It's a presidential election year again, so I'm sure to be asked over and over, "Mr. Shanker, how important do you think education issues will be in this year's election?" My usual answer has been, "I wish they would be, and they seem to be now. But as we get nearer to election day, the voters will narrow their thinking down to two issues: Who's going to do a better job with the economy, and who's tough enough to take on the next international bully who comes along?"

This year it's different. I predict that education issues will play a decisive role in the election. I'm not talking about the usual issues, but some new ones. Take the current front-running candidate, H. Ross Perot. He was the chairman of a Texas school reform commission. One of his major proposals was "no pass, no play," and it was adopted into law. Students who didn't pass their academic subjects couldn't participate in school athletics. What was the result? Governor Mark White, who had appointed Perot and championed the reform, lost his bid for re-election. He was defeated by a massive coalition made up of coaches, parents whose kids were doing poorly in academics and who were banking on an athletic scholarship to get them to college, fans of school sports and most of the principals and assistant principals who got their present jobs after two losing seasons.

Still, even though the law passed, schools found many ways to get around it. And the law hasn't exactly caught fire outside of Texas. I wouldn't be surprised if, during the campaign, Perot were to propose a "no pass, no play" constitutional amendment. Maybe not. In speaking recently about the proposed balanced budget amendment, Perot said that an amendment is an excuse not to do anything. Which brings me to President Bush.

As we all know, President Bush wants American students to be the best in everything by the year 2000. That will be very tough, but teachers are working very hard to make this come true. Everyone thought this goal would be hardest to achieve in math and science. I now think we'll have the most difficulty in history. Our kids are so far behind that most of them don't know in which half-century World War I took place or who Joseph Stalin was. Schools would have had a hard enough time getting kids to catch up on all this, but now they also have to teach women's history, African history, labor history, Hispanic history, etc. What started as a very tough job becomes impossible when you keep adding to what kids have to learn.

Now President Bush proposes to make the job of history teachers even tougher. Very few of our students now know the U.S. Constitution and the amendments, but if President Bush has his way they'll have to learn four more constitutional amendments. That's right - four! Bush wants constitutional amendments to prohibit abortion, to limit congressional terms of office, to prohibit flag burning and to balance the budget. I've been deluged with protest mail from history teachers. After all, not counting the first 10 amendments -- the Bill of Rights, which came on the heels of the Constitution -- we've added only 17 amendments in over 200 years. If each president had succeeded in getting four amendments added, we would now have 164 to learn.

Also, it takes time for constitutional amendments to be ratified by the states. It has taken as little as a few months and as long as more than 175 years for our other amendments to become ratified. Waiting for ratification of, say, the balanced budget amendment could be our leaders' newest excuse for not dealing with the deficit.

Teachers and students will not be the only ones bearing the increased burden of four new amendments. I shouldn't be mentioning this just as President Bush goes to the environmental summit in Rio, but many forests will have to be cut down to provide new, amended textbooks to accommodate those amendments. Also, an entirely new set of interpretations will be needed. Up to now, teachers have explained how short and simple our Constitution is in comparison with those of other countries. We even taught that most of the constitutions that were long, complicated and specific didn't work. Teachers will now have to explain why it is that we were able to get along quite well with a relatively short and simple Constitution for over 200 years, but at the end of this century we needed a Constitution more like those that had failed in other countries all over the world. Why were we able to govern our country for 200 years with mere laws, but now we seem to have to amend the Constitution to get things done?

Of course, if passing amendments to the Constitution proves to be an effective way to get difficult things done, we could amend the Constitution to provide that, by the year 2000, American students will be the best in the world. That would arm our schools and teachers with the power they need to get the job done.

Or perhaps we can keep the Constitution short and simple after all. Instead of all these proposed amendments, why not just have one that requires politicians to keep their campaign promises and to have the courage to do what's good for the country?