Reading the Fine Print of Goals 2000.

"Cats and dogs," they call them, the Leftovers at the end of a bill.

Education always has cats and dogs in legislative bills. Take the Goals 2000: Educate America Act.

This recently adopted federal law contains amendments dealing with tobacco, school prayer, and a requirement that schools be "gun free" or face a federal penalty.

A Smoking Ban

The tobacco and gun amendments are effective immediately.

The new law prohibits any person from "smoking within any indoor facility owned or leased or contacted for and utilized by such person for provision of routine or regular kindergarten, elementary, or secondary education or library services to children."

If you don't now have a no-smoking policy, your district faces fines of up to $1,000 per day per infraction. If you have a collective bargaining agreement that permits smoking, you have one year to comply with this law.

The obvious question is who will enforce this requirement? The answer is the secretary of education. U.S. Education Department personnel already are busy enough enforcing such laws as Chapter 1 and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Nevertheless, this law is on the books.

Gun Banishment

The gun-free schools part of Goals 2000 amends the Elementary and Secondary Education Act with this new language:

"No assistance may be provided to any local educational agency under this act unless such agency has in effect a policy requiring the expulsion from school for a period of not less than one year any student who is determined to have brought a weapon to a school under the jurisdiction of the agency except such policy may allow the chief administrative officer of the agency to modify such expulsion requirement for a student on a case-by-case basis."

If you don't have a gun-expulsion policy, your district stands to lose all federal funding. Compliance probably will amount to signing another federal form, but failure to comply, should your school board have a philosophical problem with federal intervention in this area, could have disastrous results for your budget.

Protecting Prayer

The prayer in schools section of Goals 2000 says: "No funds authorized to be appropriated under this act may be used by any state or local educational agency to adopt policies that prevent voluntary prayer and meditation in public schools."

You may be wondering, "What on earth does that mean?" or "How did this get in a federal bill?"

It's a long story that starts with ultraconservative Republican Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina. When Goals 2000 reached the Senate floor, Helms added an amendment requiring the federal government cut off all federal education aid if the school district did not have a policy permitting "student-initiated, voluntary school prayer."

The Senate initially became bogged down with Helms's demand, which amounted to a filibuster. As a result, it felt compelled to compromise because Goals 2000 is the Clinton administration's centerpiece for education reform.

Consequently, Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., chair of the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee, agreed to accept seemingly harmless language offered by moderate Republican Robert Packwood of Oregon. Packwood suggested and Kennedy accepted--without checking with civil rights or church groups--the addition of two words to the Helms amendment, so that it now read "constitutionally protected," student-initiated, voluntary school prayer.

The only trouble is no one knows what "constitutionally protected, student-initiated, voluntary school prayer" is, especially in the context of major challenges to local school boards by members of the religious right.

Prayer, a silent conversation between a being and his or her maker, has, of course, no limits. But when you start bringing in governmental agencies to sort these things out, AASA contends you are bridging the constitutional line of separation of church and state.

Fortunately, at least in the case of Goals 2000, the House and Senate accepted the compromise language in Title X, which simply says you can't use federal funds to prevent prayer from taking place in schools.

Isn't it amazing what you find in legislation, when you read the last few pages and find these cats and dogs?