AS IN EVERY election, voters must put together a puzzle of issues, then choose the closest fit. This year's Virginia Senate race between Senator and former Governor Chuck Robb and former Governor George Allen is a particularly colorful puzzle giving voters clear choices in every issue except one: education.
TV commercials shooting 30-second allegations back and forth are all over the airways; one suggests that the opponent took millions away from helpless little children, the other shoots back with a rebuttal and an even worse allegation of theft from the poor to feed the rich. But the purpose of this column is not to fight for one candidate or the other's position - they're both misleading.
Both men have had excellent records supporting education during their terms as governor. Unfortunately, that's not the point. The Governor of Virginia and the Senator from Virginia are two totally different jobs. In one, the head executive of a state can propose legislation that will actually have an impact on Virginia schools. In the other, one Senator out of 100 - and perhaps a junior one at that - can propose legislation that goes through a long process and is by definition designed for the nation as a whole - not one state in particular. The impact of the Virginia Senator on Virginia schools is tiny.
This sort of misguided attention can happen easily when two candidates who already have excellent name recognition have to battle for even more support. The public/press land on a popular issue and run with it. In this case, they can run a long way because each candidate has such a long history in education policy. The flurry of advertising starts with each guy wanting to explain not only his excellent record, but also why his opponent's plan from - fill in the year - was totally inappropriate because - fill in a reason.
Education as an issue is especially prone to this sort of embellishment in Virginia because everyone cares. The kids who go to Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Northern Virginia want to stay at the top of the charts, as does the rest of Fairfax County, and the kids in Southwestern Virginia would just like to catch up to their northern cousins. Every part of the state wants a fix of some sort, so the candidates get lots of education questions.
They are, of course, happy to answer with their gubernatorial records, each stellar in its own right. Robb managed to give schools $1 billion without raising taxes in the early 1980s, and according to his Web site was called the "Education Governor." Allen created the Standards of Learning and school performance report cards - a good idea, even if not executed very well. Both claim to have worked to put more and better teachers in the classroom, and to have supported the improvement of facilities. Both were very popular governors.
But that doesn't matter now for anything except nostalgia. Both men tout the classic Federalist ideology on education - Washington should stay out of local schools. Allen even went so far as to refuse federal funding from the Goals 2000 initiative two years in a row, claiming that the Feds had no place in Virginia.
The place of the Federal government - even more than the state government - is in the money. The Senate gets to play with numbers for the nation - they can throw more money at the problem if bills pass, they can even target that money towards specific initiatives, but they can't make policy the way a governor can.
Some of the candidates' initiatives have some chance of completion at the Federal level. For example, Robb wants to continue Goals 2000 funding and raise teachers' salaries so the private sector won't steal all the college graduates. Allen wants to enact a $1000 per child - up to two children - "Opportunity Tax Credit" to help parents pay for school supplies and educational technology. Whether each of these initiatives can garner enough support in the Senate to pass is another question, but at least they are aimed the right way.
Virginia's population should be looking at both of these candidates very carefully, but under the correct magnifying glass. As governor, Allen could pass state-wide Standards of Learning. There's no way such a thing will happen for the entire nation, nor would we want it to right now. Robb directed massive amounts of funding to education as governor; he can't single-handedly redo the federal budget to accomplish the same feat again, and only for Virginia. The candidates are right - education is important, but not only in schools. Education is also essential in picking a candidate.
(Emily Harding's column appears Wednesdays in The Cavalier Daily.)
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