COLUMN LEFT : Cheap Talk Again Cheats Our Children : The President’s education initiative is more show than go.

Our children are at risk. In Richmond, Calif., the school district is bankrupt. In rural Iowa, schools are boarded up. Across the country, reductions are cutting to the bone. Failure is evident. Fingers are pointed. Rural children are being forsaken, the children of cities abandoned. Our children have been caught in the cross fire. They are in harm’s way.

President Bush, who reads polls as well as any politician, has decided to act. He assembled a fine team, headed by former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander, established goals, and called for a “revolution in American education.” The launch looked so good on television last week that Republican pundits now brag that they will “capture education” from the Democrats, holding our children hostage to their partisan schemes. The only problem is that the President’s program is more show than go.

In the kitchen, if you are trying to make biscuits, you can change the cook, rearrange the appliances, revise the recipe. But if you do not have baking powder or yeast, the proper timing and temperature, the biscuits will not rise. You can call for the “New American Biscuit” and set up a new program of taste testing, do whatever you like, but if there is no yeast, it won’t work.

The President’s program has no yeast. Even if the recipe is followed exactly, it will have no notable effect on poor children--white, black, brown and red--at risk. As the Economic Policy Institute has shown, we invest less in public school education than our European competitors. Since most education funding is local, what is comparatively inadequate for most students is dramatically deficient for the poor. The President calls for building one “choice” school in each congressional district. This sounds more like a political program than an education program. It may water a few leaves, but the roots will remain parched.

The President’s program is inside-out. It seeks not to invest in public education but to divest from it. Parental choice sounds good. Choice evokes freedom, control, empowerment, but in practice it may revoke hope. A choice plan was tried in Milwaukee. One percent of the students--970 of them--were allowed to use public money to pay for private education. Of those, 367 were accepted and found places, 600 were rejected, thousands more simply neglected. Such symbolism may win votes but lose children. The Adminstration’s plan is likely to privatize education for the lucky few and pauperize it for the many.

I look forward to the day when an American President will be as passionate about liberating the children of America as we have been about liberating the children of Kuwait. The Administration found $45 billion to liberate Kuwait’s children--borrowed the money as an investment in the future. Yet its education plan offers no new money to liberate America’s children, our nation’s most vital hope for the future. You cannot solve the education crisis with money alone, but you can’t solve it without adequate funding, either.

We know how to use new education resources. Every study agrees that we must begin early on, not later on. We need to invest in children from the start--prenatal care, infant care, Head Start, school breakfast and lunch programs. We need to ensure that children will come to school ready and able to learn. This is no secret; it’s one of the President’s education goals. Yet his proposed budget for fiscal 1992 limits the food program for women, infants and children to only 56% of those eligible, extends Head Start to only 58% of the 4-year-olds eligible, freezes funding for the child-care block grant program, and slashes aid for Native American education by 24%. To a large extent, the President’s budget prefers space exploration to school preparation.

At the same time, any successful education program must be built from the bottom up, not the top down. Resources from the top can provide opportunity, but only resolve from the bottom can ensure achievement. We need parents who will turn off the television each night. We need teachers who teach with a passion. Most of all, we must revive a sense of personal responsibility in the students themselves.

When I speak at urban and rural schools, I challenge those who are behind to run faster so that they can catch up. Tears and sweat are both salty, but progress is made through sweat in ways that will never come through tears. If you are behind, you have got to run faster, work longer and become stronger.

Education costs more than people think it does. It costs in money, commitment and sacrifice. New symbols and gestures won’t help. They only add to the cynicism that makes real commitment more difficult. Education costs, but save a generation and we get highest return on our investment.