Education: Word of Mouth In America - Law-makers with sex on their minds find time for teaching

EDUCATION SCORED impressive gains in the US congressional session just completed, a session where there was little progress made on other fronts because of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Law-makers approved more than $1bn for 100,000 new teachers, $300m to improve teacher training and $260m for programmes to reduce illiteracy (recent tests found that 40 per cent of American eight year-olds do not read at a basic level). In all, more than $14bn was approved over the next five years in direct support of education. Higher education fared even better. Congress lowered the interest rate on loans for college and increased the amounts available for grants and the limits on money that can be earned toward their tuition by students in work-study programmes. Nearly 9 million students receive financial assistance through these programmes, totalling $49 billion a year.

On the other hand, a White House proposal to spend more than $3bn building 5,000 new schools and renovating antiquated classrooms failed at a time when there is a $17bn backlog in construction and repairs in New York City alone. Nationwide, the cost of overdue construction and repairs is estimated to be at least $112 billion,according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Still, education fared better than most other issues. Proposed tax cuts, health care and political campaign reforms, wage laws and tobacco controls, they all fell before the all-consuming White House sex scandal.

School for scandal

MS LEWINSKY has had one unlikely impact on the nation's education system: she has made some university professors famous. Many have been happy to discuss the Lewinsky affair on television and in print.

Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, for example, was on television 39 times from January to mid-August discussing the scandal.

While this has made Professor Turley eminently recognisable, it has infuriated students who feel that he is not paying enough attention to them. Two of these students sought to prove this point by leaving messages with Professor Turley 13 minutes apart, one ostensibly from a producer at a national television newscast and another from a student. The student never received a response. But Professor Turley returned the call from the "producer" in 32 minutes.

Rock the bloat

IN HIGHER education, a chief topic of complaint is tenure, the system by which faculties are granted lifetime job security after successfully completing a probationary period. Parents and politicians are already outraged by the escalating costs of colleges and universities - tuition rose another 4 per cent this fall, double the rate of inflation for the 14th successive year, the College Board reported - and suspicious of inefficiency and bloat. At a briefing on the topic, convened by Harvard University, some sounded warnings that if universities and colleges themselves don't start reforming tenure, changes in the system may be imposed from the outside. "If this change can't be accomplished by the institutions, I think it's going to be made by the legislatures and the public," said Colorado State Senator Ken Arnold.

Picking up the peace

THE US government says violence in American schools is down, despite a series of schoolyard shootings last year that left 16 people dead.

No crime was reported by 43 percent of schools, while 90 per cent reported no serious crime. Fewer students were caught trying to bring weapons to school, though the percentage of schools reporting that they have gangs has almost doubled since 1990.

Still, a Harvard poll of 1,600 high school students suggests there is an undercurrent of teenage rage behind those violent incidents that do occur. One-third of the youths agreed with the statement: "When I am really angry, there is no way I can control myself."

"These kids are volcanoes waiting to erupt," said Jay Winsten, the director of Harvard's Center for Health Communication.

Gun law

MEANWHILE, AS the smoke clears from last year's fatal shootings, communities are grappling with the question of what to do with kids who kill. The answer differs dramatically from one state to another.

Andrew Carneal, a 15-year-old who opened fire on a school prayer circle in Paducah, Kentucky, killing three pupils, pleaded guilty but mentally ill and will be freed in 25 years. Kip Kinkel, now 16, who allegedly killed his parents and two students at his school in Springfield, Oregon, could face life in prison but not the death penalty because of his age. Attorneys for Andrew Wurst, 14, accused of killing a teacher at a school dance in Erie, Pennsylvania, say Wurst is unfit to stand trial because he is mentally ill and should be put in a psychiatric hospital. The judge is trying to decide if he will be charged as a juvenile, and so eligible to be released at 21 if convicted, or as an adult, and thus face life in prison with no chance of parole.

In the most controversial ruling, two boys, now 12 and 14, convicted of killing four girls and a teacher at their school in Jonesboro, Arkansas, will be released when they turn 18 - and given their guns back- prompting Arkansas legislators to propose a law under which children as young as 10 could be imprisoned for as long as 40 years for murder. Other states are also considering changes to their laws.

And finally...

AMERICAN STUDENTS are more familiar with the The Three Stooges than the three branches of government, according to a survey by the National Constitution Center (NCC), which hopes to open a museum in Philadelphia about the constitution. Nearly 60 per cent of teenagers named Moe, Larry and Curly, while barely 40 per cent identified the legislative, executive and judicial branches, the NCC reported.