Calling for An

By DAN GOODGAME

The power to summon others and the ability to command attention rank high among the tools of any leader. Last week George Bush wielded both of them artfully in pursuing his long-promised bid to become "the education President." During two crisply photogenic autumn days at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, he convened his Cabinet and the nation's Governors for a historic summit that raised hopes of new national leadership, if not new federal funds, to address the critical problems facing American public education.

While the meeting produced more talk than action, its high-powered guest list and coverage by some 700 journalists, including anchors of ABC and CNN national networks, lent it a tone of drama and urgency. Not since Franklin Roosevelt's day had a President called the nation's Governors together. Topping F.D.R.'s agenda was a search for ways to cope with the Depression. Bush sought to deal with a crisis whose long-range results could prove no less catastrophic for American power and prosperity: the failure of U.S. schools to teach the basic skills needed to keep Americans productive and competitive.

Faced with that daunting challenge, Bush and the Governors were able to reach an unprecedented agreement to set national performance standards and goals for the schools and to measure each state's progress. Only a few years ago, such a step would have provoked loud complaints against federal encroachment on the traditional autonomy of states and local school districts. Now, however, the idea of national standards is supported by solid majorities in opinion polls. "Bold action is what we need," Bush told the Governors. "The American people are ready for radical reforms." Despite the high- flown rhetoric, however, the summit's achievements were not so much radical as merely encouraging.

Bush won some respect for attaching his prestige to the knotty education issue, but many Governors are still waiting to see whether the President will make the tough choices necessary to establish education as a genuine priority. Some wonder, for example, why he retains the so far ineffectual Lauro Cavazos as Education Secretary. They also wonder why a self-proclaimed education President would propose, in effect, to cut federal education spending $400 million, adjusted for inflation.

Most important, on a day when Congress voted to fulfill Bush's campaign promise to reduce capital-gains taxes for the wealthy, Governors of both parties pressed for information on when Bush would redeem another campaign pledge: to fund fully the Head Start program for needy preschoolers. Head Start has proved cost-effective in preparing disadvantaged students for school, but can now accommodate only about 1 in 5 of those eligible. As the summit closed, White House chief of staff John Sununu noted that "the Governors succeeded quite well in convincing the President of the value of preschool and early-childhood programs." Bush conceded "the need for more federal support for the prekindergarten education process."

The prospects for a substantial increase in federal education funding were dim, however. For weeks, Bush and his aides had rejected the notion that an education President should spend more on education. A senior White House official pointed out that federal funds account for only about 7% of total spending on education, and argued that much of the money is spent so inefficiently that "we could eliminate most of it and nobody would notice." Such arguments moved New York Governor Mario Cuomo, a liberal Democrat, to retort that waste and inefficiency never prevented the Administration from spending on defense.

Although most Governors agreed that more federal spending on schools is not the answer to their problems, they did ask that Bush help them hack through the thicket of regulations that accompany existing federal education grants. Bush agreed, in the words of Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton, to "swap red tape for results" in disbursing federal money. Those funds now come encumbered by rules that, for example, prevent night classes of adults from using computers bought for day classes of handicapped students.

The Governors, in turn, pledged to promote two of Bush's favorite nostrums: freedom for parents to choose which public schools their children attend, and "alternative certification" for career switchers who move into teaching. Bush and the Governors also agreed on the need for school "restructuring," which generally means letting individual schools be run by teachers, principals and parents rather than by bureaucrats in district headquarters or state capitals.

One of the most provocative reform ideas came from drug czar William Bennett, the former Education Secretary, who bluntly described much of what he heard at the summit as "pap -- and stuff that rhymes with pap." Bennett noted, for example, that "everybody seems to like national performance goals, but the question is . . . What happens if we don't reach them?" He suggested that "if we're not able in five years to get our schools back up to where they were in 1963, after spending 40% more, then maybe we should just . . . give people their money back and let them educate themselves or start their own schools. That would be one radical way to have accountability." Irritated White House officials scrambled to dissociate themselves from Bennett's impolitic outburst. But if the President and the Governors fail to show concrete results in this latest round of school reform, perhaps parents will be ready to take Bennett up on his offer.