Governors Bring Years of Concern to Education Summit : Bush Calls a Meeting of All State Leaders for Only 3rd Time in History

In 1908, President Theodore Roosevelt summoned all 46 governors of the United States to the White House to rally support for an issue he called “second only . . . to the great fundamental questions of morality”--the conservation of America’s natural resources. The governors lined up wholeheartedly behind the President.

In 1933, just two days after his inauguration, President Franklin D. Roosevelt met with almost all of the 48 governors of the United States in the East Room of the White House and asked them to support his emergency measures to lift the country out of the Great Depression. “He is ready to lead,” the governors agreed, “if we are ready to follow.” And they made it clear they were ready to follow.

Third Time in History

Now, for only the third time in history, an American President is calling a summit conference of the governors. President Bush has summoned all 50 governors of the United States to convene on the campus of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville today for a two-day conference on public education.

But the mood will be far different this time.

The governors do not need the President to rally them to the cause. For years, they have been sounding dire warnings about the shortcomings of education and trying desperately to do something about them. In fact, many governors, whose state and community budgets fund more than 90% of the cost of American education, look on the summit conference as a way of rallying Bush to their side.

Even as staunch a supporter of the President as Republican Gov. Garrey E. Carruthers of New Mexico looks on this summit as far different from those of the Roosevelts. “Bush is a listener,” Carruthers said in a recent interview. “He’s not coming to tell the governors what to do. He’s not selling. He’s buying.”

Litany of Complaints

The summit comes at a time when the American education system is held far and wide in poor repute. The litany of complaints is almost a cliche:

More than 4 million students drop out of high school every year. At least 23 million Americans are illiterate. European and Asian students almost always score higher than American students on international examinations in science and mathematics. Average scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Tests used by most universities to select applicants have dropped 90 points in the last two decades.

According to a procession of recent news conferences and press releases from governors and Bush Administration officials, no one expects the summit to produce concrete solutions to these problems. Instead, the plan is to set down a series of national goals on education and leave the strategy for meeting them to later conferences and, perhaps, commissions.

Symbolism Extolled

With so little in the way of substantive strategies expected, most governors and Administration officials are extolling the symbolism of the conference. With the University of Virginia, founded by Thomas Jefferson, and the assembled governors in the background, Bush, according to this view, has a chance to whip up enthusiasm in America for changing and improving education.

“Just by calling the summit,” said Secretary of Education Lauro F. Cavazos, “it means education is immediately in the forefront of the nation.”

“We will capture the public momentum,” predicted Republican Gov. Michael N. Castle of Delaware in comments to reporters at a Southern Governors Assn. conference in Wilmington. “We will capture the educators themselves to make them realize that change is necessary.”

“We need a single cheerleader singing the same song,” noted New Mexico’s Carruthers. “Presidents do that better than governors because they have a national audience.”

The emphasis on public relations has worried Democratic leaders, who fear that the summit could accomplish little more than fulfilling Bush’s campaign pledge in 1988 to become known as “the education President.”

Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, chairman of the Democratic Governors Assn., said he did not want the summit to end up as a glorified “photo opportunity” in which Bush walked across the grass of the university founded by Jefferson, “our greatest education President.”

With this in mind, Clinton told a group of reporters recently, he and Republican Gov. Carroll A. Campbell Jr. of South Carolina tried to persuade the White House to open the sessions to the press. But, Clinton said, the White House insisted that the President “enjoys private sessions with people. That’s consistent with his decision-making process.”

As a result, a few governors will join Bush in making public remarks at the opening and closing sessions of the conference. But all other discussions--involving the President, the governors and members of the Cabinet--will be private.

Focus on Model School

Perhaps to steal some public relations thunder of their own, Democratic leaders held a news conference last week at Eleanor Roosevelt High School in suburban Maryland--a model school with a special science program--to propose a series of national educational goals in advance of the summit.

Quoting often from Thomas Jefferson, a founder of their party, the Democrats stressed, as Senate Democratic leader George J. Mitchell of Maine put it, that “the major federal education programs were all Democratic initiatives. Our leadership in education is historic and enduring.”

The Democratic goals were hardly controversial: providing Head Start and similar programs for all 4-year-old children who need it by 1995; sharply reducing differences in basic skills between white and minority children by 1993; cutting the number of dropouts and illiterates; improving science, mathematics and foreign language schooling so that U.S. students do better than foreign students in these subjects; providing all students, regardless of race and income, equal opportunity to attend universities, and alleviating the shortage of teachers. And there is little doubt that the summit conference will come up with national goals along the same line.

But the strategy for achieving these goals could stir great controversy in the future. The federal Head Start program, which prepares disadvantaged children for school, has been praised by conservatives and liberals as vital for the future education of the children. But federal funding is so low that the Head Start programs now cover only one in five children who need them.

Keith Geiger, president of the National Education Assn., a major organization of teachers, has insisted that the summit must face the problem of federal funding. “Money will not cure every problem that ails education,” Geiger said, “but it is short-sighted to believe that the cure won’t require any more money.”

But the governors, in their preliminary talks with reporters, have skirted the issue of federal funding. While Republican Gov. Terry E. Branstad of Iowa, chairman of the National Governors’ Assn., has acknowledged that some of the governors may bring up the matter, he has said it will not be a major issue at the summit.

Many governors have made it clear that their hopes for improved education rest on two ideas: setting national goals and decentralizing education systems. In addition, there seems to be almost a contempt among the governors for what several call “the managers of education”--the bureaucrats who run most district school systems.

The White House appears to agree with the governors. “New approaches and new ideas are needed,” said Roger Porter, Bush’s assistant for domestic policy. “We hope to be able to achieve a consensus on the need of new ideas and new approaches, and for a lot of the structural reforms that are going on sporadically around the country, but have not yet penetrated the overwhelming bulk of school districts and areas in the United States.”

Staff writer James Gerstenzang contributed to this report.

THE PRESIDENT’S EDUCATION SUMMIT

Summit: President Bush has summoned the governors of all the states and territories to meet with him, members of the cabinet, and other Administration officials “on the state of American education.”

Site: The campus of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.

When: Today and Thursday, Sept. 28.

History: There have been summit conferences of a President and the governors only twice before: President Theodore Roosevelt met with the governors at a conference on conservation in 1908 and President Franklin D. Roosevelt met with the governors at a conference on the Great Depression in 1933.

Politics: During the 1988 election campaign, Bush, pledging to be “the education President,” promised to call a conference of the governors “to discuss the most urgent problems facing our schools.”

The agenda: The White House and representatives of the governors have agreed on six broad topics: (1) teaching: revitalizing a profession; (2) the learning environment; (3) governance: who is in charge?; (4) choice and restructuring; (5) a competitive work force and education; (6) post-secondary education: strengthening access and excellence.

The issues: What is the role of the federal government in American education? Should federal spending increase significantly? How do you shake up the myriad of local bureaucracies that manage schools in the United States? Does the solution lie in giving parents the choice of sending their children to any school? How do you deal with the problems of school dropouts and basic illiteracy in America that have proven intractable in the past?

The outcome: The President and the governors are expected to proclaim the broad goals of American education policy: reducing dropouts, wiping out illiteracy, improving test scores, expanding preschool programs, eliminating discrimination, and so on. But the strategy for achieving this will be left for future meetings or studies.