Hart Tips His Hand on Campaign Issues

Former Colorado Sen. Gary Hart, who will formally announce on April 13 that he is seeking the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination, sounded two themes Thursday in Los Angeles that are expected to be prominent in his campaign--the need for government to enact sweeping educational reforms and for ordinary citizens to contribute their time to solving the country’s major problems.

Hart told students at George Washington High School in South-Central Los Angeles that the country will continue to decline as a world trade power if it does not do four things to improve its educational system: attract better teachers with higher pay, provide more student loans and more flexible payment plans, increase the length of the school year and use satellite technology to provide students access to the country’s top teachers.

To pay for all this, Hart suggested increasing taxes on luxury items, reducing agriculture support programs and eliminating waste in the military budget.

“But not all educational reforms require money,” Hart said, moving on to his call for personal involvement by citizens. “We have 25 million adult Americans who are illiterate and millions more children who are not reading up to the level they need to.

Question Posed

“You can help solve that problem,” Hart said to the students. “I would like to know how many of you would like to give a few hours a week or month to help children read better? We also have adults who can’t read the writing on a medicine bottle or even road signs. How many of you would be willing to donate your time to help those adult Americans, particularly if you got a student loan or some educational opportunity in exchange for that?”

Most of the 50 hand-picked students attending the speech held up their hands, but it should be noted that all of this took place under the watchful eyes of their teachers and counselors.

Hart also told the students that they would probably have to go to school periodically for the rest of their lives if they are to keep up with expanding information and a changing job market. He also said that American schools will have to strengthen foreign language studies if the country is to compete in world markets.

In the question-and-answer session after the speech, several of the students expressed doubt that such ideas as donating volunteer time to eliminate illiteracy could catch on around the country.

National Plan

Hart responded to one skeptic, “I don’t think in my adult lifetime that the nation has adopted the kind of comprehensive educational reforms that I’m advocating here. . . . I’m not saying mine are the only ideas, but what I’ve tried to do is take the best educational ideas that any of the experts have put forward and put them together in a national plan.”

Hart, 50, looked grayer, heavier and more mature than he did when he sought the Democratic nomination in 1984 and seemed eager to display his grasp of the topics he had raised in his speech. Ever since Walter F. Mondale badly damaged Hart’s insurgent candidacy three years ago by asking in a televised debate, “Where’s the beef?” Hart has been formulating national policy proposals on such subjects as education, trade and military spending.

Hart adviser John Emerson said Thursday that the former senator will officially declare his candidacy for 1988 on April 13, probably in Denver, where Hart now lives since leaving the Senate at the end of 1986.