A Pass, with Room for Improvement

By Richard Lacayo

Like the teacher he once was, Secretary of Education William J. Bennett was standing before a group of pupils on their first day of school last week. Bennett had come to Amidon Elementary School, in a low-income district of Washington, D. C., to tell the children about the importance of rules and to ask them what they were learning. In case any of them were wondering about the identity of this man surrounded by reporters and television cameras, their principal, Pauline Hamlette, had a simple answer. Mr. Bennett, she told them, is "America's schoolmaster."

Later the same day, the schoolmaster handed out a report card not only on Amidon but on all the nation's elementary schools. The outspoken Secretary, who favors local initiative over guidance (or dollars) from Washington, released an 83-page rundown of what he believes should be the goals of primary-level curriculum and methods. Called First Lessons: A Report on Elementary Education in America, Bennett's document awarded passing grades in most subjects, but with room for improvement.

Though the report was researched by a 21-member advisory panel, Bennett emphasized that it reflects his personal thinking. He dismissed any notion that elementary schools are menaced by "a rising tide of mediocrity," the much publicized phrase used in A Nation at Risk, a 1983 report on American high schools by a panel appointed by his predecessor, T.H. Bell. Bennett contended that primary schoolchildren are "getting better at basic skills" like reading, writing and arithmetic. But, he maintained, "when asked to begin applying these skills to the acquisition of more complex knowledge, usually around fourth grade, many begin to falter," in part because of growing distractions outside school.

Bennett's antidote is a curriculum that encourages children to solve problems, organize information and think critically. He wants pupils to learn reading through greater exposure to engaging narratives like fairy tales, stories and biographies, instead of fill-in-the-blanks "skill sheets" and workbooks. In arithmetic, he presses for an emphasis on problem solving rather than mechanical computation. Instead of a curriculum stuffed with what he terms "ersatz social science," he argues that schools should return to conventional history, geography and civics. He also backs the idea of lengthening the school calendar, perhaps to year-round.

Many experts welcomed most of Bennett's proposals as sound, if somewhat familiar. "Shoot," said Robert Saigh, director of public information for the Chicago public schools, "we're in step with all of that, and have been for years." Some educators, however, bristled at Bennett's suggestion that professionals from outside the teaching ranks -- business executives or retired military officers, for example -- might sometimes be brought in as grade school principals. Some critics also accused him of taking too rosy a ! view of the state of primary schooling and failing to address such questions as learning difficulties and the special problems of poor children. Complained Marc Tucker, executive director of the Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy: "He fails to reconcile how high schools could be in so much trouble if elementary schools are in pretty good shape."

More serious, perhaps, were charges that Bennett does not acknowledge the heavy cost of improvements in education. He insists that the most serious problems facing elementary schools do not derive from a lack of money but from "a surfeit of confusion, bureaucratic thinking and community apathy." Not so fast, say many educators. Ideas and enthusiasm are half the solution. "But how do we pay for better books, better training, support and salaries?" asked Bill Honig, California state superintendent of public instruction. "That's the other shoe that has to drop." With gaps such as that in mind, Ernest Boyer, president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, summed up, "I'd give the report an incomplete."

With reporting by Patricia Delaney/Washington