Education Summit Draws Governors

When the nation’s governors concluded a historic summit on education seven years ago, there was optimism in the air.

Led by then-President George Bush, Republican and Democratic leaders agreed to set national goals to lift America’s abysmal performance in core academic areas. Establishing tough national standards for what all students should know was a fresh idea. And Bush, who called himself the “Education President,” promised a more vigorous federal role.

On Tuesday, the governors will meet in Palisades, N.Y., for a second summit on improving public education. But changes in the political, social and economic landscape will make their task more difficult.

Progress toward the eight ambitious goals the governors set has been modest at best. The math, reading and science scores of many elementary and secondary school students have declined or remained the same.

Goals 2000, President Clinton’s $400-million program to reach the goals set during his predecessor’s administration, is collapsing under attacks by conservatives, who view it as unwanted federal encroachment on what traditionally has been a state responsibility.

And national academic standards developed by teachers and professional groups over the last few years have fallen into disrepute--thanks largely to the much-vilified history standards that critics said slighted George Washington and traditional views of American progress. English standards, panned at their unveiling last month as wishy-washy and politically correct, have poured more fuel on the fire.

“In 1989, everybody was trying to figure out what the definition of school reform was,” said Keith Geiger, president of the National Education Assn., the nation’s largest teachers union. “Now most people have the definition. But we are so polarized by it that we are fighting each other, instead of trying to do it.”

Agreeing that it’s time to refocus, the governors have narrowed the agenda for this week’s two-day summit. They are spotlighting two issues: standards and how to measure them, and technology.

About 45 governors are expected to attend, and each has invited a corporate chieftain to participate. The guest list includes the heads of Eastman Kodak, Procter & Gamble, Boeing and AT & T.

Clinton will speak Wednesday.

“Our purpose is to reinvigorate the governors and the business community to work in partnership to improve the quality of education in America,” said Wisconsin Gov. Tommy G. Thompson, who is chairing the summit along with Louis V. Gerstner Jr., chairman and CEO of IBM Corp., whose Executive Conference Center will house the meeting.

Thompson hopes the attendees will leave New York with an agreement to help schools overcome barriers to using technology, which summit organizers consider a vital tool for boosting learning and teaching.

He also wants their pledge to “raise the bar” of achievement for all students by having new “world-class” academic standards in place in each state within two years. The emphasis, he said, will be on making that job a state, not a federal, preoccupation.

Thompson’s point is seconded by Colorado Gov. Roy Romer, whose state is cited by experts as one of only a handful to have devised clear and concise academic standards.

“We’re not here to debate a new set of national goals,” he said. “This whole conference is recognizing that the issue of standards and achievement is local.”

In fact, only 13 states have adopted standards in all of the core subjects that are clear and specific enough to help set course content at each grade level, the American Federation of Teachers reported in a recent study. It singled out standards in California, Colorado, Georgia and Virginia as among the best.

Good standards spell out precisely what a student at each grade level should know and be able to do, the report said. A good English standard for fifth grade, for example, might say that all students should be able to write a descriptive essay that elaborates on ideas with specific details and vivid vocabulary. A bad standard fails to specify achievements by grade level and is vague concerning goals. “Students should be able to construct meaning through experiences with literature” is one example of a poor standard, by the group’s measure.

Standards may generate the most heated discussion among the governors and CEOs. How prescriptive they should be? Who should do the prescribing--state departments of education, citizens, local districts? And should they address only academic goals or stray into codes of student behavior and values?

Diane Ravitch, an education historian and former assistant secretary of education in the Bush administration, said she hopes the summit will make a clear distinction between true standards, which she believes should focus on academics, and the “vague aspirations” that pass for standards in many states.

“There is so much fog in the air about what standards are. I hope that’s where the debate is,” said Ravitch, who is one of about 30 educators, legislators and public policy experts invited to observe the governors’ discussions, much of which will be closed to the media.

The American public wants higher standards for its schools, polls show. A survey last year by Public Agenda, a nonprofit research and education group in New York, found that 71% of Americans think higher standards will make youngsters work harder in school.

Yet the prospect of more rigorous standards causes unease in some quarters. Some educators, such as James P. Comer, director of Yale University’s Child Study Center, say higher standards are unfair if minority children in poor neighborhoods aren’t given the same resources for learning--access to computers and well-stocked libraries, for instance--as youngsters in wealthier communities.

The teachers federation is conducting a series of international studies to compare the academic expectations and achievements of American students to those in other high-performing countries. In Great Britain, Wales, France, Germany and Japan, the studies have found, 25% to 36% of 18-year-olds take and pass challenging exit exams in biology, chemistry and physics.

In contrast, only 5% of high school seniors in the United States take and pass one or more Advanced Placement exams, the closest equivalent to the foreign tests.

“One of the things people in the U.S. say is . . . kids are not ready [to be pushed harder academically],” said Albert Shanker, president of the American Federation of Teachers. “But there are millions of youngsters from different cultures who are able to learn organic chemistry in high school. Unless we take the view that kids in the U.S. are at the wrong end of the bell curve, then we should say our kids can do that, too. It’s a question of whether we want to.”

The Internet address for the governors’ education summit is https://www.summit96.ibm.com