Education was the wrong place to cut 30 years ago

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The court granted a stay that lifts a lower court's injunction blocking mass layoffs at the agency, affecting nearly 1,400 employees. (Scripps News)

This State Journal editorial ran on Aug. 2, 1995:

House Speaker Newt Gingrich may have been aghast that 79% of Milwaukee high school juniors flunked a math test required for graduation, but the speaker's own House is on the verge of flunking an even bigger test of educational fortitude.

The House this week is to vote on a bill that includes the virtual elimination of two federal education initiatives that have the potential to correct some of what is wrong in schools in Milwaukee and elsewhere around the nation: the Goals 2000 program to upgrade academic standards and the school-to-work initiative to tie the classroom to the workplace.

Gutting these initiatives would be a big mistake.

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Goals 2000 was written into legislation just last year. President Bill Clinton has proposed to finance it with $700 million in 1996. The elimination of Goals 2000 could cost more than it saves.

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Particularly vexing is the proposed elimination of the National Education Goals Panel. It is supposed to develop national standards to assure that high school graduates are prepared for the workplace of the 21st century.

The school-to-work initiative is a federal followup on Wisconsin's lead in developing links between what is learned in school and what is required for work.

Wisconsin's school-to-work program, built on the apprenticeship programs of Germany, includes on-the-job apprenticeships and job preparation programs at technical colleges. More than half of the state's 427 school districts are to have some sort of school-to-work program by this fall.

Wisconsin's program began with state money, but after the state's success convinced the Clinton administration to develop a federal program, the Wisconsin Legislature counted on federal money to continue the state program. So cutting the federal program will not only deprive other states of Wisconsin's success, it will harm Wisconsin as well.

Congress must stand up for education.

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