Schools Message Crosses Party Lines In Governor's Race Half The Candidates Say Parental Involvement Is A Key To Improvement. Plans To Include Parents Vary.

HARRISBURG — To hear the gubernatorial candidates tell it, the best way to improve Pennsylvania schools would be to push the state Education Department into the nearby Susquehanna River.

The message from Republican and Democratic candidates, according to an Inquirer questionnaire: Get parents involved, get bureaucrats out.

"Empower parents and children so that the educational bureaucracy is responsive to their interests and needs first, rather than those of the bureaucracy," said GOP candidate Tom Ridge.

"More inclusion of parents would do the most the fastest to improve the quality of education," said Democrat Catherine Baker Knoll.

All five Republican candidates, in addition to Knoll, cited more parental involvement as a key to invigorating schools and improving learning.

The other candidates listed everything from prohibiting teacher strikes to restructuring education financing as their single best ways to help Pennsylvania school children.

Among other responses to questions about educational issues:

* Only one Republican, Ridge, said he opposed legislation to ban school strikes, while only one Democrat, Charles Volpe, said he would sign legislation outlawing school strikes.

* All five GOP candidates support some form of so-called school choice, allowing parents to pick the schools their children attend, or a voucher system, in which parents would be reimbursed if they did not send their children to public schools. Five Democrats said they opposed vouchers, and two - Robert O'Donnell and Lt. Gov. Mark S. Singel - support some sort of voucher/ school choice system.

* Only one candidate, Republican John Perry, who has run for the U.S. Senate in the past as a Libertarian, said he would try to do what Gov. Casey did in 1992 - eliminate state funding for private colleges.

Here are some details from the candidates' responses:

EDUCATIONAL PRIORITIES. Half of the candidates running for governor believe schools won't improve without the help of parents. Basically, their theories go, if parents are involved, the schools will be controlled at the local level and better able to meet the specific needs of children.

The candidates have various plans for including parents in school decision- making.