REFORMS IN EDUCATION MUST BE FORGOTTEN

Sikeston's school district has taken aim at a 200-day school year. In Cape Girardeau, school officials offered reasonable responses on why this schedule won't come to pass here in the foreseeable future. This specific question has been asked and answered. Fine. However, at some point in the aftermath of Proposition B's defeat, we must resume thoughts of school reform. To its credit, Sikeston, for whatever advantages it takes into this endeavor, is looking forward.

At this time a year ago, Proposition B supporters were making the rounds in Missouri touting a list of academic reforms that would accompany that measure. The defeat of the proposition last November silenced much of the talk of reform, even though the need is no less apparent. Unfortunately, money is not so plentiful in state government that all the reforms can immediately be implemented. What can proceed and what must proceed is a growing awareness of the value of these changes and the need for changing the paradigms of our educational system in favor of forward-looking models.

Proposition B didn't meet such a grim fate because its reform measures were rejected. In fact, there is a sense that Americans, weary of forbidding reports of other nations' school advances, are ready for something more than a timid approach. The current state mandate is a 174-day school year. Is the 200-day school year a cure-all? No. But it seems inarguable that if teachers have more contact time with students (up to a year and a half more over the course of a kindergarten through 12th grade 200-day schedule), and if students have shorter summer vacations, in which some learning inevitably dissipates, that education would be enhanced.

One area that continues to be a lingering subject of reform, at least in rhetoric if not action, is parental choice. Under Proposition B, school districts would have been required to allow parents to choose the public school their children would attend. Taking this a step further, the parents should be allowed vouchers or some form of rebate when choosing to enroll their children in non-public schools. This is simply an idea whose time has come. Other reforms quashed in the Proposition B defeat were those of assuring graduates of a basic level of academic skills, reports cards on schools to strengthen accountability and alternative teacher certification to allow accomplished professionals to convert their life experience into classroom competence.

Most importantly, Missouri needs to arrive at an equitable funding formula that presents all school districts in the state with an incentive to stretch themselves to greater things. Unfortunately, policy makers and those who would have a logical grasp for this sort of disbursement are apparently going to leave it to the courts to decide.

We recognize that Proposition B was a measure with a flaw: a tax plan offered at a time of high tax disfavor. But the bill was not without its merits, among them some impressive reforms. We dislike so much silence on something that is so desperately needed.