By PHIL CHRISTE 10-01-99

From atop Capitol Hill as a senator, and from his home as a father, U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer declares "the quality of public education in New York and America is the greatest threat to our future."

The senator calls for a comprehensive rebuilding of our K-12 educational system, a "Marshall Plan" that will dedicate huge sums to , make teaching an exalted profession on par" with law and medicine. The faulty logic here is that the poor condition of K- 12 education is the "lack of regard" the public holds for teachers. The senator also unfairly implies that today's teachers are not up to the task.

Rather than a Marshall Plan for teachers, why not a "G.I. Bill for Parents"? Allow parents to direct tax dollars earmarked for education to those institutions that best perform to standards set by those who care the most: the parents. Allow the marketplace to value the financial worth of science, English, gym teachers and guidance counselors alike. It, is the financial worth that is at question here, not the value of a teacher's soul.

A competitive and comparative marketplace with parents directing the dollars will rejuvenate and revitalize a system slowly destroying itself on the self-interest and inertia typical of monopolies. A "G.I. Bill for Parents" will do for K-12 education what the G.I. Bill for World War 11 veterans did for higher education (and continues with today). Without question, America's university system outshines those of other industrial countries in resources and opportunities.

Our federal government gives veterans an unfettered choice with higher education. I don't even hear the "church and state" objections by anyone when veterans chose to spend tuition vouchers in sectarian academies. Diversity and opportunity abound in our universities.

The higher educational institutions compete for personnel, paying what they can. The fact is that college professors need far more training than high school guidance counselors and are paid far less. Teachers hold no less a special place in society than everyone else who works for a living or raises a child at home.

Sen. Schumer's Marshall Plan is really another scheme of the teachers' unions to marshal more tax dollars for their own natural self-interest. However, the most significant funding problem in K- 12 education is not how much we spend, but how we spend it.

By ending the K-12 monopoly on public education, and copying the funding model used in higher education, great human energy and resources will be unlocked to come up with an education that meets the toughest standards of all - those of parents.