Gore Education Plan Stresses Accountability

Significantly expanding his earlier proposals, Vice President Al Gore urged Friday that Washington withhold federal funds from states that fail to improve student performance and close the gaps between white and minority students.

The new Gore plan marks the first time the vice president has released a policy that appears to respond to an initiative from Republican rival George W. Bush, who has stressed increasing accountability and standards in his own education blueprint.

But at the same time, the Gore plan sharpens the contrast between the contenders on both how to measure student performance and how to deal with schools that fail to improve it.

While Texas Gov. Bush would rely mostly on state-designed tests to gauge student progress, Gore says states should be judged on the basis of a nationally given exam. And while Bush says that low-income parents in failing schools should be given vouchers to help send their children to private schools, Gore instead is urging new measures to allow children to transfer to other public schools.

At the same time, Gore, in his speech Friday to the National Conference of Black Mayors, proposed that Washington increase to $500 million annually the money it provides to intervene in failing public schools.

Gore Calls for ‘Major’ Investment

That idea underscores another key difference between the presumptive presidential nominees: while Republican Bush is proposing to increase federal education spending modestly in a few targeted areas (such as early literacy), Democrat Gore wants to pour at least $115 billion over the next decade into a broad array of education programs, from building new schools to making preschool available to virtually all children.

“We cannot reform and revolutionize education without this kind of major national investment,” Gore said. “Those like Gov. Bush, who pretend we can reform American education with private school vouchers, a bite-sized investment and an occasional speech are simply out of touch with the challenges facing our public schools.”

Bush aides dismissed the Gore plan as an imitation of the governor’s proposals and said it is tougher in words than in consequences for poorly performing schools. “After looking at the details, it appears it is long on rhetoric and short on any real accountability,” said Dan Bartlett, a spokesman for the Bush campaign.

Gore’s speech continues an intense competition between the candidates for the high ground in the debate over improving America’s schools. In essence, Bush argues that Washington can best encourage reform by shifting more authority to local districts while holding them accountable for results.

Like President Clinton, Gore has argued for a broader Washington role: He has proposed a series of grant programs that would help states replicate innovations (such as reducing class sizes) that have sprouted in some places but not in all. The administration also has proposed requiring that states, as a condition of receiving federal funds, undertake specific accountability measures, such as ending social promotion. It’s the accountability that Gore emphasized Friday.

Recent polls show Bush running even or just slightly behind Gore when voters are asked who can best handle education; by contrast, in 1992 and 1996, Clinton held a huge lead over his Republican opponents on that question. Most analysts believe Bush’s success on education is one reason he’s running better with women than recent GOP nominees.

The plan Gore announced Friday extends his earlier proposals and Clinton administration initiatives, while also adapting ideas more closely associated with Bush.

Gore’s plan “absolutely” seems influenced by Bush’s proposals, said Amy Wilkins, a principal partner at The Education Trust, a nonpartisan school reform group. “Which is good, I guess. It sure beats the attacks on Bush that have been coming out from them.”

In fact, Gore’s new accountability proposals both parallel and contrast with the education plan Bush issued last fall.

At that time, Bush called for converting most federal education programs into five block grants for states that agree to test their students with state-designed exams in math and reading every year from third- through eighth-grade. States that improved overall performance and narrowed the gaps between whites and minorities would receive bonuses; those that failed to improve would face a small loss of funds.

National Test Would Help Gauge Progress

Gore also proposed that states receive bonuses--or face a slightly broader loss of federal funds than Bush proposed--based on whether they improve overall performance and narrow the racial gaps. But rather than relying on state tests, Gore said, progress should be measured on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, an exam currently given to students across the nation.

That test plays a secondary role in the Bush plan: If state tests show progress but the NAEP does not, Bush says he will require the states to rewrite its exams.

Wilkins said that the NAEP is a widely respected test but that using it in the manner Gore suggests would require “substantial changes.” For one thing, she notes, the NAEP is given only to a sample of students rather than all; although it could be used to measure a state’s performance, not enough children now take it to measure individual schools.

Bush’s reliance on state tests in his plan reflects the traditional Republican resistance to an excessive federal role in education. Gore’s preference for measuring students through the NAEP reflects the widespread Democratic belief that a common national yardstick is needed to measure educational progress.

The second sharp contrast the speech establishes is over how to reform the massive federal Title I program, which provides extra help for low-income children. In 1994, President Clinton signed reforms that require schools receiving funds under this program to demonstrate progress or face sanctions. Though states have moved slowly to implement those provisions, Education Department officials say thousands of schools are failing to meet the standard.

Bush last fall proposed two major changes in the program, which at nearly $9 billion annually is the largest federal education program. The Texas governor said states should be required to test Title I children every year (under current law, the tests are given roughly every three years); more important, he said if schools fail to demonstrate progress after three years, their Title I grants should be converted into vouchers parents could use to send their children to private schools.

By contrast, Gore--expanding on proposals Clinton has made--said Friday that as a condition of receiving federal funds states should be required to identify and intervene in failing Title I schools.

As soon as schools are identified as failing to show progress, Gore said, students in them should be guaranteed either access to remedial after-school programs or the right to transfer to a better-performing public school.

If the school failed to improve performance after one year, it would be required to overhaul its curriculum and establish procedures to quickly “remove low-performing teachers.” If a school failed to improve performance for a second year, Gore said, the state should be required to replace the principal and provide incentives to replace much of the teaching staff as well.

Gore proposed spending $500 million annually to help states implement such policies; Bush did not allocate any additional federal funds for schools identified as failing. By offering additional funds to low-performing schools, one Bush advisor charged, the Gore plan “is basically rewarding schools that have failed.”

One other new proposal he unveiled Friday was a grant program aimed at the 100 worst-performing school districts in the country. Gore said he would provide funds for districts that agree to adopt comprehensive reforms, allow complete public school choice and provide greater autonomy to principals at individual schools.