There are a lot of radical ideas for school reform going around that attempt to handle the problem of raising student achievement with some kind of mechanical gimmick-like vouchers, charter schools or management of schools by for-profit companies. President Clinton's education reform bill, Goals 2000, is a welcome contrast to this gimmickry. It has been moving through Congress with little fanfare, but it goes to the heart of the problem by dealing with what we expect students to know and the kinds of incentives they need in order to learn.
The California voucher initiative called for using public funds to pay for private school tuition, and it tapped into some real, and justifiable, discontent with the public schools. But its answer was to encourage youngsters to move from public schools, which are not doing very well, to private schools, which -- according to the research on student achievement - are not doing much better. The voucher gimmick puts schools in the business of attracting customers, a much easier job than educating students.
The reform Governor Engler wants in Michigan is also basically a gimmick. When the state legislature suddenly abolished the use of the property tax to pay for public education, the governor came up with a proposal that he says will fix the funding problem and reform the schools. In fact, his funding plan will lock in existing inequalities among school districts. And his charter schools proposal does nothing to address the real problem in education, which is the same in Michigan as it is nationwide -- low standards for students and poor student performance.
Baltimore's scheme for fixing its failing schools is to bring in new management. It has hired Education Alternatives, Inc. (EAI), a for-profit outfit, to run nine schools. EAI has painted the schools, hauled away trash from the playgrounds and installed some computers -- all worthwhile things -- but there's no word about a change in student achievement. Nevertheless, this is being hailed as a successful education reform.
None of these schemes deal with curriculum or affects what goes on in classrooms between students and teachers. To get at those things, we need to establish clear and rigorous standards and a system of incentives with consequences for success and failure. This is much more difficult than moving kids from one mediocre school to another or painting school buildings, but it's the only way we'll get the results we need.
Goals 2000 takes on these tough challenges. It promotes a rational system of education that will give us what successful school systems in our competitor nations already have: clear and high standards for what students should know and be able to do, assessments based on those standards and, eventually, clear consequences for achievement so students understand that what they do in school counts. Federal funding will encourage and help states to set up their own voluntary standards and assessments. And since the success of a standards-driven system depends on how well individual schools help students meet the standards, most of the federal funds will go to build the capacity of local school districts.
There was a lot of pressure -- from the right and the left -- to rewrite the bill in ways that would have made it worthless or even dangerous. But the Presidents resisted. No bill was better than more of the same old thing, he said. Goals 2000 has already passed the House in a form that is close to the President's intentions, and it now appears likely that the Senate version will be even better.
The School-to-Work Opportunities Act, a second piece of President Clinton's education package, tackles another difficult issue that gimmick-loving reformers ignore. Although this country devotes lots of resources to college-bound kids, we do little for the 50 percent of youngsters who go from high school into the job market. As a result, many bounce around for years from one dead-end job to another. This bill will draw on the few existing school-to-work programs that are successful in order to develop a national system. It also recognizes the need for strong academic preparation for youngsters who plan to go from high school to work. This kind of background is essential if young people are to qualify themselves for new and demanding jobs or seek a college education later on. That the bill reflects this link between education and work in the late 20th century is a product of the extraordinary cooperation between Secretary of Education Riley and Secretary of Labor Reich.
Vouchers, charter schools, for-profit management schemes are all quick fixes that won't fix anything. Goals 2000 involves time and patience to develop standards and curricula and assessments. Yet once we have the basic stuff of teaching, learning and achievements in place, we will have something solid. It isn't a headline grabber but it works.