education issues. “Gore’s plan insists on high standards and accountability but then makes important investments in getting kids and schools and teachers the help they need.”

Both candidates say they would leave the details of such policies up to state and local discretion. But both say that the federal government must demand better results for the $14 billion a year it spends on education, $8 billion of it on a program known as Title I.

The goal of that program is to help disadvantaged children catch up. At Dayton Heights Elementary School, a hodgepodge of old, new and temporary buildings near Los Angeles City College, virtually all the 1,260 students fit that definition.

Most speak Spanish with parents who work hard at low-paying jobs that do not raise the family income above the poverty line. Most eat breakfast, and all eat lunch, free in the tiny school cafeteria.

For many, the school nurse is their only health care. A psychologist is on duty and so are 26 teacher aides. There are computer lessons and help after school with homework. Three storage rooms are stacked with new VCRs and computers, books, musical instruments and kits for math and science.

All of it is paid for in whole or in part with money from state and federal programs. But more than 9 in 10 third-graders’ test scores are below the national average in reading. By the state’s reckoning, the school is a “1” on a scale of 1 to 10.

Officially, the school is a failure.

That may seem harsh, but it is not rare. Federal law requires states to identify failing schools, and about 1,500 schools in California and 8,000 in the United States fit that definition. All have been told they need to improve or face consequences, but Bush and Gore want to pressure schools to speed up the process.

Dayton Heights principal Charlene M. Ransom doesn’t think that cutting funds, as Bush would do, or replacing the staff, as Gore proposes, would be justified or helpful.

Her school faces enormous challenges, but she’s hardly giving up. “We have tremendously dedicated teachers, and they come here with their heart and soul aimed at helping these students succeed,” she said.

Ransom said the school has begun using a new reading program that stresses phonics as a gateway to literature, and all her teachers have been trained to use it. Test scores already are improving, and she’s convinced they will continue to do so.

But the school could not function without the $662,000 it receives in state and federal funds for students who are poor or who speak a language other than English.

“Schools are now being asked to pick up many of the pieces and plug in all the holes to make a child successful,” Ransom said. Losing money for those services “would be disastrous for our children.”

But Bush argues that such schools are cheating their children out of an education and wasting taxpayers’ money.

“In return for federal help, there must be strong accountability measures,” Bush told state legislators recently. “And if we find that the federal government is subsidizing schools that don’t work, we must give parents another path to take.”

As governor, Bush used a similar mixture of threats and pressure to expose failing schools in Texas. There, every school is rated based on test scores, with attendance and dropout rates factored in. Those schools that don’t make the grade are publicly labeled unsatisfactory.

Under a federal Bush administration, schools nationwide also would have to create detailed performance reports, breaking down statistics by race, ethnicity and income.

Unlike the federal program that Bush proposes, Texas did not withhold funding from under-performing schools. But school districts, fearful of making the list of the worst campuses, pushed for improvements, sometimes firing staff to do so.

In 1994, the year Bush was elected governor, 67 of the state’s schools were rated exemplary. This year, that number is 1,120.

A number of states already are creating accountability guidelines, but establishing a nationwide system could be difficult, especially for a Republican who also is committed to less federal regulation.

“The basic hypothesis has a lot of merit, but this becomes awkward when you translate it to Washington,” said Chester E. Finn Jr., a Bush advisor who served as assistant secretary of Education in the Reagan administration. “It’s one thing for a state to do this themselves, but it’s another to make states do this.”

Gore’s camp argues that low-performing schools won’t turn around simply by insisting on it. Indeed, numerous efforts to reform troubled schools or schools serving needy children have come up against intractable obstacles--a lack of qualified teachers chief among them.

That’s why his plan calls for subsidizing teacher salaries and providing bonuses to encourage talented, well-trained teachers and principals to work at campuses where the challenges are the greatest.

The two candidates’ differences on low-performing schools point to a larger difference between the two, one that often divides Republicans and Democrats: spending.

Gore has proposed spending an additional $115 billion over 10 years on preschool, teacher training, teacher salaries, smaller class sizes, more compact schools, more after-school help and school construction financing. The money would come from the federal budget surplus.

Bush would end the drive begun by the Clinton administration to hire 100,000 new teachers and reduce class sizes. And he would add $13 billion to the education budget over five years. The biggest item to be paid for with that money would be a $5-billion reading initiative stressing phonics, early student testing and teacher training.

Sandra Feldman, president of the American Federation of Teachers and a member of the committee that wrote the education part of the Democratic Party platform, said Gore’s plan carries forward the tradition of having the federal government “helping the kids who need help the most.”

But she said it also expands the federal government’s involvement into new areas to revive struggling schools. “He’s saying, put what works into place immediately and make sure the kids profit from it.”

The Bush camp counters that spending more money on priorities set in Washington would undermine the full-court press he wants to make on results.

“You can’t be serious about accountability if you start” dictating what the states ought to spend money on, said Margaret D. La Mantagne, Bush’s education advisor in Texas.

Such outside pressure can lead to improvements. Glassell Park Elementary School in Eagle Rock, which serves mostly poor children, was ordered to adopt a plan for reform after it made California’s list of low-performing schools in 1997.

Last year, the school decided to stop spending more than half its nearly $500,000 a year in federal and state grants on teacher aides. Instead, it spent $100,000 to train teachers and buy materials for an intensive, phonics-based reading program called “Success for All.” It also hired extra teachers to coach their colleagues.

The school has hit its state-assigned targets two years in a row and hopes to get off the list entirely this year. Principal Beatrice J. S. La Pisto said the school could not have made those changes without its federal grants.

But the demand for improvement, she said, gave her ammunition to press for changes with her faculty. “Change is difficult, and sometimes you have to force that change,” she said.

As for Bush and Gore, their plans do overlap at times. Indeed, some of Bush’s ideas, such as the requirement for school report cards, have been proposed by Clinton and blocked in the Republican-controlled Congress.

And, even though the Republican Party platform conveys skepticism on this point, both candidates argue that there is a compelling national interest in school quality.

Polls show voters from across the political spectrum agree on that. Linda A. DiVall, a Republican pollster, said her surveys show that 46% of voters want to see more federal involvement in improving schools. Forty-two percent approve of a limited federal role. Only 6% say the federal government should stay out of public education entirely.

William Galston, a University of Maryland political science professor who is advising the Gore campaign on domestic policy, said the federal role in education will grow no matter who wins in November.

“If the new president goes to Congress and says, ‘The American people have spoken loud and clear and the mandate is for strengthening public education within a system of standards and accountability,’ I don’t think there’s going to be lots of opposition,” he said.

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Dueling Visions

Republican presidential nominee George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore have similar education goals but propose to achieve them in different ways. Here’s a look at some of their key proposals. Each candidate says he would:

EDUCATION

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GEORGE W. BUSH

CHARTER SCHOOLS

Double the number of charter schools. Guarantee $3 billion in loans for start-up and construction costs. In states where test scores lag, 5% of federal education funds would shift to charter schools.

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CLASS SIZE

Build more charter schools.

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EDUCATION SAVINGS

Allow families to put $5,000 per student, per year into tax-free savings accounts to pay for expenses from kindergarten through college.

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FAILING SCHOOLS

Offer low-income families of children in failing schools about $1,500 a year for tutoring or private school tuition. Students could also transfer to other public schools.

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LITERACY

Invest $5 billion over five years to create a “reading first” program to help disadvantaged children learn to read by the third grade.

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TEACHER RECRUITMENT

Combine new and existing funding into a $2.4-billion fund for states to train and recruit teachers and enact teacher accountability systems. Expand loan forgiveness from $5,000 to $17,500 for math and science majors who commit to teach in high-need schools for five years.

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TESTING

Call on states to test students in grades 3 through 8 each year. Create a $500-million fund to reward states that improve student performance, as measured by a national sampling test or an equivalent.

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VOUCHERS

Offer low-income families of children in failing schools about $1,500 a year for tutoring or private school tuition.

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AL GORE

CHARTER SCHOOLS

Triple the number of charter schools--there are about 1,700 nationwide now--by providing planning, start-up grants and other help.

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CLASS SIZE

Spend $3 billion annually to help reduce class sizes nationally to no more than 18 students in early grades and no more than 20 students for all other grades.

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EDUCATION SAVINGS

Create 401(j) savings accounts, similar to 401(k) plans, allowing employees to save tax-free and use the savings for college education or job training.

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FAILING SCHOOLS

Offer low-performing schools additional resources. If schools still fail to improve, they would be shut down and reopened under new public leadership.

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LITERACY

Create a “ready to read” program that would help child care programs provide youngsters a foundation for reading. Program would include bonuses for child care staff who complete intensive training in literacy.

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TEACHER RECRUITMENT

Create $8-billion fund to recruit 1 million teachers in 10 years. Offer raises of up to $5,000 for qualified teachers in poor and rural areas. Offer an extra $5,000 in pay for “master teachers” meeting higher standards in those areas.

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TESTING

Support voluntary tests in fourth- grade reading and eighth-grade math and wants every eight-grader to be computer literate. He also wants bonuses for states that show improvement in national student-sampling tests.

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VOUCHERS

Fight voucher proposals.

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Sources: Candidates’ campaigns; Associated Press; Times research

Researched by NONA YATES / Los Angeles Times