Word: states
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...wife has adopted three girls with Down syndrome: "They have given us joy and love back tenfold." But there are times when caring for a child with special needs can be too hard a test. In Texas a group of seven couples has brought a lawsuit against the state adoption agency, charging that they should have been told that their adopted children had been abused. As the children approached adolescence, they began to behave in a bizarre and sometimes violent fashion, hacking up furniture, setting fires, assaulting family members. All eventually required psychiatric care, costing...
After months of coolness and caution, the U.S. and the Soviet Union suddenly seem consumed by arms-control fever. First, Secretary of State James Baker and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze ended their tete-a-tete in the Tetons by announcing plans for a spring summit. A few days later, George Bush and Shevardnadze were at the United Nations competing to see who could get rid of chemical weapons faster...
...Francisco to New York's East Harlem, parents are free to shop around for what they judge to be the best public school in the district. Minnesota goes further: it is phasing in a program that by 1990 will allow students to attend virtually any public school in the state so long as the move does not harm desegregation efforts. Earlier this year, Arkansas, Iowa, Ohio and Nebraska adopted similar plans; eleven other states are moving toward choice. But it is unclear how many families will take advantage of such freedom: in Minnesota only 3,800 children -- less than...
...Some state teachers' unions have opposed legislation aimed at luring job switchers, arguing that it allows unqualified people into the classroom. However, many mid-careerists charge that the traditional system is too rigid, forcing even seasoned professionals to take two years of what New Jersey Education Commissioner Saul Cooperman calls "Mickey Mouse" education courses. Both camps agree on one point. Says Katherine Foster, 34, who gave up dentistry for the classroom to become a ninth- and tenth-grade teacher in San Benito County, Calif.: "Teaching is more rewarding than anything I ever imagined...
...other hand, feel that their three-hour high school exit exam in reading, writing and math -- which for the first time will be required for a diploma this academic year -- has already had a salutary effect. "Students are taking it seriously and studying," says Robert Paskel, a state education monitor. One worry: that kids who do not pass will become discouraged and eventually drop out. "Holding students back, especially in the lower grades, doesn't help," says Bill Honig, state superintendent of public instruction in California...