Gore Thrusts Education Into Campaign 2000

In the first major policy address of his unofficial presidential campaign, Vice President Al Gore on Sunday unveiled a sweeping agenda for education reform that he argued would bring “revolutionary change to America’s schools.”

In a commencement address at Graceland College in Lamoni, Iowa--the state that hosts the first major contest in next year’s presidential nomination process--Gore laid out a detailed seven-point proposal that would affect every level of education from preschool through college.

“Let’s make the next decade America’s education decade,” Gore declared.

Though Gore did not separate himself from any of President Clinton’s initiatives, he offered several specific proposals that go beyond the current administration’s education agenda.

Among them:

* A national plan to reduce class size in every grade through high school.

* A 21st Century Teachers Corps to provide college scholarships for young people willing to teach for at least four years in “high-need” school districts.

* A proposal to require all teachers to pass performance evaluations every five years to retain their teaching licenses.

* A tax-free savings plan, modeled on 401(k) retirement plans, that Americans could use to save for their children’s higher education or to return to school themselves.

* A block grant program to help states provide universal access to preschool for 3- and 4-year-olds.

In unveiling the first extensive proposal of his own White House bid, which he is expected to formally announce sometime this summer, Gore struck roughly the same political balance that Clinton has sought on many domestic issues: He is embracing calls for reform, but he is also defending an active and even expanding role for the federal government.

“There’s a strong emphasis in here on higher standards, accountability and parental involvement,” said California Gov. Gray Davis, who worked with Gore on several of the ideas in the plan. “Those are the key elements of success” in education reform.

Plan Criticized as Costly, Vague

Chester E. Finn, a senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute and an education analyst, praised elements of Gore’s agenda. But he said Gore is misguided in seeking an expensive national effort to reduce class size and is somewhat vague in characterizing the federal role in other changes he is seeking.

Gore and his aides refused to provide an estimated price tag for the overall proposal. They said the vice president would explain how he would pay for it when he lays out his budget plans.

The speech marks the first in what Gore aides say will be a series of addresses on major domestic, foreign and economic issues. It comes while he is under pressure to invigorate his campaign from Democrats nervous about his poor showing in the polls against Texas Gov. George W. Bush, the GOP front-runner--and amid signs that the vice president’s sole challenger for the Democratic nomination, former Sen. Bill Bradley, is building support in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Typically in presidential campaigns, it is challengers who look to attract attention by offering lengthy policy proposals. Yet with this speech, Gore has marked out a set of ideas much more detailed than anything yet produced by Bush, or Bradley, who has promised “big ideas” but says he won’t unveil them until the fall.

Probably the most provocative portions of Gore’s education agenda are his proposals relating to teachers. Noting that schools may need 2.2 million new teachers in the next decade because of rising enrollments, he proposed offering young people as much as $10,000 in college aid if they agree to teach in troubled schools for four years.

Echoing a demand often advanced by conservatives, Gore called for stiffer teacher testing. He proposed keeping new teachers out of the classroom until they have passed a “rigorous test . . . that also measures their knowledge of the subject they will teach.” Most states already impose some form of entry tests on teachers, and Clinton earlier this year proposed a measure to encourage the remaining states to follow suit.

Another Gore proposal would involve a much larger change. Most states now provide teachers lifetime teaching licenses or automatic renewals. But Gore says teachers should be required to pass a performance evaluation every five years to retain their licenses. “No teaching license should be a lifetime job guarantee,” he said.

After the speech, one Gore advisor said the vice president would not seek to impose either the entry-level test or the five-year evaluations as federal requirements but would lobby local governments to adopt the reforms.

Teacher Union Head Supports Concept

Gore’s teacher testing proposals might raise eyebrows among rank-and-file teachers, who are a core Democratic constituency. But they drew initial praise from Sandra Feldman, president of the American Federation of Teachers.

“It makes a lot more sense than some of the other proposals that are out there,” Feldman said. “If you look at evaluation as part of professional development, as opposed to a punitive process, I think that would be fine.”

Finn praised the testing proposals, describing them as a step toward challenging the system of tenure for teachers. “It looks to me like wary, cautious steps in the right direction,” he said.

But Finn argued that assessing teachers by their students’ performance, rather than by peer reviews, might be a better method. And he added that Gore’s desire to improve teacher quality could conflict with his proposal to reduce class size all the way through high school--an initiative that would require the hiring of thousands of teachers.

Like several of the ideas in Gore’s speech, the class-size reduction would build on an initiative already launched by Clinton, who has won funding to reduce class size through third grade by providing federal subsidies to hire teachers.

Gore also proposed to expand administration proposals to increase the availability of after-school programs, encourage states to identify and turn around failing schools and wire all classrooms and libraries to the Internet.

Though Gore’s agenda embraces conservative themes of teacher accountability and decentralization of authority--he also called for giving principals more authority to hire and fire teachers--it envisions the federal government operating like a fulcrum in the push for education reform around the country.

That guarantees a clear contrast with Republican presidential contenders, like Bush, who argue that the best way to speed reform is to retrench Washington’s role and give states more control over federal education dollars.

“Mr. Gore is exactly right that creating the best schools should be our No. 1 concern; he is exactly wrong on how to do it,” said GOP presidential hopeful Lamar Alexander, a former secretary of Education, in a statement. “His proposals all add up to a national school board.”

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* BRADLEY’S CHALLENGE

Columnist Ronald Brownstein says Bill Bradley needs to broaden his support. A5