KINDER'S COMMENTARY: `SCHOOL TO WORK' RAISES QUESTIONS

An official of your state department of elementary and secondary education arrived in town this week, trumpeting the grand new federal program called "School to Work." DESE's Steve Alexander emitted the usual smooth assurances we've come to recognize from DESE spokespersons. Perhaps STW is as good as he and others in Big Education, Big Labor and Big Business say it is. At the sound of such reassuring platitudes, however, this writer is tempted to reach for a concealed weapon.

Reasons abound for refusing to trust bland assurances from DESE spokespersons, on this or any other point. Over the last 18 months I have conclusively documented countless instances of Robert Bartman, the current head of DESE, flat-out lying to the people of Missouri about the true nature of their "reform" agenda. The one time he and I appeared together, last December at the Missouri Farm Bureau annual meeting, the result was a repudiation of the DESE/Bartman agenda so resounding that, had it been a prize fight, they would have stopped it in the first round.

And now, the same folks who've spent the last three years misleading Missourians about what they're doing to our schools are here to tell you that "School to Work" is not only the answer to all that ails our educational system, but also the sure cure for redesigning the work force of the 21st century.

Again, perhaps STW contains many laudable features. But if that be the case, then here's a blunt question for School-to-Workers: Why did Gov. Mel Carnahan institute it here in the Show Me State by executive order , on the hectic final day of the 1995 legislative session when no one was looking, thereby completely bypassing your elected representatives in the House and Senate? What, exactly, is the STW agenda currently on the march?

It isn't necessary to be a full-mooner or a devoted conspiracy theorist to recognize the unpleasant truth: The same Central Planning vision that inspired the Clinton health care scheme is behind STW. So are many of the usual suspects. Hillary Clinton. Robert Reich, of the Clinton labor department. Ira Magaziner, of HillaryCare fame. And on, depressingly, on. Add to this list the aforementioned Dr. Bartman.

A couple of weeks ago, a judge friend informed me of a mutual friend, a newspaper publisher in another part of our state. This publisher had sat on a screening panel to select candidates for the service academies for recommendation to a Member of Congress. Fifteen candidates were interviewed, all with impressive academic, sports and extra-curricular credentials. The publisher's report: When queried, not one candidate for this elite, $250,000 education could name a single famous general of Missouri origin. (Hint: Every child of middling achievement used to be able to name Black Jack Pershing, or Omar Bradley.) Not one could name the major combatant nations of World War II, much less assign them correctly into the Axis or Allied camps. One candidate knew we had fought the Japanese, but was uncertain whether we had been allied with, or fought, the Germans. These are leading students, and clearly, schools can't bear all responsibility: All admitted they do almost no reading outside mandatory school assignments.

Today, though officials of your state department of public education, the very folks who've helped march us into this swamp of ignorance, inform us that the answer for modern education is a turn away from academics and toward "School to Work." Maybe. Then again, maybe not. Parents and taxpayers had better start asking lots and lots of tough questions, before it's too late.