THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, January 11, 1995 TAG: 9501110437
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PHILIP WALZER AND JON GLASS, STAFF WRITERS
LENGTH: Medium: 93 lines
Colleges and public schools will be twisting arms and calling in political chits to prevent millions of dollars in cuts to programs covering everything from dropout prevention to agriculture research.
Gov. George F. Allen, meanwhile, will be attempting to engineer fundamental changes in public education, ranging from charter schools to permanent tuition caps.
It's going to be a busy General Assembly session for education.
Topping Hampton Roads' agenda is the proposed Norfolk campus of Tidewater Community College, which Allen wants to drop.
The campus, already approved by the state, is slated to open in 1996. But the Allen administration says it's unnecessary in an area with three other community college campuses and two state-supported universities. Local officials, however, say the school will increase job opportunities for thousands of residents and spruce up downtown Norfolk.
``It really has become a very integral part of the work we're trying to accomplish in terms of educating and employing folks as well as developing the city economically,'' Norfolk Mayor Paul D. Fraim said.
Allen's push for alternative public ``charter'' schools is part of the governor's efforts to give parents and communities more of a say in how public schools are run.
Nearly a dozen states have approved charter school laws, and Virginia is among 14 others exploring the possibility. Under the concept, parents, teachers or individuals receive state charters to operate experimental schools free of most local and state regulations, as long as they achieve certain results.
State Sen. Elliot S. Schewel, D-Lynchburg, and Del. Paul J. Councill Jr., D-Franklin, the respective chairmen of the Senate and House education committees, said they view the charter school debate as the most important education issue of this session.
Allen is asking for $500,000 for start-up costs for charter schools. Whether he can generate support needed to pass a bill is uncertain. ``It's going to be a very close call,'' Councill said.
Schewel said he may introduce legislation to delay action on charter schools this session, instead creating a study committee to examine the issue and report to the 1996 General Assembly.
Allen also proposes to eliminate the state mandate for family life education and make it a local option requiring parental permission for children to participate. That plan is expected to produce fierce debate.
The General Assembly voted in 1988 to require schools to offer family life classes. Allen's effort to overturn the mandate is supported by parents who believe that sex education and values taught in family life are better left to parents.
The governor's critics say that school, in the age of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, is the only place many children would get accurate information. Currently, parents who don't want their children to participate can ``opt out'' of the program.
Allen's budget calls for $41 million in cuts to colleges. But there is a silver lining for parents and college students, who have faced a 40 percent increase in tuition since 1990. The governor wants to require colleges to draw up tuition contracts, promising not to raise annual costs beyond the rate of inflation.
Among state colleges, Virginia Tech will be lobbying for the most money - $12.2 million that Allen has proposed cutting from Tech's cooperative extension service and agriculture and forestry research.
Locally, Norfolk State University wants back about $2 million - $1.2 million that Allen wants to slash because NSU didn't submit an acceptable restructuring plan by November and $700,000 he wants to take from its graduate programs in social work and chemical physics. Christopher Newport University will seek to get back $700,000 - its restructuring penalty.
Old Dominion University is asking the legislature to restore a $3.6 million cut for 1995-96 that was approved last year. It also seeks an additional $1.6 million to expand its Teletechnet program, which beams courses across the state, to six more sites.
Eastern Virginia Medical School also faces a $700,000 cut. Donald Combs, vice president for planning at EVMS, said the school hopes to offset some of that by winning a grant for a program to encourage students to go into general practice.
The agency that oversees colleges, the State Council of Higher Education, also stands to lose $1.4 million - or nearly half its budget.
``Since Dec. 19, when the governor submitted his recommendations, there's quite a few more supplicants and claimants,'' ODU's president, James V. Koch, said Tuesday. ``I think the competition for funds will be very strenuous.''
All public school districts in Hampton Roads are threatened with losses. Norfolk and Virginia Beach, which face the most severe cuts, could lose more than $1 million each in state money used for items such as dropout prevention, in-school health programs to building maintenance.
``I think we will have a very good chance of getting some of this money back in,'' Councill said. MEMO: Staff writer Marie Joyce contributed to this story. by CNB