In our society, you're more likely to be admired if you're a top shooter in basketball than a brilliant student in the chemistry lab.

According to former Sen. Paul Tsongas, (D-Mass.), that illustrates what's wrong with the public's view of education.

Children's Express recently spoke with Tsongas about education, the environment and the federal budget deficit in a telephone interview from his law office in Boston, Mass.

"I often give speeches about the amount of coverage an athlete will get in high school compared to a scholar . . .People understand that newspaper coverage is the way society signals its values to its young," says Tsongas, a former Democratic presidential candidate.

"Obviously, if you are a star athlete, you don't have to worry about education. If you are a brilliant student in the chemistry lab, you're going to be ignored and even to some extent condemned.

"The problem in this country is that we're not a country that values learning and intellect the way many other countries do, including our trading competitors _ Japan and Germany," Tsongas says.

Education, Tsongas believes, is seen as an easy target for budget cuts.

"The view has been that education is another budget item and young people don't vote so therefore it is an easy one to cut . . .In fact, knowledge is going to be the key to any kind of viable economic system."

Congress' proposed balanced-budget constitutional amendment allowed for cuts in every area but Social Security. If it were up to Tsongas, education would be excluded from the amendment.

"What I would do is simply cap expenditures and move monies around under that cap, particularly from defense," he says.

Blaming the U.S. deficit on the spending trends of President Bush and former President Reagan, Tsongas cites defense spending as a trimmable area. His concern is the legacy that will be left to future generations.

"We are now a nation that is $4 trillion in debt. Three trillion of that happened during the Reagan/Bush years. They cut taxes and spent massively on defense.

"So your generation is going to inherit that debt. The point is that the U.S. supported its leaders in the '80s who said, `You can have it all. You can have lower taxes and massive spending.'

"The only way you can do that is to encourage debt and leave that debt to your children. That's what happened," he says.

In order to help Americans understand the day- to-day classroom experience, Tsongas feels that parents should invest some of their time in the classroom. And he believes that changes must be made in the attitude toward education at the highest level.

"I think a president can create a change in culture so that society begins to move to its valuing education . . .Secondly, I think you will see people focus on education because they recognize the value of a first-rate educational system," said Tsongas.

"We're going to be a second-rate economic power and the standard of living that Americans have gotten used to will simply deteriorate.

"If (people) see that without good education (the U.S.) is not going to compete and therefore (they) won't have a job, then more and more you'll find people focused on education."

Tsongas feels that there needs to be an open-mindedness when it comes to educational reform.

"I think you have to look for very radical change in reform. And that means taking every idea, whether it looks good or not, and test it and find out what happens."

Parents should not be the only ones observing in schools. In his position paper, A Call To Economic Arms: Forging A New American Mandate, he writes that every rabbi, lawyer, store clerk, postmaster and business person should spend time in the classroom.

"I think you could make a pretty good argument that giving kids a good education so they come prepared makes a lot more sense than remedial activities later.

Education is not the only topic for concern and discussion this presidential election. Tsongas believes that the United States needs to lead the way on environmental issues.

"I don't think it is up to just (the United States), but I don't want to be embarrassed like I was during the summit, when the United States (was) viewed by the rest of the world as being a foot-dragger. It seems to me that the U.S. is still a nation that can give people a sense of what world priorities are.

"If you have a president viewed as a non-participant at the Rio summit, (it) really is disturbing.

"The environment ultimately is (an important issue). If you destroy (the environment) . . .you destroy humanity. In my mind the environment is a survival issue. But the capacity to control world population, the greenhouse effect, the ozone layer _ those deal with the very survival issue of the species."

Everyone has a responsibility to save the environment, he believes, and the individual's contribution plays an important role. Planting trees can be a part of changing attitudes, Tsongas says.

"What you do is set in motion on the part of the people who are planting the trees an awareness of how fragile the environment and planet is," he says. "So it's not just planting a tree to absorb carbon monoxide, the point is you plant so that the (individuals) planting become soldiers in the war to save the environment."