GOVERNOR'S VETO EXPLANATION

Pursuant to Article V, Section 6 of the Constitution of Virginia, I am vetoing House Bill 2213.

This bill represents a much larger issue than simply whether a set of school accreditation regulations promulgated by the State Board of Education will take effect in 1997 or 1998. This bill represents another example of the long-running opposition of many in what may accurately be described as the stagnant "Education Establishment" -- and their legislative allies -- to true education reform.

By "true education reform" I mean reform that involves giving our school children the benefit of high academic standards, objective testing to measure progress against those standards, and accountability for results. I distinguish true reform from the many trendy education fads masquerading as "reform" that have poured forth from the so-called education experts over the past thirty years and which have tragically succeeded in dumbing down the curriculum and teaching methods in public schools all across this nation, "reforms" that run the gamut from the "New Math" to the "self-esteem" movement, from mixed ability grouping to what was labeled, in Orwellian fashion, "outcome-based education."

The results have been catastrophic. As the historic report "A Nation at Risk" concluded nearly fifteen years ago, we are turning out graduates who are falling farther and farther behind their international competitors in basic and essential knowledge and skills. While the performance of children in our public schools has been impacted significantly by external factors such as the breakdown of the family and other societal changes, we cannot ignore nor excuse the role played by the so-called education experts in replacing rigorous academic standards in proven teaching methods with mediocrity in intellectual mush.

The many conscientious principals and teachers in our schools are certainly not to blame. I have spoken to many public school teachers who are just as frustrated as parents are at the direction that public school curricula and teaching methods have taken over the past quarter century.

Here in Virginia, over the past three years we have succeeded in blazing a new trail in education reform, one that many States across this nation are now following. We replaced the old mediocre Standards of Learning with new, high academic standards that are now recognized nationally as a model of academic rigor. These standards have been praised from quarters as diverse as the Chairman of IBM Corporation and the late, courageous Albert Shanker, president of the American Federation of Teachers, for their clarity, specificity and content.

Following the development of these new academic standards, we set about to develop objective examinations to measure how well students are progressing in these standards. Finally, we have embarked upon the third phase of our education reforms: raising graduation standards so that a diploma from a Virginia high school will mean something significant, developing a school report card so that teachers, parents, students and taxpayers will know how well their schools are performing, and ultimately, developing accreditation measures to help underperfoming schools, not punish them. All these efforts are aimed at ensuring accountability.

At each step of the way, our reform efforts have been obstructed, attacked and vilified by the same members of the Education Establishment and so-called education experts who gave us the false reforms and failed education experiments mentioned above. This bill represents yet another attempt to delay or obstruct true education reform in Virginia.

But our children are too important for further delay. Their futures are dependent upon receiving a good education in Virginia's public schools and acquiring the essential skills and academic knowledge necessary to be productive citizens and successful competitors in the international economy. Their competitors in Japan, Great Britain, Korea, Germany, France, and India are not waiting. We have waited too long in this State for true education reform. The time for delay has long since passed. Thus I have no choice but to veto this bill, which would clearly harm the futures of Virginia's schoolchildren.