Governors Will Focus Efforts on Improving Education

The nation’s governors, convening here for their annual winter meeting, will focus their efforts on improving education in all 50 states, Missouri Gov. John Ashcroft said Saturday.

Ashcroft, president of the National Governors’ Assn., said at a news conference that the agenda will only indirectly touch on economic problems facing the states and the nation.

He said neither federal Budget Director Richard G. Darman nor other Bush Administration economic officials had been invited to address the group.

“I decided I wanted to pursue education; that’s the program I want to emphasize,” Ashcroft, a Republican, said in response to questions about why the meeting lacks an economic focus.

Ashcroft called the $600 million that President Bush is earmarking for the federal Head Start program “a major step forward,” saying it is important that the program will include 800,000 low-income children, including all eligible 4-year-olds.

During the conference, governors will concentrate on fine-tuning programs to implement education goals already set, Ashcroft said.

Education teams will report on plans to ensure that all children are ready to learn when they start school, that the school years are as productive as possible and that education and job training continues after school work has been completed.

Ashcroft said that while there are signs of improvement in education in many states, “all the news is not good.”

“In fact, some of it is sobering,” Ascroft said, noting that fewer than one in five of the nation’s students has tested competent in mathematics.

“This is something that is important to know,” the governor added, “because it begins to tell us the point from which we must work.”

As to the state of the economy, Ashcroft told questioners that the growth in state budgets has “slowed substantially.”

“Most states are down at low-growth levels,” the governor said. “I think there is a certain frustration from wanting to do things that there aren’t the resources to do.”