DATE: Sunday, October 26, 1997              TAG: 9710240796

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A13  EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: REAL STORIES

FOCUS: ELECTION '97

SOURCE: BY NANCY YOUNG, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   50 lines

FATHER WANTS STATE TO HELP OFFSET COST OF PRIVATE SCHOOL

Brian Kirwin's daughter will turn 1 year old today, making her ready for school at the close of the next governor's term.

By that time, Kirwin hopes that the governor will have made it financially possible for him to send her to a private school by offering vouchers.

``Even if it was a voucher for half the tuition, I'll pay the other half,'' said Kirwin, 28, a planning analyst from Virginia Beach.

In fact, he'd like that now for his son, a fourth-grader whom he fears is not always getting an education that challenges him. Whatever they're teaching in school, Kirwin said, he and his wife Cathleen try to move their son ahead - something he's said hasn't always gone over well with teachers.

``I had one teacher specifically call me up and say, `Stop teaching ahead of the class,' '' said Kirwin. ``I thought teachers begged for involved parents.''

Kirwin said giving parents their choice of schools would improve the quality of both public and private schools because the schools would be forced to compete for students. The best schools would get the most students, he said, and consequently the most money. He said too many discussions about school choice degenerate into doomsday scenarios in which the public schools are destroyed.

Kirwin is the product of a private school in Philadelphia, and he said his parents had much more straight-forward dealings with his school because the school had more of a ``customer service mentality,'' something he sees lacking in the public schools.

``There's this attitude that, `We're the educators and we know what's best' as soon as you get there. With that attitude, parents vanish; the teachers wonder why there's no parent involvement,'' Kirwin said. ``It's really a vicious cycle.''

Kirwin would like to see a lot of other things in the schools: classes that would better prepare students for the job market, more proficient use of technology, tests that show students know how to apply what they're learning. But Kirwin said school choice should be tackled first.

``That would be the lightning rod,'' he said. ``That would be the kick-start to everything I'm talking about.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo

STAFF/The Virginian-Pilot

BRIAN KIRWIN, 28

Kerwin says public schools lack the ``customer service mentality''

found in private schools and are not as challenging to students.

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