ELROSE - Elizabeth Hanford Dole yesterday chose a sentimental setting, the school where she taught history 40 years ago, to offer an unsentimental prescription for how to heal what ails education.
Dole said she would ease federal regulations, would back merit pay for teachers, and would make it easier for parents to save for education costs.
Perhaps most controversial with the 11th- and 12th-graders who made up much of her audience in the Melrose High School library was her suggestion that school officials search student lockers and backpacks for drugs and weapons. She also said schools should consider testing students for drugs - if their parents consent.
''For drugs and weapons, I say: There will be no place to hide,'' said Dole.
The students, though they gave her a warm reception generally, grumbled some at that.
''It's an invasion of privacy,'' said Mike Bruce, 16.
Maggie Mui, also 16, shook her head: ''I don't think they should be able to do it.''
But Daria Hinz, 17, said she could accept the locker and backpack searches, but with a condition. ''I guess I'm OK with it as long as there is evidence to show this person might have something in it,'' she said.
Before the speech, which was Dole's first major elaboration of her education views, she made a few nostalgic stops in the school building where she worked as a student teacher - then known as Miss Hanford - during the 1959-1960 school year.
She scanned an old yearbook and dropped in on her former classroom - now Helen Overlan's sixth-grade English class - with the horde of television cameras, police officers, and school officials trailing behind.
''It's been a few years, but it's good to be back,'' she said.
Dole, in her speech, said her goal as president would be restore schools to greatness. She said the Clinton administration had entangled schools in a web of federal rules and regulations.
''Take a look at this unwieldy stack of paper,'' Dole said, pointingto a thick bound copy of the Elementary and Secondary Education reauthorization bill.
''This would be a joke if our system were working, but it's no joke,'' Dole said.
''As president, I will allow states and local school districts to choose how most federal money is spent, as long as they set, measure, and reach goals for student achievement,'' she said. ''At last, schools will be responsible for student performance, not paperwork.''
Dole also said merit pay was essential for retaining good teachers to educate the growing student population. ''It's time to let creative, enthusiastic teachers know that they are a national treasure right where they are - in our classrooms,'' she said.
Finally, Dole said she would increase the contribution limits for education savings accounts from $500 to $3,000 a year to help parents pay for a child's school or college education. She said she would also like to create a $1,000 per-year tax credit for people who donate to educational foundations helping low-income students in public and private schools through grade 12.
According to polls, voters consider education the most important issue for presidential candidates to address.
Dole's proposal was similar to that of Texas Governor George W. Bush in its emphasis on returning power and control over education to the states. Bush, however, would cut off federal funds to poor schools if, after three years, a school has not improved.
Arizona Senator John McCain, who has been jostling Dole for second place in some polls (Bush is the frontrunner in all), has not yet laid out a comprehensive plan for education. But McCain has proposed eliminating federal subsidies for ethanol, sugar, gas, and oil to pay for a national school voucher test program.
