Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, October 22, 1993 TAG: 9310220265
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
\ Not a speech goes by that Mary Sue Terry doesn't remind listeners that she's "the daughter of schoolteachers." To hear her talk, growing up in a family of educators was a more formative experience than her 16 years in public office as a state legislator and attorney general.
Thursday, the Democratic candidate for governor got a chance to follow in her parents' footsteps, giving a brief lesson on the governorship to about 60 pupils at Roanoke's Forest Park elementary school.
Not that they needed much teaching.
When Terry asked the pupils if they knew what a governor does, she got a flurry of responses.
"Help stop drugs."
"Education for everyone."
"Help make this a better place for schools."
"Keep drugs and guns out of schools."
"Help others get jobs."
Obviously, these kids had gotten her message.
Now, Terry is hoping voters will get her message, as well - and as the campaign enters the final two weeks, it's a simple one: Republican George Allen is a risky choice; she's the safe bet.
The specifics vary from day to day. Earlier this week, Terry was warning that Allen had made more promises than he could afford to keep.
Thursday, in stops at schools in Roanoke and Bristol, Terry renewed her charge that Allen's willingness to allow localities to experiment with vouchers for private schools would "destroy our public schools."
"George Allen and Pat Robertson and [running mate] Mike Farris and the Radical Right would take our tax dollars to build and fund their private academies," Terry said.
That's also the message Terry will be pushing today, as she sets off on a train trip from Roanoke to Alexandria that she's billing as a "Save Our Schools Whistlestop Tour."
At the heart of the school debate is Allen's proposal for the state to fund "demonstration projects" in school reform around the state. To qualify for funds, the locality - either the school board or the governing body - would need to endorse the project, and the state would have to certify that the reform would enhance academic standards.
Under Allen's plan, it would be up to the locality to decide what kind of reform it wanted to implement. If the locality wanted to experiment with tax-funded "vouchers" that parents could cash in at private schools, Allen says he might allow it.
He's also said he'd support tax credit for home schools.
As far as school-choice plans go, that's pretty mild, says Virginia Commonwealth University political analyst Bob Holsworth. "The position itself, the notion of pilot programs, would not, to most dispassionate observers, be all that radical."
For Terry to say Allen's plan would "destroy" public schools "is a bit of a reach," Holsworth says, "but they do have legitimate differences about how to reform the schools" - one difference being that Allen is willing to see some tax dollars go to promoting private schools.
That's enough for Terry. "Why is George Allen even opening the door to vouchers?" she asked in Roanoke. "We've never had a governor who was willing to do that. It shows his ties to the Radical Right." To even open the door to vouchers, she said, "puts the camel's nose under the tent."
"There's nothing innocuous about interjecting into serious public debate talk about vouchers and taking public tax dollars into private schools," she said. "Public schools are part of the state's bedrock, and even local options for vouchers can undermine the whole concept."
The result, Terry warned, would be that financially stressed school systems in rural and inner-city Virginia would wind up with even less money than they have now. By contrast, she's proposed to increase funding for such school systems by $100 million to hire more teachers to reduce class sizes.
Terry charges that Allen ignores the inequities in school funding around the state; Allen contends that Terry's plan focuses too much on spending, while his emphasizes raising academic standards.
To counter charges he doesn't care about public schools, Allen often points out that his daughter attends public school in Albemarle County.
An Allen spokesman charged Terry is "distorting" the Republicans' position. "She's resorting to shrill negative attacks and distortions and even lies to try to save her failing campaign," said Allen spokesman Jay Timmons.
Terry has pushed the voucher issue statewide, but she's really emphasized it during recent stops in Western Virginia. Emory & Henry College political analyst Tom Morris suggests that's because fears about underfunded public schools may be more prevalent here than in the state's affluent suburbs.
"If, in fact, the public were to respond to fears about underfunding of public education, it would likely play in this part of the state," Morris said, "because it really works in with the inequity issue."
Later in the day, Terry returned to Roanoke and focused on another issue: domestic violence. She spoke at Lee Plaza at a candlelight service in remembrance of victims.
She called attention to the task force on domestic violence she set up when she was attorney general, and the "anti-stalking" law that came out of it.
Keywords:
POLITICS
Memo: ***CORRECTION***