COUNTYWIDE : Principals Urged to Back Reforms

America’s children face an increasingly competitive world, and educators should help them prepare for it by selecting schools and specialties, a top federal education official advised California principals Wednesday.

John B. Tsu, regional representative of the U.S. Department of Education, addressed more than 1,000 California principals and administrators meeting in Anaheim for the fifth annual conference on excellence in education.

“We need to restructure our schools to give parents the right to pick the best ones and to let students choose the subjects they want to specialize in,” Tsu said before his speech.

Tsu exhorted his audience to back President George Bush’s Education Excellence Act of 1989. The seven-part proposal would create several incentive programs for teachers and students, as well as establishing emergency programs for fighting drugs in schools, among other things.

Another speaker, Henry Gradillas, a schools consultant with the state Department of Education, urged principals to exert their authority over their schools.

“Do it--go for it. You have nothing to lose,” Gradillas said. “Without a promise of an education, we are damning these kids to poverty for the rest of their lives.”

The California principals and administrators are meeting in Anaheim for the fifth annual California Principals Conference for Academic Excellence in Effective Schools. The three-day conference, sponsored by UC Irvine and the Orange County Department of Education, is intended to give elementary and secondary school principals a chance to share ideas for improving their schools.