CLINTON PROPOSES $5 BILLION PLAN TO REPAIR NATION'S PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

Byline: Knight-Ridder Tribune News Wire

Citing a recent federal study showing that one-third of the nation's 80,000 public schools are in serious disrepair, President Clinton proposed Thursday to spend $5 billion to help rebuild the nation's schools.

``This is a matter of real urgency,'' Clinton said. ``Bringing our schools into the 21st century is a national challenge that demands a national commitment. . . . We cannot expect our children and our teachers to build strong lives on a crumbling foundation.''

But Congress would have to approve such a program, and Republicans in control there immediately denounced Clinton's proposal.

``It's another election-year gimmick,'' said Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa.

``It is a transgression on state responsibility, just another intrusion by the federal government into local affairs,'' said Sen. Paul Coverdell, R-Ga. Both critiques were widely voiced among GOP lawmakers.

Under Clinton's plan, school districts could apply for federal subsidies to cut interest costs on new construction by up to 50 percent. The $5 billion is projected to increase the level of school construction and renovation over four years by about 25 percent, according to White House documents.

Clinton's school-repair plan is unlikely to become law before November's elections, White House aides conceded, but they proudly defended it as precisely the kind of campaign-year proposal that defines how Clinton's approach to governing differs from Republicans.

``I think it has to do with priorities, and I think a campaign is about priorities,'' said Laura Tyson, Clinton's national economic adviser. ``And I think that the president's commitment to education as a key priority that defines his administration'' is evident in this initiative, she said.

A General Accounting Office study released June 14 was the latest of several recent national surveys concluding that many U.S. elementary and secondary schools are in sad physical shape. According to the GAO report:

About one-third of the schools - serving some 14 million students - need extensive repair or replacement of one or more buildings;

60 percent of schools report at least one major building feature, such as plumbing or roofs, in disrepair;

About $112 billion must be spent over the next three years to bring all public schools up to good physical condition.

Although crumbling schools were found in every region, ``the largest proportion of such schools was in central cities - they were schools serving 50 percent or more minority or 70 percent or more poor students,'' the GAO study states.

``It's an emergency situation,'' said Gary Marx, spokesman for the American Association of School Administrators, which represents 16,000 of them.