The Nashua Telegraph, July 7, 1995
Keyes knocks Alexander's record on education policy

By KEVIN LANDRIGAN (Telegraph Staff)
CONCORD -- Republican presidential candidate Alan Keyes said
primary rival Lamar Alexander is trying to run from his own
record in opposing the federal Goals 2000 program.
   Keyes, a Maryland radio talk show host, used the kickoff of
Alexander's campaign walk through the state Thursday to attack
the former education secretary's record on national education
policy.
   During a Statehouse news conference, Keyes said Alexander made
a mistake in promoting the America 2000 legislation under former
President George Bush because it was then used by incumbent
Democrat Bill Clinton to further nationalize education with its
successor, Goals 2000.
   "Lamar Alexander may wish to disclaim responsibility for that
which he began, but the truth is there are populists who talk a
good game and others who understand populism isn't in the mouth,
it's in the principle," said Keyes, a former U.S. ambassador to
the United Nations' Economic and Social Council.
    "And the principle of Lamar Alexander's approach to education
was wrong. You aren't going to improve educational standards by
having them nationalized and certified at the national level.     
    "Alexander insisted the Clinton administration took the good
idea of national goals for all school children -- America 2000 --
and turned it into a "gross intrusion" of local control.
    "If I were governor, I would not take the money,"  Alexander
said.  "I am deeply disappointed in saying that because I helped
to start America 2000, which was a national movement to improve
the schools.
    "President Clinton and the Democrats turned it into a federal
program with all sorts of controls. It is simply not worth the
money to have Washington, D.C., tell you what to do."
    Alexander said Goals 2000 and the 1,000-page education reform
act Congress passed in 1993 impose a series of mandates on
schools from how to teach sex education to changing a light bulb.
    "Take the two together, it represents a gross intrusion by
Washington, D.C., into local control,"  Alexander said.
    All four Republican U.S. senators running for president in
1996 voted for the education reform bill he strongly opposed,
Alexander said.
    Keyes, 44, said he had spoken out against America 2000 during
Bush's term in office and that Alexander can't hide from its
successor.
    Alexander "may walk the streets of New Hampshire to suggest
he is a populist, but when he had power in the Department of
Education, he was using it to take power and decision-making out
of the hands of our people and putting it in the hands of 
big government," Keyes said.
    "The problem is that folks who embark on something that is
based on a bad principle ... are then going to see it turn to bad
result."
    New Hampshire and Virginia are the only states that have not
applied for Goals 2000 money. New Hampshire could receive $9
million over the next four years.
    Alexander said he has been working with former Education
Secretary Bill Bennett on what he called the "ABC Bill," which
would remove federal law mandates from Goals 2000 and permit New
Hampshire to apply for the money and receive it with
no strings attached.
    During the news conference, Keyes also faulted Alexander's
position on abortion. Keyes supports a constitutional ban on
abortion, while Alexander has said he personally opposes abortion
but would not try to reverse the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision
that legalized it.
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