Bradley Plan Seeks More Funding for Poor Schools

UNIVERSITY CITY, Mo. —  Claiming too many children are trapped in failing schools, Bill Bradley said Wednesday that if he’s elected president he would double the federal investment in poor school systems and allow parents to move their children out of schools that fail to meet minimum education standards.

And at the same time Bradley was releasing new education proposals, Al Gore also chose Wednesday to expand on his education plans by announcing new tax-free savings accounts for college tuition.

The education reforms Bradley offered are thematically similar to those of Gore and the Clinton administration, including more federal investment in local programs and greater accountability for teachers and students. But there are important differences in how Bradley would invest the federal money, aiming greater resources to help poor children.

The Bradley plan would double--to $16 billion--the amount spent annually on what is known as Title I, the federal government’s largest education program. He also vowed to leverage that money by requiring participating schools to hire only fully trained teachers.

Bradley also issued a timetable for students to achieve grade-level requirements in math and reading within 10 years. And he sought to pressure failing schools by allowing parents to transfer their children--along with their government subsidies--out of classrooms that do not meet minimum education standards.

“Fifty years ago the Supreme Court ruled that separate but equal education was unconstitutional,” he said of the court’s landmark 1954 ruling against racial segregation in schools. “I’m here today to say we have separate, but unequal, when it comes to education.”

Bradley appears today in California, one of 16 states that will vote on March 7, the next date for voting in the Democratic presidential campaign.

In Los Angeles, Bradley is expected to note that Gore, during his term in Congress, voted against a waiting period for the purchase of guns as well as a bill to strengthen the ban on assault weapons.

Gore aides acknowledged Wednesday that the vice president’s “position changed as the times changed” in the wake of increased youth violence. But they also argued that Bradley is “trying to manufacture a difference that doesn’t exist.”

On Wednesday, Gore appeared at a preschool in Southfield, Mich., where he announced a plan to expand the federal government’s tax-free savings plan for college education.

Current law allows parents and grandparents to contribute up to $500 per year to a tax-free account for college education. Gore’s plan would allow families to contribute as much $35,000 to $40,000. It would also seek to protect parents from inflation by encouraging colleges to lock in tuition fees.

In December, Gore unveiled his own education plan calling for universal preschool for 3- and 4-year-olds and financial incentives for small class sizes, higher student standards and better quality teachers.

Gore criticized Bradley for being a latecomer to the issue of education reform, more than a week after the New Hampshire primary and the Iowa caucuses. But Bradley insisted Wednesday that he had always planned to release additional policy proposals during the month leading up to March 7, when many states go to the polls.

“This is when the country is actually paying attention,” he said. “I feel this is the best time to do it.”

Education experts said Bradley’s plan stands out in the manner it focuses on the achievement gaps between poor and affluent students as well as white and minority children.

That gap has long been one of the most glaring failings of American public education and Bradley attacked Gore and the Clinton administration for not making enough progress in closing that gap.

Indeed, from 1992 to 1998, the achievement gap in reading between black and white fourth-graders grew in 16 states, according to data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress; the test score gap between Latino and white fourth-graders grew in nine states.

“During the past seven years, we’ve heard a lot of talk about education, but too often the rhetoric hasn’t been backed up by action,” said Bradley, speaking to about 500 attentive students in the gym of University City High School in a St. Louis suburb. “When you look at cold, hard results, we still have too much mediocrity, too much failure and too much status quo in our schools.”

The broad outline of Bradley’s proposal, however, differs little from the strategy pursued by Clinton or Gore’s own blueprint. Each in some way recognizes that improved student achievement flows from better teaching, higher standards and more accountability for results, in some cases calling for financial rewards or penalties.

Bruce Reed, President Clinton’s chief domestic policy advisor, said the only big difference between Bradley and the administration is the proposed increase in spending for the Title I program. Even there, Reed said, Clinton this week proposed boosting spending for that program by $400 million.

Both Gore and Bradley would seek to give children a boost during the developmentally crucial early years by pumping billions into programs serving children before they begin kindergarten. But while Gore is calling for a federal guarantee of preschool for every 4-year-old, Bradley would target most of his investment at lower-income children via a $4-billion expansion of the federal Head Start program.

In addition, Bradley would build on Clinton and Gore’s support for the rapidly growing movement to create charter schools, which are campuses that operate outside the orbit of state and local education bureaucracies. Clinton is asking Congress for $175 million for further expansion; Bradley’s plan calls for raising that amount to $500 million.

The Bradley camp said the cost of its proposals adds up to $175.4 million over 10 years, coming from the non-Social Security federal budget surplus. The price tag for Gore’s education proposals is $115 billion over 10 years, but aides said the two figures are not comparable.

In addition to providing more funding for poor schools, Bradley proposed requiring teachers to demonstrate they know the subjects they teach by passing a test or having majored in that subject in college. Teachers in the Title I program would have to meet that standard within four years. While Gore made a similar proposal, it did not include a strict timeline.

Bradley would have part of the increased funding go to training for teachers and financial incentives to attract quality instructors. Gore also envisioned paying higher salaries to teachers willing to teach in low-performing schools.

Schools that failed to bring all students up to grade level in reading and math would receive technical assistance. After two years of assistance, schools that were still underperforming would be subject to “corrective action” by the state, including reconstitution or reopening as charter schools.

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Gold reported from St. Louis and Colvin from Los Angeles. Times staff writer Robert A. Rosenblatt with Gore contributed to this story.