Educating the Candidates

Washington currently supplies only 7% of spending on education, but the next administration, whether led by Texas Gov. George W. Bush or Vice President Al Gore, is likely to push for more federal dollars and a stronger federal role in improving education. If the plan is well-focused and of proven effectiveness, it could make a national difference.

Democrat Gore proposes substantial spending. His $115-billion, 10-year education plan would, among other things, fund universally available preschool for 4-year-olds and pay incentives for teaching in hard-to-staff rural and urban schools.

Republican Bush has a smaller plan that specifically targets reading failure and low-income children in the primary grades. His plan would spend $13.4 billion over five years on training teachers to diagnose early reading problems and frequent testing to assess progress. He proposes rewards for schools that improve as well as penalties for those that fail.

The origin of the candidates’ focus on schools is no secret--public opinion polls consistently place fixing failing schools among the highest priorities of voters, especially women.

Most at risk for failure are poor children, minority children and those who do not speak English when they start school. This is a demographic profile of many big-city school systems, including the Los Angeles Unified School District, where 70% of students qualify for free lunches and 62% of the children starting school are classified as English learners. Costly special education classes are filled with children put there primarily because they cannot read.

A problem like reading failure that begins early needs to be attacked early, but few states set standards for day care beyond safety and the ratio of children to adult caretakers. Yet especially for children whose families do not or cannot help them get ready to read, preschool often carries the burden. Universal preschool, a cornerstone of Gore’s education proposals, is often called the most effective method of helping poor children learn to read. But effectiveness is dependent on the uncertain quality of preschool teaching in a profession that pays very little. Elevating the quality of preschools in California will be especially tough because of the overall shortage of teachers.

Investing in preschool teachers has, however, proved effective. In Chicago, a 15-year partnership between the Erikson Institute, a Chicago think tank, and Head Start resulted in teachers shifting from oral storytelling to reading and writing skills. Training and supervision were especially important for teachers who had themselves never developed a fondness for reading or writing.

Teacher effectiveness is also key in the primary grades, especially for reading, but high-poverty schools are the least likely to attract and keep the best teachers. The Bush plan would train teachers of low-income children to spot and fix early reading problems. His proposal also would pay for tutors for struggling beginners, another proven strategy, as long as the tutors are competent readers who know how to teach. That strategy is working in Texas and other states that, unlike California, have posted increases in reading scores on the National Assessment on Educational Progress, a test that is a national benchmark.

Some combination of the Bush and Gore plans makes sense to educators most familiar with the research on effective reading instruction. Much will depend, of course, on how much Congress is willing to increase the federal role in, and funding of, education.

The White House can’t fix all that ails the lowest-achieving public schools, but the next president can do much just to keep the nation focused on improving the number of children who can read. The payoff? A better-educated populace, the surest form of national security.