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

DATE: TUESDAY, October 19, 1993                   TAG: 9310190191
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MICHAEL CSOLLANY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

EDUCATOR DEFENDS SCHOOLS' STRENGTHS

While many politicians have been scoring points with voters by criticizing what is wrong with public schools in the United States, one prominent educator told a Virginia Tech audience that what's right may not be getting enough attention.

Teachers are being called on to do more than just teach the basics, said Ernest Boyer, president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and author of several landmark books on education.

Boyer said that they're also being called on to stop drugs, reduce teen pregnancy and provide love and attention often not given in the home. "And if they fail anywhere along the line, we condemn them for not meeting our high expectations," he said.

"Yet I'm convinced most school critics could not survive one week in the classrooms they so vigorously condemn."

Boyer described a city he visited where parks have turned into battlegrounds, where the library branch closed, where churches fled to the suburbs and where the health clinic was nowhere to be seen.

"The only institution that opened its doors every day was good old PS 103," Boyer said.

To say that schools are the institution most at risk is "a disastrous misdiagnosis of the problem."

He cited several trends which would indicate schools are improving - including increased availability of advanced-placement classes, larger minority presences in such classes and high ratings of schools from parents polled.

Boyer said the system of public education itself - one which incorporates 45 million students in 83,000 schools - is something to admire. "All this has been accomplished, not by a Washington directive, but by local citizens committed to the essential dream of a common school for the common good."

Boyer said the national goals for education adopted by President Bush in 1990 and the governors of each state are reason to have hope.

"Now, I'd be absolutely dishonest if I suggested that we have moved aggressively to fulfill that mandate. But the good news, it seems to me, is that it hangs over us like a conscience that cannot be avoided," he said.

Boyer noted that education should not be taken off the hook completely. He said conditions are poor in approximately a third of schools.

He emphasized a continuous "reaffirmation" of education with more attention placed on the earlier years of children's instruction and health.

Boyer's lecture was a part of the tenth annual Excellence in Education Awards Conference at Virginia Tech. He said that creative efforts in the classroom - like those being recognized at the conference - are also what's right with American education.

Several area schools were cited for their innovative approaches:

Fishburn Park Elementary School, for its environmental education program, which incorporates ecological issues and concerns into all subject areas.

Salem High School, for its career communications curriculum.

Montgomery County's Alternative School, for targeting students at risk of dropping out.

by CNB