DATE: Sunday, March 9, 1997                 TAG: 9703090146

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A8   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MATTHEW BOWERS, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   72 lines

2-4-6-8, LET'S HAND OUT CASH FOR GRADES THAT RATE, CANDIDATE KATZEN OFFERS

Jay Katzen is running to be Virginia's lieutenant governor, and he's got a proposal: Reward students scoring high on the state's new standardized tests. He's not talking cheery letters on official stationery or fancy, framed certificates, either.

He's talking cash. Moolah. Big bucks. The long green. For the students, their teachers and schools. Oh, and the seasonal equivalent - tax credits - for their parents.

Katzen, a Republican state delegate from Warrenton, is calling it ``The 2-4-6-8 Excellence in Education Plan.''

That's $200 cash for students scoring in the ``excellent'' range on each of the 11th-grade Standards of Learning tests on core subjects - science, math, English, history and social science - that will be administered starting in the spring of 1998. The tests aren't written yet, and no ``excellent'' standards have been set; they will be tested on students this spring, but not counted for or against them.

That's also $400 per high-scoring student for the general budget of the high-scoring students' schools.

That's $600 in tax credits for the parents of the students.

And that's $80 to the classroom budgets of the students' core-subject teachers.

Katzen estimates his proposal would cost $15.2 million a year, based on 10,000 or 17 percent of Virginia's high-school juniors scoring high enough to qualify. He calls it a ``working concept only'' since the tests haven't yet been written or calibrated.

Katzen, a former foreign-service worker, international businessman and campaign volunteer for President Bush, said Friday that he did not pay his three now-grown sons for good grades, but not all children are the same.

``You and I probably were in that category of learning for learning's sake,'' Katzen said. ``But as teachers tell me, children need different stimuli.

``This is another mechanism . . . that brings together teachers and family in that process.''

It's also the latest in a series of state proposals to monetarily reward students for their grades, ratcheting up the old ``dollar-for-an-A'' debate.

Lt. Gov. Donald S. Beyer Jr. won General Assembly approval in the past session for up-to-$2,000 annual scholarships for community college students who maintain B averages in high demand technical programs. Attorney General James S. Gilmore III proposes $2,000-a-year scholarships to students at Virginia's public or private universities, community colleges or trade schools if they keep up B averages and score in the top 20 percent on the state's new 11th-grade standardized test.

The two men are expected to run against each other this year for governor.

Katzen says his plan reflects the fact that education is the state's top priority at the end of the 20th century, and it rewards personal responsibility by students, educators and parents.

That's good enough for Stephen J. Goodman of Suffolk, a sophomore at Nansemond River High School who would be in line for the lucre next year if Katzen's wishes come to pass.

``That's very cool,'' Stephen said. ``Your school gets money, you get money, your parents get money, your teachers get something - that's very good to reward everyone who had a part in it.''

His parents paid him $10 per A on his report card for a year or so before he stopped asking for it, he said - ``I'm not a very monetary person'' - and still reward an older sister who's a high school senior.

``I think it sounds great!'' said Stephen's mother, Mary Goodman.

``I think it's nice to get back to rewarding students for academic achievement and not just . . . need-based - financial need.''

A different opinion was voiced during General Assembly discussion of Beyer's plan by state Sen. Kevin G. Miller, a Republican from Harrisonburg.

He argued against differentiating this way between B- and C-students - some C-students may be working as hard as they can, while some B-students could actually not be working to their potential, so inherent ability and not effort could wind up being rewarded, he said.

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