DATE: Friday, September, 12, 1997           TAG: 9709080134

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Education 

SOURCE: Philip Walzer

LENGTH: 42 lines

EYES AND EARS

RICHMOND

That's entertainment . . . Count on former state Sen. Hunter B. Andrews to liven up any government meeting.

Andrews is vice chairman of the legislative Commission on the Future of Public Education. When the commission met two weeks ago with the state Board of Education to air philosophical differences, Andrews got an early laugh during the opening introductions.

Andrews, a crusty, domineering politician who ruled the Senate Finance Committee, introduced himself as a ``citizen from Hampton.''

But Andrews didn't always have folks laughing. He complained that too many members of the education board were chiming in to answer legislative questions.

And he forbade Michelle Easton, president of the Board of Education, from calling on the state Department of Education's statistics chief, Cameron Harris, to answer a testing question.

``This is a meeting of the commission and the Board of Education,'' he said. Staff members could not speak.

State board member John W. Russell of Fairfax got in the last word with Andrews.

Andrews noted at one point that both he and Russell, a former state senator, went down to electoral defeat. ``Are we even?'' Andrews asked.

Russell responded: ``I don't think we've ever been even in your eyes.''

RICHMOND

Wrong team...At the state Board of Education meeting last week, Gov. George F. Allen recalled talking to a Richmond grade-schooler about the state's tougher new standards.

There was one problem.

``He, unfortunately, had a Dallas Cowboys T-shirt on,'' said Allen, son of the former Washington Redskins coach.

``That is not part of our Standards of Learning.''

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