MIXED MESSAGES IN THE CLASSROOM

WASHINGTON - Spurred on by President Clinton, television networks are
blanketing the airwaves with a new public service campaign that urges
parents to "talk with your kids" about such tough social issues as school
violence.

The message: By establishing an open dialogue, parents and children can
forge a bond of trust that will ease potential problems.

Spurred by fears of fresh trouble as the new school year opens, educators
across the nation have spent millions to rip out lockers, hire armed guards
and install surveillance cameras and metal detectors. Police SWAT teams
stage drills on school campuses.

The message: While we'd like to trust you, we'd rather be safe (at least
from potential lawsuits) than sorry. Parental bonding doesn't count in this
equation.

Similarly, some political leaders send young people mixed messages, even if
you discount usage of the Oval Office and Capitol Hill as extracurricular
sex parlors. Take, for example, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, who, along with
his father, the former president, often talks about the need to restore
dignity to the White House.

When asked by a TV interviewer in New Hampshire whether he'd ever used
"drugs, marijuana [or] cocaine," Bush replied: "I'm not going to talk about
what I did as a child. What I am going to talk about - and I am going to say
this consistently - [is that] it is irrelevant what I did 20 to 30 years
ago. What's relevant is that I have learned from any mistakes I made. I do
not want to send signals to anybody that what Gov. Bush did 30 years ago is
cool to try."

Fair enough, But is Bush also willing to extend the same blanket pardon to
today's adolescents that he claims for his own wild-and-woolly Yale frat-boy
years? Here's what his campaign literature says on that score:

"If we are going to save a generation of young people, our children must
know they will face bad consequences for criminal behavior. Sadly, too many
youths are not getting that message. Our juvenile justice system must say to
our children: We love you, but we are going to hold you accountable for your
actions."

Picking up on the latter theme, some high school administrators are giving
drug tests to A students who seek to join in nonathletic extracurricular
activities, which are sometimes tied to regular course work. These tests
also often cover such legal drugs, at least among adults, as tobacco and
alcohol.

Flunk and you're out. Evidence of parental bonding also doesn't apply.

The American Civil liberties Union is suing. Perhaps its filing will note
statistical data that show trouble in classrooms has dropped dramatically
during this decade, even when you factor in the April horrors at Colorado's
Columbine High.

We know that kids do best when they get the same consistent message, over
long periods, from home, school and the media. But as the academic year
resumes, perception and reality seem out of kilter on too many fronts. The
true danger may be that kids will dismiss what's being said about them (or
done to them) as so much hype and hypocrisy. Such kids may choose to follow
uncharted paths that lead to unknown consequences.