Pave the Bridge With Education
President Clinton’s decision to choose education as his No. 1 priority for the next four years, as articulated in his State of the Union address Tuesday evening, was perhaps a safe and politically popular one, but it makes eminent sense as well.
If America is to build a “bridge to the next century,” as Clinton has promised so often, Americans have to know how to read, how to write, how to use a computer, to learn how to put things together so they work.
If Americans are to have good jobs, they first must be literate. If Americans are to compete in an intense global marketplace, they must have high math skills and marketing know-how. If impoverished youth are to be kept off the streets and out of gangs, they must be challenged in creative, caring and relevant classrooms by inspired teachers.
Not that the steps spelled out by Clinton before a joint session of Congress will achieve all of that in a few years. But they are a good start. Many critics--including some who have called for abolishing the Education Depart- ment--will raise alarms about federal control of local education. But the president was careful to make a distinction. He called for a crusade for national education standards that would be adopted by the individual states but would not be under direct federal mandate.
After all the studies and all the tests and revisions of education techniques, the nation’s public school system remains a disgrace in many respects. There is no reason that we should not have national goals by which to measure progress. And federal help in buying computers for classrooms will not undermine local school autonomy.
This period is not unlike the 1950s, when the Soviet launch of the Sputnik satellite alerted a dormant nation to alarming deficiencies in the teaching of science and mathematics to American young people. Within months, President Dwight Eisenhower had allocated the first $1 billion in direct federal aid to public education. By the end of the following year, he had signed into law the landmark National Defense Education Act.
Back in 1957, the threat was military. Now and into the next century, it is the global competition for markets that presents a crucial challenge.
This will be a basic rebuilding job. One of the president’s goals is that every child must be able to read by the age of 8. That seems lamentably unambitious. But it is a sign of the magnitude of the job ahead.
Of more immediate benefit, perhaps, is Clinton’s proposal for tax credits and deductions to help American families put their children through college. This sort of incentive is long overdue.
Clinton’s education program faces a long road ahead in the Congress. The important point is that the journey be started. As the president noted, the nation no longer faces the threat of foreign missiles. The enemy of today is our own inaction.
