
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, April 28, 1990                   TAG: 9004300216
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A11   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

TESTIMONY

AMONG pressures known to motivate politicians, surely two are a clamoring public and the fear that, by not acting, someone else may gain advantage. Just as surely, governments generally profit by seeking calmer counsel.

Consider the show of force for school funding staged earlier this week at a Roanoke City Council hearing. An estimated 500 Roanokers crowded the Civic Center's exhibit hall and for nearly four hours cheered speakers pleading for more support for schools.

As in the past, one of the arguments raised was the declared need to bring city schools into parity with their Roanoke County counterparts. A three-year effort to catch up with county schools is in the works.

That Roanoke parents and teachers should organize to protect the quality of their schools is commendable. It's what democracy is about, and the council is obliged to hear and be impressed by their demonstration.

That city schools should have parity with county schools (if, in some respects, they don't already) is just as obvious a good. City schools must try harder just to keep up, if only because their student bodies include more disadvantaged youth.

This said, neither of these pressures should distract City Council too much from more relevant concerns.

Parents and teachers form, in this instance, a special interest. Their arguments may prove sound, but if their number and noisiness carry the day, what happens next day? What happens if taxpayers without children in the schools amass crowds to oppose school-funding increases?

As for parity with the county, just because the proposed city-county merger plan calls for it isn't sufficient reason to improve city schools. If parity be the emphasis, what will sustain the campaign for better schools if voters reject consolidation in November? What happens if county schools deteriorate?

Parents' and teachers' entreaties and efforts to keep pace with the county are reeds too thin to buttress support for schools. For its guidance, Roanoke City Council might look elsewhere, to such considerations as this:

More money isn't necessarily synonymous with better schools; top-heavy administration serves few but the administrators. Still, what office tower, what hotel or convention center, what neighborhood renovation or imaginable city project could compete with the quality of schools for influence over Roanoke's destiny?

by CNB