WASHINGTON - Testing. Vouchers. Accountability. Standards. Choice.

The words fill the air in venues ranging from school board meetings and political rallies to living rooms and car pools. But if you think the common use of these words suggests a common view of what we ought to do about our public schools, then think again.

The people at the National Issues Forums say the words don't mean the same thing to ordinary citizens as they do to the advocates and politicians.

"Take the idea of standards," offers researcher John Doble, who has just analyzed the results of more than 60 NIF-sponsored forums in 34 states and the District of Columbia. The experts may be thinking of standardized tests and other such measures. "But when the people use the word, it really translates into a set of expectations of what a good school or a good teacher does.

"In this view, you can have standards long before testing happens."

In fact, says Doble, ordinary people often find it odd to "imagine that you can discern standards or accountability by relying on testing. It's like judging the competency of cops on the number of tickets they write."

Similarly with the idea of "choice." Advocates often conclude that parental interest in school choice is virtually synonymous with an interest in vouchers. It isn't, says Doble. Parents want choices, but they would be happy to have those choices within their public schools, which they continue to support overwhelmingly, he said at an NIF news conference last week.

National Issues Forums, nonpartisan, nationally conceived but locally run, are designed to get at just such subtleties. By bringing local citizens together across lines of education and income and geography - often by having multiple meetings in different parts of the same town - they are able not only to find out what people think (as opinion polls do) but also to watch how opinions change in the give and take of the meetings.

The result, they say, is a subtler, more layered view of complex public issues - public education, in this case, but on a huge range of subjects over the years.

Obviously such gatherings of voluntary participants don't produce anything close to unanimity. But, say Doble and NIF executives, a surprising degree of consensus can emerge. For instance:

The American people (at any rate the forum participants) are deeply committed to the public schools as a common, equalizing, democratizing experience.

They believe parents ought to have some control over where their children go to school, but are not at all sure that a voucher system is the best way to provide it.

They want more connectedness to - and ownership of - the schools, but not more day-to-day control over administrative matters.

They want more equitable funding for education.

That last is an example of the complexity that tends to get lost both in the polls and in the political debates. They care about funding and think it needs to be more equitable between rich and poor districts, Doble found, "but they don't think in terms of federal vs. state money, or even necessarily in terms of bigger budgets. And they also believe that existing resources are not well spent."

What else do the forum participants tend to agree on?

They want more job-based education for those students who won't be going to college (they think the schools are doing pretty well for the college-bound youngsters). They want smaller and nearby schools that facilitate participation by parents and community members as well as students - and they want those schools available for non-school uses evenings, weekends and summers. "How can you make community involvement a priority if it takes 45 minutes to get to school?" one participant complained.

They agree on the importance of the public schools - even when those schools fall short. For instance, a Denver man says he tutors regularly at a nearby public school, even though his own children are home-schooled.

Such behavior will seem inconsistent only if you insist on lining people up on one side or another of every difficult question, as advocates often do.

I suspect it reflects the way a lot of people often feel about public schools and choice. They support public education and are willing to undertake some personal sacrifice to support it.

But meanwhile, they have children who need better choices here and now.

William Raspberry's e-mail address is [email protected].