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Education Goals Best Met From the Bottom Up

GOALS 2000 national education initiative is the latest casualty in federal budget slashing. A House spending measure would scrap the $371.9 million program in 1996.

Goals 2000 had problems from the start. Critics questioned what role, if any the federal government should play in education.

But the goals are laudable: all children will start school ready to learn; the high school graduation rate will reach at least 90 percent; and American students will achieve worldwide superiority in math and science.

The responsibility for educating the nation's youth lies with the states and, ultimately, local school boards. And that's the way it should be.

One of public education's greatest problems is that goals change every time a new governor or president takes office.

Real solutions are most likely to occur from the bottom up - from parents, taxpayers and teachers.

The Courier,

Houma, La.

Facing children of war

Are we exaggerating with images and stories of Bosnian children mutilated, deported, abandoned, starving?

It is a legitimate question given the propensity of [news media] to insist on this aspect of the war, which both exploits the victims and shocks readers.

An emotive reaction is legitimate. The face of a suffering child erases any difference between [ethnic and religious groups], and therefore does not ask us to take sides. It simply demands recognition of the irrationality of every war.

La Stampa

Turin, Italy