His campaign position paper devotes only three paragraphs to education.

His main stand is his support for "school choice," a system in which parents may use government-funded vouchers to send to their children to public, private or parochial schools. But Buchanan provides no details about how such a system would work.

He also calls for increased parental, church and community involvement in education, as well as a merit-based hiring and pay system for teachers.

Buchanan advocates a constitutional amendment to allow voluntary prayer, Bible reading and religious instruction in public schools.

"A nation where the Ten Commandments are ordered out of classrooms and where 14-year-old girls are given condoms and told to go practice `safe sex' has lost its moral compass," he says.

Buchanan, whose campaign slogan is "America First," also stresses a greater emphasis on U.S. history and English and American literature.

LIKE BUCHANAN, Democratic contender Edmund G. Brown Jr. has few detailed proposals for education reform.

The former California governor has spoken frequently--especially on college campuses--about his plan to replace college tuition loans with scholarships and work-study grants.

Brown says he would also increase spending on education programs and establish a "civilian conservation corps" where young people can develop skills.

He calls his entire proposal "a 21st-century educational plan."

"The purpose of education is not to produce a new generation of robots to compete with the Japanese. Education should be broadly based in literature, art, music, and the sciences. We should ... invest in accessible education as an unalienable right," Brown says in his campaign literature.

Echoing the views of many Democrats, Brown says he will immediately push for full funding of programs such as Head Start, designed to give preschool children better preparation through a combination of school and health programs.

Brown's record on education during his two-term tenure as governor of California receives mixed reviews.

His harshest critics are at the university level. During his term, Brown froze faculty salaries arguing that professors were compensated by what he called "psychic income." Several officials at the University of California system have criticized Brown's leadership, some arguing that he made the system worse.

By most accounts, public education in the state weakened during his years as governor. As the public voted in a referendum to pass a major tax-cut, funding dropped. During his tenure, California slipped from 18th to 31st nationally in per pupil school financing.