Bush And Gore Get Schooled

In a head-to-head campaign that is less than two weeks old, Bush and Gore are already wrestling over the title of Education Candidate.

Standing in a high school that confronted the challenge of racial segregation more than 40 years ago, George W. Bush urged Friday for a national commitment to battle "a tremendous gap of achievement between rich and poor, between white and minority."

It was a back-to-school day, too, for his presidential rival, Vice President Al Gore, who taught a class, talked with teachers, students and bus drivers, and lined up for cafeteria pizza at a middle school in Michigan.

Bush visited Little Rock's Central High School, announcing that four decades after a racial standoff was resolved by federal intervention, "we have a great challenge of our own." The Texas governor said, "Access is universal but excellence is not. All can enter our schools but unfortunately not all are learning."

"There is a tremendous gap of achievement between rich and poor, between white and minority," he said. "Whatever the cause, the effect is discrimination."

Central High was the scene of a national standoff in September 1957, when Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus ordered the National Guard to prevent nine black students from entering the building under a desegregation plan. President Eisenhower responded by sending in an Army detachment to open up the school.

"Forty-three years ago, the right of nine students to a good and equal education was something worth fighting for, worth the full attention of the president of the United States, worth the full exercise of his power," Bush said.

"Public education and the opportunity it creates are still worth fighting for, still worth the full attention of a president."

But his lofty rhetoric may have backfired among educators. Central High School Principal Rudolph Howard said Bush's plans would do little that was tangible to help students, teachers or parents.

According to the Washington Post, Howard derided Bush's proposals as "those pie-in-the-sky, hopeful kinds of things that we have existed on for years and years. All these catch phrases are horses that are not going to trot anymore," Howard told reporters. "The federal government can be more than a cheerleader. I want something very tangible in place that would be encouraging for those of us who have to carry the ball. I want to see somebody commit to the bottom line."

Meanwhile, Gore was spending the day at L'Anse Creuse Middle School North in Macomb, Mich., where he forsook rhetoric in favor of taking part in the daily rituals of school.

"I learned in my work setting up the reinventing government program that the most important insights and lessons by far come from the people who are actually doing the hands-on work," Gore said.

Like any other new guy, Gore immediately wanted to know from the cafeteria ladies tis morning, "Any chance you'll have pizza today?" Unlike any of the other students or teachers, Gore pulled up in a motorcade.

In Sally Hannert's sixth-grade drama class, Gore gamely participated in an improvisational exercise where, speaking only in gibberish, he played the part of a father discussing a bad report card with his daughter. And in a computer lab he watched Tommy Spanski, 11, measuring angles with a plastic protractor and logging his results onto the computer.

"Huh, that's pretty cool," Gore said.

"Kind of weird" to have Gore in class, the boy said.

School Days is what the Gore camp has dubbed the Democrat's latest means of reaching out to voters in novel, attention-getting ways.

The vice president said this week that in order to improve schools, "We need to listen to the people where the rubber meets the road - the teachers and the principals and the parents - and give them the help by making it a national priority."

Using money from the projected budget surplus, Gore has proposed spending $115 billion over 10 years to continue President Clinton's program aimed at reducing class size by providing more money to hire teachers. So far, about 30,000 have been hired, with a goal of 100,000.

Bush has proposed spending $5.5 billion over five years, but the cornerstone of his plan is not spending but accountability through locally designed and administered tests.

Besides the plan to take federal money away from poorly performing schools, the governor has proposed letting families put $5,000 per year, per student into tax-free education savings accounts for K-12 school expenses. Currently the limit is $500 per year for college expenses.