Senate OKs Two Major School Reform Efforts

The Senate passed the two central elements of the Administration’s education policy Tuesday, creating a new, hands-on role for the federal government in reforming the nation’s schools.

One of the measures, known as Goals 2000, will for the first time set national academic standards and provide seed money to states that choose to overhaul their schools to help children reach these standards.

The second element, titled School-to-Work, provides funds to help schools establish apprenticeship networks that will provide job skills for students who will not go to college.

The two measures signal a radical new role in education for the federal government, which until now restricted its involvement to allocating money to help states in specific areas, such as educating poor and disabled students.

The House has already passed similar legislation. The bills now move to a conference committee to reconcile the differences.

The Senate’s action “will quickly help move our nation toward greater educational and economic progress and away from the low expectations which have too often held our children hostage and restrained our nation from achieving its full potential,” Education Secretary Richard W. Riley said.

The initiatives grew from ideas advanced in 1989 by the nation’s governors and the Administration of then-President George Bush. The Clinton Administration, in keeping with its vision of making the federal government more active in addressing the nation’s domestic problems, moved quickly to convert the education goals into legislation.

Neither measure comes with much money. Education officials hope that parents and educators will push their school districts and states to provide additional funds.

Goals 2000, passed 71 to 25 by the Senate, will create a National Education Standards and Improvement Council to oversee the development of academic standards and provide money to states that choose to enact reforms to help their students achieve those standards. The Administration has asked for $700 million in fiscal 1995 to help pay for the program.

Gordon Ambach, executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers, which represents top school officials from around the country, said Goals 2000 “will have a tremendous impact because it links up the federal and state and local resources for total, systemic strategies to improve student performance. We’ve never had that before.”

Albert Shanker, president of the American Federation of Teachers, the nation’s second-largest teachers union, said the initiative is much broader than any undertaken previously by the federal government.

“We will for the first time have a national system of high standards,” Shanker said. “If a state does not participate, parents and teachers will be able to ask, ‘Why isn’t our state doing this?’ or if it is, ‘How well are our kids doing?’ ”

Passage of the measure culminates a five-year movement for national education reform, which started when the nation’s governors, fearful that the country’s children were falling behind their counterparts in other countries, agreed with Bush on six national education goals.

The governors, including then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, pledged that by the year 2000:

* All children in America will start school ready to learn.

* The high school graduation rate will increase from the current level of 71% to at least 90%.

* American students will be competent in core academic subjects.

* U.S. students will be first in the world in science and mathematics achievement.

* Every adult American will be literate and possess the skills necessary to compete in a global economy.

* Every school in America will be safe, disciplined and drug-free.

The legislation stresses that all students can reach high standards, including poor children, who the Administration feels have been cheated under the existing system. Several existing federal programs are being reshaped to work in conjunction with the new initiatives.

Goals 2000 also establishes national occupational skills standards, intended to provide a foundation for the apprenticeship networks that the Administration hopes will become an integral part of every school under the school-to-work bill.

That legislation, which passed the Senate 62 to 31, provides $300 million in fiscal 1995 to help states establish partnerships between local businesses and schools, offer students on-the-job training coordinated with classroom instruction and provide skill certificates upon completion.

“This is ‘hire education’ that offers hands-on learning to help students envision and plan for the jobs of tomorrow,” said Sen. Paul Simon (D-Ill.), chief sponsor of the bill.

Shanker said schools are in such bad shape that it will take many years before the impact of the two measures are felt.

“The major question mark will be if people will have the patience to wait,” he said. “This is not a short-term proposal; this is a long-term overhaul that will eventually create an American model of what other countries have.”