LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush visited Little Rock Central High School, site of a landmark civil rights battle, yesterday to highlight his education policies and was politely but firmly contradicted by the school principal and head of the student body.
On a day when both presidential candidates were highlighting education, Bush said his visit to Central High in President Clinton's hometown was meant to send a strong symbolic message to voters.
''For decades in America the great goal of education was to provide access for all.... Now the front doors of our public schools are open to everyone,'' Bush said.
''Today we have a great challenge of our own. Access is universal, but excellence is not. All can enter our schools, but not all are learning,'' the Texas governor told a small, invited audience in the school library.
Central High was the site of one of the most celebrated struggles of the civil rights movement. In 1957, President Dwight Eisenhower called in the military to force the all-white school to admit nine black students.
Bush said that if elected president, he would remove the federal government as far as possible from education, passing authority back to states and local jurisdictions.
Central High principal Rudolph Howard questioned Bush's arguments during the round-table session and more bluntly in comments to reporters afterward.
Asked about Bush's presentation afterward, he said: ''All these catch phrases are horses that are not going to trot any more ... one of those pie-in-the-sky kind of things that have existed for years and years.''
Central High student body president Derrick Williams challenged Bush on vouchers, which he said lead schools to ''fight over children as if they were commodities'' and would open public schools to unfair competition.
Bush replied: ''I don't know whether a voucher system is a panacea ... but I'm willing to give it a shot.''
