By Rene Sanchez
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 6, 1997; Page A08

The $51 billion "crusade" that President Clinton is launching to revitalize American education, a blur of initiatives he is casting as the top priority of his second term, has the hearts of many educators racing – with great hope, and new worries.

Yesterday, school officials nationwide said they were dazzled by the extraordinary emphasis that Clinton put on improving education in his State of the Union address. His call for tougher academic standards, an army of reading tutors, tax breaks for college tuition, and heaps of aid for school repairs and classroom technology is precisely the kind of support many educators have been longing for from Washington.

But key parts of Clinton's plan could give the federal government a role in education that states, which revere the distinctly American tradition of controlling schools locally, tend to treat suspiciously. Even the pace at which Clinton is seeking to accomplish his agenda poses risks of disappointment. School reform is notoriously slow, and it often falls short of the great expectations parents and educators have.

"This kind of presidential emphasis on education is really stunning, magnificent," said Christopher Cross, the president of the Council for Basic Education, a national group that promotes high classroom standards. "But he's setting a very ambitious schedule, and it's a heck of a lot to try to bite off all at once."

Clinton is unveiling his plan at a time of growing national anxiety about education. There have been several important signs of progress in schools this decade – student scores in math and science are beginning to rise, for example. But fears of college costs are soaring, and an array of recent reports suggest that many schools are not demanding enough of students and teachers, particularly in a vital subject such as reading.

Many educators also contend that the momentum to improve schools sparked by the landmark 1983 report "A Nation at Risk," or by the grand goals the nation's governors proclaimed at a historic summit on education at the start of the decade, is long gone.

Reviving it will not be easy. The first hurdle facing Clinton's 10-point plan is a Republican-led Congress that only a year ago talked of abolishing the Education Department and sacrificing some federal college aid programs for the larger goal of balancing the budget. Chastened now by public opinion polls showing that most voters loathe both ideas, Republican leaders say they are eager to cooperate with Clinton on the arduous task of improving schools. But some are quite skeptical of some of his initiatives.

There are doubts, for example, that giving families a $10,000 tax deduction for college tuition, or giving students $1,500 tax credits – Clinton calls them Hope Scholarships – for two years of college, so long as they maintain a "B" average, will improve access to higher education as much as the president is promising. Some lawmakers, along with some economists and college officials, say Clinton's package slights needy students who face the greatest obstacles to college.

Republican leaders in Congress also say the price tag of the tax breaks – more than $36 billion – is too steep. But Clinton contends it is a reasonable price to help many middle-class families who are struggling to afford college and are ever more burdened by tuition loans. The nation's student loan volume, now in excess of $24 billion, has never been higher.

Others are already asking tough questions about Clinton's proposal for new federal spending to recruit and train thousands of volunteers who would help students nationwide learn how to read on their own by the time they reach the fourth grade. Rep. William F. Goodling (R-Pa.), chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, said yesterday that the federal government already has 32 literacy programs.

"This is a case where more may not be better," Goodling said.

But perhaps the biggest task facing Clinton will be getting states to heed his call for having national standards in core academic subjects, and voluntary tests – prepared by the federal government – to assess whether most students are meeting them. Clinton said that by spring 1999 he wants every school in the country to give fourth-graders a reading test and eighth-graders a math test devised by the Education Department.

Standards are one of the most contentious issues in education. Many states are busy trying to create, or revamp, them. Parents and business leaders are demanding it, and national leaders in many academic subjects have tried, with mixed success, to develop them. But what schools teach in a certain subject or grade level still varies widely among states and counties. Virtually every attempt to create national standards has been ignored or diluted, leaving the United States as one of the only industrialized nations in the world without specific national requirements for what students should know.

Clinton contends that having voluntary national tests would help students and teachers know what to strive for in class, and would not create more federal intrusion into schools. But a program that he introduced during his first term to give states money to improve their academic standards, called Goals 2000, also had few federal strings attached and nevertheless provoked great controversy in some states and in Congress. Some Republican lawmakers tried several times to kill it.

Many educators say national academic standards are long overdue, and argue that Clinton's plan gives the federal government a limited, appropriate role in trying to get schools to use them. "The president's agenda uses federal initiatives to support state and local responsibilities," said Gordon Ambach, executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers. "It rightly emphasizes the need for challenging standards."

Even if Clinton fulfills only parts of his education agenda, educators say that the nation's schools and students still stand to benefit. The National Education Association, the nation's largest teachers union, called Clinton's plan "extraordinary." Ambach called Tuesday's address the strongest on education by a president this century.

"There are obviously a number of debates ahead," said Cross of the Council for Basic Education. "But the bottom line is terrific."