WE'RE IN THE PROCESS OF ADOPTING WORLD-CLASS STANDARDS to challenge our children to meet the competition they will surely encounter in the international marketplace. We've rightly insisted that our children learn the basics, and that parents know what their children have learned through individual student testing.

To allow our kids to compete with Asian and European students, the budget provides funding to increase the school year by seven instructional days.

That will bring to kids in every district a school year of at least 180 days of classroom instruction.

And if our kids have not learned what they must know to compete in this increasingly demanding job market, we must not do them the serious disservice of pretending that they have.

Social promotion is the worst form of false kindness.

Much is written and spoken about the importance of self-esteem to a child's success. It is important. But self-esteem must be earned by performance. It's not a government grant.

Kids who graduate only with the knowledge that they've learned little... have little reason to feel good about themselves.

If our kids can't do arithmetic and don't understand rudimentary science ...if they cannot read, write and speak English ... they won't be = hired, much less promoted.

Social promotion is not honest, and not fair... not to kids, or parents, or employers, or taxpayers.

We must end social promotion. It teaches kids a terrible lesson: that competency doesn't count. . . that reward does not depend upon achievement.

We must begin the corrective action to put a halt to this frightful waste of human potential.

My budget includes funding for remedial summer school classes in reading for students in grades 3-6.

And I will sponsor legislation to address social promotion in greater depth and breadth. We will require students in grades 1-4, 7 and 10 who are not performing at grade level to take remedial classes in language arts, math, science, and history. If they're not up to standard after taking those classes, they don't advance to the next grade.

By doing this, we change and save lives. If we can teach more kids to open books, fewer will open their veins to drugs.

But now - from those who should know better - comes the ill-conceived notion that our universities should drop the SAT - the Scholastic Achievement Test - as a means of assessing incoming freshmen.

The SAT is perhaps the best objective antidote to grade-inflation. Ending it undermines the accountability we need and are seeking at all levels of our educational system.

Sending students to college who are unprepared to do college work is the ultimate in social promotion. Exposing any youngster to a high probability of failure and disillusionment is worse than deceptive. It's destructive.

We must help educationally deprived but deserving youngsters win admission to college... legitimately. Outreach?

Yes, but my vision of outreach requires going into communities and in fact changing kids lives by preparing them for university admission. But to be honest and successful, the effort must begin at pre-school... not high-school graduation.

Tonight, I call upon every member of the UC and CSU system to do just that - to work with their host communities to provide SAT preparation in the most effective way possible: create charter schools with local school districts, or at least to become actively engaged in curriculum development for grades K-12.

That's outreach!

Having criticized education folly, let me now express my pleasure and admiration for a great school and a great principal - in fact, the "Outstanding Principal of California" : Howard Lappin, Principal of the Foshay Learning Center in South Central Los Angeles.

Twelve years ago, when he was first assigned to Foshay, one-third of Howard Lappin's students never went to class. Principal Lappin said: "Enough of that nonsense: you come to school, you go to class". Today, Foshay's attendance rate surpasses 94%; the dropout rate is down from 22% to only 1%.

The Foshay Learning Center teaches =F9us=F1 that with attention and encouragement, children with Limited English Proficiency can become educational high achievers. About one-third of Principal Lappin's students arrive at Foshay unable to take regular English classes.

Howard Lappin would be the first to tell you that too many kids are failing to receive something even more vital than a strong core curriculum - and that's the love and encouragement of a caring adult.

Seated up in the gallery is Edwin Franklin, an MBA candidate at the University of Southern California - one of 125 Trojans tutoring Foshay students in reading.

Edwin Franklin is a very busy young man . . . very likely, soon to be one of the successful and influential business leaders of his community.

But Edwin is not too busy to find time for the kids at the Foshay Learning Center - to help them learn to read and grow.

Edwin probably figures that the kid he helps will one day himself become a tutor and mentor to some other youngster. He may even have concluded that by changing some child's life - by expanding a kid's horizons - you change your own, and likely make more wholesome the community your own kids will grow up in.

Well, Edwin's right. He's right to care, and right to find the time to help. He's making an investment - with the potential for a rich return.

If so busy a young man can, so can the rest of us.

You don't have to read between the lines to see what they've done: the average 6th grader arrives at Foshay reading below the third-grade level. But last year, of the 65 kids who started the 12th grade, all but two were accepted to a college.

Please join me in saluting Howard Lappin, Edwin Franklin and every educator and mentor across this state who's teaching kids to be all they can be.

California - more than any place in the world - is producing the jobs of tomorrow. Employers shouldn't be compelled to import a skilled workforce because our public schools have failed to do their job.

We should never accept a state of educational have's and have-not's. But that's what we've got! It's wrong - very wrong - and we've got to change it!

All children deserve schools that inspire them to study and be creative. But not every child's that lucky. For all too many, their school is a far cry from the Foshay Learning Center.

If we knew that thousands of children were being served school lunches lacking in nutrition, we'd insist they receive a proper diet.

Well, not all children are taking part in our school renaissance. Hundreds of thousands of them are suffering from educational malnutrition. They're trapped in under-performing schools that stifle ambition.

We cannot allow this to continue . . . not if we are to honor the duty we owe California's children . . . to empower them to earn their share of the California Dream. Tonight, I call upon you to provide "opportunity scholarships" to 15,000 children trapped in California's worst classrooms.

Please don't tell the parents of 15,000 children to be patient . . . to expect that the same system that already has wasted years of their children's precious lives is capable of correcting itself.

Given enough time, a Howard Lappin could change their schools. Good principals do that. But poor kids trapped in bad schools don't have time. If we don't rescue them now, what will become of them?

Will they be added to the list of victims of social promotion - or lose hope altogether and drop-out? The one thing certain is: without a decent education, they will be less than they deserve to be, or could be.

I refuse to accept the absurd argument that rescuing 15,000 children from failing schools will somehow bring down the entire public school system.

By the way, tell me: how many bad schools has the public school system closed?

Forty years ago, the civil rights battle raged over getting children into good schools. Now, the battle must be joined to get them out of bad schools.

As the United Negro College Fund reminds us: "A mind is a terrible thing to waste."

My friends, we can prevent that unconscionable waste.

If we fail to provide them opportunity scholarships, there will be 15,000 children we can't face. And every one of us should be deeply ashamed.