School Is In

Making an issue of education

Called on by the teacher, the President recited Shakespeare to a summer-school class in Farragut, Tenn. “It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,” he read from a crib sheet, “signifying nothing.” It was all part of Ronald Reagan’s continuing crusade for stricter standards in the nation’s schools, on a swing through Tennessee and New Mexico last week. In turn, his prospective Democratic rivals for the presidency charged that his speeches were mere sound and fury. “Everywhere he goes he’s now a friend of education,” scoffed Walter Mondale, who claimed Reagan had waited 20 years to support public education publicly. “To paraphrase Shakespeare, he protesteth too much.”

Reagan again argued that merit pay for teachers and a return to basics would do more to remedy the “mediocrity” in the schools than infusions of new federal money. On a visit to Farragut High School in a suburb of Knoxville, he listened approvingly as Tennessee Governor Lamar Alexander outlined his “master teacher” plan. It would offer salaries of up to $27,100 for top teachers, in contrast with a current high of about $17,800. “If we want to achieve excellence, we must reward it,” Reagan said. “It is the American way.” While the President was in Tennessee, the California legislature approved a plan that will, at least for a three-year period, give master teachers as much as $4,000 more a year.

The next day, speaking to the annual convention of the National Congress of Parents and Teachers in Albuquerque, Reagan pointed out that spending for schools soared between 1960 and 1980 while college-board scores slumped. “If a 600% increase could not make America smarter,” he asked, “how much more do we need?” With remarkable detachment, the President at one point portrayed himself as a nonpartisan critic of the Federal Government. “Send a message to Washington, D.C.,” he said. “Tell them education must never become a political football because your children come first.”

Democratic presidential hopefuls, including Mondale and Senators Fritz Hollings of South Carolina and Alan Cranston of California, condemned Reagan’s approach and instead proposed more generous federal support. Cranston offered a plan featuring financial bonuses for improving test scores. Topping the $11 billion program Mondale announced six weeks ago, Hollings unveiled a $14 billion program that would give $5,000-a-year raises to all 2.3 million public school teachers. Hollings also borrowed from the Bard: “Shall the public schools of this land be bound in shallows and in miseries, or shall we take the tide at the flood? This is education’s tide . . . This is education’s hour.” On that point, at least, Republicans and Democrats agree.