SOME ADVICE FOR BUSH DURING TUESDAY'S OPENING DEBATE

It's this Tuesday night at the presidential debate. Vice President Al Gore has just turned to Texas Gov. George W. Bush and attacked him for this or that deficiency on education -- say, opposing his universal preschool scheme, or not spending enough, or something. Millions of us would love to see Bush turn toward his opponent, the captive of the teachers unions, and say something like this:

"Mr. Vice President, with all due respect, you have some nerve lecturing me on education. Reforms we put in place the last five years have Texas' minority schoolchildren's test scores rising the fastest of any state's in the nation. Just exactly what kind of real accomplishment can you point to not some chatter about more money or smaller class sizes that compares with that?

"And while we're at it, Mr. Vice President, you've attacked me all over this country for advocating a parent's right to choose any school. Your own running mate spent years agreeing with us on this issue before he joined you and you did a lobotomy on him this summer.

"But what is wrong with empowering parents to choose the school they feel is right for their children? Don't most parents know best what is good for their children? Or is that only for elite senators and big shots? And why do you oppose giving to poor parents, and to strapped middle-class parents, the same choice your parents made for you and you and Tipper made for all four of your children: Sending them to an elite private school? Why, exactly, Mr. Vice President, is the choice right for you and wrong for all other parents?

"Of course, Mr. Vice President, you also made an eloquent statement on this just a month or so back. Here's what you said: If I were the parent of a child in a failing inner-city school, I might want a voucher too.'

"What about it, Mr. Vice President? Isn't this a moral issue as important as any other? These are minority kids whom government has trapped in failing, inner-city schools. They aren't going to get another chance at education. Aren't their futures as important as those of your own children? Isn't this the greatest civil-rights issue of our time?"

Gov. Bush might then cite "A Father's Choice" from Wednesday's Wall Street Journal:

"Al Davis of New Orleans was unhappy with his daughter's public-school education, so he did what other middle- and upper-income Americans commonly do in similar circumstances. He removed her from that environment and enrolled her in a private school. 'That's what she needs right now,' Mr. Davis told the Times-Piucayune. 'People do what's best for their kids. Choice is good.' Why was the local paper interested in the dog-bites-man story? Because Al Davis happens to be superintendent of the New Orleans public school system.

"Polls consistently show that high percentages of parents in the lower income brackets also want the freedom to remove their children from unsatisfactory learning environments in public schools, just as Mr. Davis did, but lack his means. Mr. Davis is now in the company of Al Gore and numerous lawmakers and educators who opt out of failing schools and send their own children to private institutions, while simultaneously working to deny poor children the same opportunity. Why isn't choice good for everyone?"

~Peter Kinder is assistant to the president of Rust Communications and a state senator from Cape Girardeau.