Goals 2000

COLLEGE PARK - Shut up or transfer. That was the blunt advice Andrew "Buggs" Combs got when he called home two years ago to lament his limited role on the Maryland lacrosse team. The phone was not answered by the most sympathetic ear. The coach of a Division I-AA college football team, his father was accustomed to hard decisions about young men and plights over playing time, so Gordy Combs was not about to intervene on his son's behalf. Father to son: Quit complaining, make Terps coach Dick Edell play you - or move to another program.

DUNBARTON, N.H. -- Jean Dimock caught up with Sen. Phil Gramm near the stand selling "Clinocchio" T-shirts."You're going to keep your pro-life stand?" she asked. The Texas Republican assured her he would."You're going to stick with the Republican platform?" she continued. Mr. Gramm once again assured her he would.That done, Ms. Dimock peered around the crowd for another presidential candidate to buttonhole. Asked if she had decided whom to back, she shook her head as if in horror. She still had to talk to several of them, she said, and then study their voting records.

Washington. -- The other day the Senate was doing the usual, issuing imperious commands to the future, when a senator did the unusual: He said the future will not be impressed.The Senate was debating the ''Goals 2000'' education bill when Pat Moynihan rose to compare two of the goals -- the only quantifiable ones -- to grain-production quotas in the Soviet Union. The two goals are that by the year 2000 the high school graduation rate will be ''at least'' 90 percent, and that American students ''will be first in the world in mathematics and science achievement.

Mission: To serve as steward of Historic London Town and Gardens and to research, explore and teach tidewater history through the story of the lost towns of Anne Arundel County. The foundation is committed to preserving its historic, archaeological and horticultural resources and to contributing to the fields of history, archaeology, preservation, architectural history and horticulture. Historic London Town and Gardens, a 23-acre park on the South River, is owned by Anne Arundel County and managed and interpreted by the nonprofit London Town Foundation.

There is a direct relationship between America's crumbling competitive position in the world marketplace and the pervasive weakness of students in science and mathematics. The problem is not exclusive to urban public schools; it extends to private and suburban schools as well. But it is in the cities where scientifically and mathematically illiterate students are concentrated.This means, of course, that blacks and Hispanics have the worst achievement levels. It means, too, that too many of these students leave the academic pipeline because of failure or lack of interest.

Washington --- On the heels of recession in 1983, the time was right for the nation to take notice of the landmark report ''A Nation at Risk,'' issued by the National Commission on Excellence in Education.We were told that our national security was jeopardized by a school system that was failing to graduate students with sufficient skills to compete in a global marketplace, and that ''the educational foundations of our society are being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a nation and a people.

School's in for the year. But is it good enough for our kids, and the country's future?Two radically opposed views have surfaced in recent weeks. One comes from Education Secretary Richard Riley, a former governor with unblemished credentials in fighting for children's welfare and school reform.''Steady-as-you-go'' on school reform, suggests Mr. Riley, pointing to the government's yearly ''Condition of Education'' report that shows American high school students are dropping out a little less and scoring higher on math and science tests than a decade ago.But Louis Gerstner, the chairman and CEO of IBM, sees 44TC different world.

Here is how members of Maryland's delegation on Capitol Hill were recorded on important roll-call votes last week:Y: YES N: NO X: NOT VOTINGHOUSE: SPEECH ISSUEThe House voted 361 for and 34 against to condemn remarks by a Nation of Islam leader in a speech in November at Kean College in New Jersey. Khallid Abdul Muhammad said, in part, that Adolf Hitler was "wickedly great," that there was some justification for the Holocaust, that Jews are "the blood suckers of the black nation" and called the pope "that cracker" and said he might be gay.The resolution (H Res 343)

THE structure of schooling in the United States is about to undergo a change so fundamental that it amounts to a reconstitution of education. The change will begin with the nationalization of important areas of education policy and will eventually result in the creation of a national public secondary school curriculum enforced by performance tests.The last time the country experienced such a basic shift in the relationship of individuals to their government -- the adoption of the U.S. Constitution -- the protection of individual liberty was secured by the adoption of the Bill of Rights.