One in a series of editorials on presidential campaign issues.

AMERICANS ARE fortunate that the battle to improve the quality of public education grasps the minds of both Vice President Al Gore and Texas Governor George Bush. Both men place strong emphasis on education reform in their campaigns for the presidency.

Gore has been willing to buck traditional Democratic allies within teachers' unions by supporting independent charter schools and bonus pay for effective teachers based, in part, on student performance. Bush puts relentless effort on strict accountability through testing aimed at closing the performance gap between white and minority youngsters. This effort, which Bush calls ''my most urgent priority,'' is hardly a hallmark of conservative Republicans.

On the subject of education, both candidates ''get it'' and appear committed to lead. Despite lengthy service inside the Beltway, Gore keeps close touch with concerns inside the nation's classrooms. Republican critics blast away at his plan to invest an additional $170 billion in public education over the next 10 years as another excessive example of big government. But the money is targeted to the right places, as evidenced by his $50 billion plan to offer free or subsidized preschool to eligible 4-year-olds, hire an additional 100,000 teachers to reduce class size, expand Head Start, and provide bonuses for 60,000 college students each year who agree to teach in poor neighborhoods.

But Gore, already vulnerable to charges of exaggeration, strains credulity when he suggests that his administration will bring forth a ''transformation'' of the educational system by 2005. Most teachers' unions are opposed to teacher testing, merit pay, and hiring practices free of seniority. Gore talks a good game on such reforms, but the pace of change has been painfully slow and doesn't look to accelerate much under the Democratic contender.

The Republican governor appears to be on a more urgent schedule, shown in his support of publicly funded vouchers for use in private schools by families whose children are stuck in chronically underperforming schools. But Bush failed even to convince legislators in his home state that such a plan is warranted. Vouchers surely deplete funds earmarked for public school improvements. And educational results are mixed. Gore's proposal to reorganize failed schools under new public school administrators remains the better option. And unlike Bush's voucher program that would extend to religious schools, Gore's plan will not run afoul of the establishment clause of the Constitution.

Bush is at his best when attacking the ''soft bigotry'' of low expectations in low-income school districts. And he can back up the talk with test results. Last year, black eighth-graders in Texas ranked highest in the nation on a writing test administered by the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Hispanic students ranked second. Overall, Texas students had the fourth-highest average score in the 35 states where the exam was given.

The Texas governor attributes these and similar achievements on statewide tests to relentless emphasis on high standards and test- taking skills. At the center of his $47 billion, 10-year education plan for the nation is an infusion of federal aid to create local accountability systems in which students are tested every year in grades 3 through 8 in English and math. Federal bonuses would accrue to systems that show improvement. Withdrawal of federal support would result for those who don't.

Bush, however, is vulnerable to criticism by those who say that Texas is performing magic with its reporting methods, not with its students. In some cases, higher dropout rates, pegged at 20 percent, translate to higher overall scores as the weakest students no longer sit for exams. Even supporters of high-stakes testing also detect a dumbing-down of state-administered reading tests in Texas. And fewer than half of special needs students took the state's assessment test in 1999, down from 62 percent in 1998.

Regardless of these detractions, Bush has taken a bold step outside of traditional Republican tenets by proposing new spending to diagnose youngsters with reading problems and establishing tutoring and afterschool programs for failing students. It's a refreshing stand from a leader of a party that not long ago was more intent on eradicating the federal Education Department than illiteracy.

Currently, the federal government contributes just 7 percent to the cost of public education in America. Gore's plan combines both money and authority to attack education problems on every front from universal preschool to tax deductions for college tuition up to $10,000 a year. That translates to $170 billion in additional federal spending for education.

Bush, who would spend $47 billion over the same period of time, claims he can do more with less. But the candidate's proposed tax cut limits his thinking about expanded preschool options, teacher recruitment, and federal incentives to increase construction and modernization of schools.

Both candidates agree on the need to revolutionize classroom learning. But Gore alone is willing to finance that revolution.