Quality Control

BaseballAngels: Signed P Bryan Harvey to a one-year contract and former Orioles P Mark Williamson to a minor-league contract.Braves: Agreed to terms with P Tom Thobe, P Chris Brock and IF Marty Malloy on one-year contracts. Invited IF Pablo Martinez to spring training.Brewers: Traded OF Duane Singleton to the Tigers for P Henry Santos.Cardinals: Agreed to terms with former Orioles P Gregg Olson on a minor-league contract.Expos: Agreed to terms with P Mel Rojas, OF DaRond Stovall and IF Ryan McGuire on one-year contracts.

You can give a student fancy computers, buy her new textbooks, put her in state-of-the-art school buildings. None of it matters without a good teacher. So it's disturbing that many school systems do such a half-hearted job of rating teachers, weeding out incompetents and keeping a watchful eye on large-scale teacher performance problems.The extent of Anne Arundel's laxity became apparent last week, as a committee of educators presented its plan for a new teacher rating system. It's about time; the current standards were approved the year Jimmy Carter was elected president.

Dr. Amprey hides failures of EAI experimentI attended the City Council hearing on Tesseract on Dec. 7 planning to present testimony concerning my opposition to the program.However, as I listened to the gentleman from Education Alternatives Inc., the group which runs the Tesseract program in Baltimore City schools, my position changed from dislike to vehement opposition.Businessmen who come to a hearing or presentation without anything to back up their alleged facts and figures are sloppy.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- If the NCAA sold widgets, one in five of its most valued customers would say the salesman didn't tell the truth.Two in five would want a refund.In a Charlotte Observer survey conducted this winter, "NCAA Basketball: The Players Speak," the product isn't widgets, but Division I men's basketball. And the parent company is not a factory, but U.S. higher education.Based on the responses of 1,160 student-athletes who play major college basketball:* 22 percent say their school didn't keep its recruiting promises.

James J. HealeyQuality control engineerJames J. Healey, a retired quality control engineer for Martin Marietta, died Thursday of kidney failure at Lutheran Hospital in Denver. He was 75.A native of Baltimore, Mr. Healy moved with his family to Colorado after being transferred to Martin Marietta's Denver facility in 1961. He retired in 1988.During his 48-year career with Martin Marietta, he was involved in the quality control of aircraft space boosters and Mars landing spacecraft.Mr. Healy, who attended St. Paul's Catholic School and graduated from Baltimore Polytechnic Institute in 1941, served with the Air Force in the South Pacific during World War II. While living in Baltimore, Mr. Healey was a member of Our Lady Fatima Church and the Dewey Loman Post of the American Legion.

In the late 1970s, an impecunious young writer needed a new car. After looking at several American models, he settled on a Japanese import. Though he knew nothing of engineering or mechanics, the Japanese vehicle seemed more solidly built and a better value.That Japan was able to compete in the U.S. auto market little more than a quarter-century after its industries were devastated jTC by World War II was in large measure due to the pioneering efforts of quality-control expert W. Edwards Deming, who died recently at 93. He eventually lived to see his ideas taken up by his own countrymen but only after he had proved their effectiveness abroad.

When James Ford and his wife, Traci, decided to sell their brick duplex on one-tenth acre in the Fullerton section of Baltimore County, it was natural they would turn to a neighborhood firm named Kayhouse Realty. After all, Mr. Ford grew up along the Belair Road corridor where Kayhouse is practically a household name.Now -- even though the 30-year-old Kayhouse has linked itself with Century 21 of Irvine, Calif. -- the Fords are remaining loyal. The same Kayhouse agent who sold their $86,000 duplex will soon take them to the closing table on their next home, a $122,000 colonial with a pool in White Marsh.

WASHINGTON -- The Food and Drug Administration' promise to adopt a new mandatory program for seafood safety and quality control has met with praise and skepticism from consumer advocates who question whether the FDA has the necessary enforcement powers.Praise, because just about everyone concerned with seafood safety agrees that the the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) procedure, as it is known, is the best way to reduce seafood poisonings, which federal authorities believe kill 9,000 people and sicken millions in the United States each year.

Washington. David Gergen of U.S. News & World Report makes a sound point: Every other industry in America is moving toward quality control -- what about the pundits, the experts and the journalists?It's a good question. What about them? Many have much to answer for.Consider these lulus that were purveyed to the public: There would be 20,000 American bodybags. Blacks would bear the burden. We needed a draft. The Arab ''street'' would erupt. An air war can't be surgical. An air war can't work.