history

all political stripes, including long-standing Tories - are hoping their grassroots movement will bring about a groundswell of support. The full-page ad reads, in part: ``Large classes. Fewer special education classes. Reduced library staff. Fewer arts programs . . . Does this sound like your school?'''' The first one appears in today''s Star. The funding formula is not meeting needs of kids in Toronto, or anywhere,'''' said Joanne Pauli, speaking on behalf of the newly formed Friends of Public She has three children, one at North Toronto Collegiate. Most of the parents have some connection to the collegiate; the idea for the ad campaign came out of a parent council meeting. The one-size-fits-all formula isn''t really fitting anyone at all,'''' Pauli said. In 1998, the provincial government seized control of education spending, taking away individual boards'' ability to raise their own taxes depending on their needs. It now spends $13.4 billion a year.

A modest proposal by President Clinton for vague and voluntary national standards provoked strong opposition in Congress and elsewhere. A variety of efforts on the part of states to introduce some forms of curriculum guidelines and to reinforce them with statewide history testing have stirred up strong reactions at the local level. Reinforcing this local history response to setting standards has been the hostility toward government that has characterized the politics of the last two decades. Increasingly, elected officials have won office on a platform of being relentlessly anti-government. They history see their primary job as an effort to protect local communities and individual citizens from the history intrusion of government control Denver should consolidate its program for gifted middle-schoolers to stop children from leaving for private, charter and magnet schools, the program''s leader said Thursday.

maintain the system hampered the district''s effort to offer other resources. It''s not that CDLN was terrible, but the new system allowed the district to spread its money further. People can now put books on hold via the Web site and can search the library''s database. It also offers Electric Library that lets students research topics history through sources such as history newspapers, magazines and books. The students really like it, and the new features," said Bismarck High library media specialist Charlotte Hill. very user friendly." One of the new options that has made life easier for students is called the book bag, Hill said. Students can a topic search history and then drop each book title that they want into their book bag on the computer screen. Theym,can then make a printout of the titles in a bibliography format and collect their books. They weren''t able to make a printout before," Hill said. They had to