COMPETITION IS WHAT FOSTERS REAL CUSTOMER SERVICE.

Byline: LOCAL VIEW By William E. Sarkisian

WHAT amazing results in this year's Stanford 9 test errors. Not in the actual test, but in the reactions to them.

In looking at the stories published in the Daily News on July 1, I want you to contrast the reactions from tax-paid educrats and their friendly politicians with the reactions from the private company that does the testing, and made the mistakes. Their different reactions should tell you a lot about why the test scores are so dismal, and the one answer none of the education establishment or their politicos dares contemplate: competition.

From the story titled ``Blunders blamed on short time,'' the president of Harcourt Educational Measurement, which does the testing, came right out after the mistakes were found, admitted their error, why it occurred, and when they'd fix it.

In contrast, in the story ``Test scores inch up,'' the education leaders all pointed to the problem, but none of them told us why the test results were so low, or when we could expect world-class student performance, only that the results were low.

Harcourt President Joanne Lenke said, ``We're aware that this problem is very, very serious and we regret our error deeply,'' and when asked if the company's quality-control system was flawed, Lenke said: ``Obviously it is.''

Lenke also said the company would change how it checks results and promised corrected data by July 15.

Notice, the private company, which must be - and according to the language they use, is - customer-focused, doesn't hide, doesn't blame others, doesn't minimize the impact of its failure. To its credit, it comes right out and takes responsibility, tells us why it happened, and gives us not only a fix, but a date certain when the fix would be implemented.

Contrast the private company's reaction to its mistakes with the comments of education officials and their friends in Sacramento.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin said she was pleased with the rising scores. Several state legislators said scores are still too low, but gave no reasons why, nor fixes, nor dates when we could expect them to get our kids' scores up to snuff.

Here are two examples:

State Sen. Tom Hayden, D-Los Angeles: ``An increase of a couple of points creates a sigh of relief for a lot of school administrators and officials. But the truth is, we're still well behind where we should be as a state and particularly for students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.''

Assemblyman Scott Wildman, D-Glendale: ``This is good information, it's encouraging, but I'm not sure that on a statewide level we can declare victory.''

In Los Angeles, district officials said they were encouraged by the rise in scores of local students, even if the overall scores were still unacceptably low.

Notice, none of the education officials, nor those who should be accountable, gives us customer-focused answers to problems they are in large part responsible for, the customer being us and our kids. But the private company, which exists in a world of competition, does. And therein lies the answer: competition.

Competition - you being able to shop for a school for your kids, with your money plus vouchers or tax cuts - will do more in less time to improve test scores, improve facilities conditions, raise teacher and student morale than anything any educrat could think of, or any new program a ``more-government'' politico could conjure.

Economic competition is the natural force that drove the testing company President Joanne Lenke to answer customer concerns and self-criticize, and the lack thereof is why schools, school boards, teachers unions, educrats and politicians won't.