DATE: Tuesday, September 2, 1997            TAG: 9708300024

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B8   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Editorial 
                                            LENGTH:   43 lines

THE LESSON IS CHANGE

It's back to school today for Virginia's 1.1 million schoolchildren, and the promise of nippy weather isn't the only change in the air.

For one thing, tougher high school graduation requirements are on the way. Starting with the freshman class of 1998-99, an extra credit hour will be required in math or science, and soon thereafter, students will have to start passing a series of standardized, end-of-the-course exams to earn a diploma.

Meanwhile, curriculums are getting a face lift. New ``standards of learning'' are requiring students to acquire more specific, fact-based knowledge. New standardized tests in grades 3, 5 and 8 will measure success.

There'll be added pressure, though no requirement as yet, on administrators and teachers to hold back students who fail those exams. Social promotion could be an endangered species.

And it's not only students who'll have to worry about passing grades. Under soon-to-be-adopted regulations from the Board of Education, schools will be accredited on the basis of how their students fare on those tests.

Precise guidelines will be voted on later this week, but the current board recommendation calls for schools in which 30 percent or more of the students fail to lose their good standing. The board is also expected to pave the way for school districts to drop sex education and elementary school guidance counselors, if they wish.

Nor can education be expected to stand in place when a new governor takes office in January. Both Republican James F. Gilmore III and Democrat Donald S. Beyer Jr. say schools are a top priority. Each wants more spending for education, though neither is adequately addressing school construction needs estimated at up to $6 billion. Each encourages more discipline in classrooms.

Such dizzying change doesn't erase age-old concerns. What most students will be thinking about today isn't educational theory or classroom rules and regs. It's whether they'll make the school bus, get to the right class or have lunch with their best friend.

It's good that policy-makers are striving to make things better. But it's also reassuring that some basics of childhood endure, year in and year out, in spite of the latest educational theory or fad.

So welcome back students and teachers and principals and lunchroom monitors. Have a great year.

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