IN SHORT

December 18, 1981

You don't have to believe in Santa Claus to say the National School Boards Association should stay after and write 500 times that it will never do what it did again. Imagine giving the association's slick-paper journal a cover like this: a Santa-suited gent conked out in front of the fireplace with a beer can in his hand and empties left all around on piles of books. The intended pitch may be fine: remedial reading for school policymakers and administrators who have neglected too many worthy volumes over the year. But what comes across is that somebody needs a course in remedial taste.