The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

Gen. Colin Powell was named chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a U.S. satellite picked up a signal possibly from the missing plane carrying Mickey Leland, the death toll in the Mexican train crash rose to more than 100. We'll have details in our News Summary in a moment. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: After the News Summary, we examine the choice of Colin Powell to be the nation's No. 1 military man with Sen. John Warner and retired Admiral Eugene Carroll. Then two education stories, conflict among parents over education resources in Chicago and the issue of college costs and new charges of price fixing against several universities as seen by Princeton Admissions Director Fred Hargadon and Consumer Advocate Ralph Nader. And finally a Roger Rosenblatt essay about the summertime. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: Colin Powell was chosen today to be the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the highest ranking military officer in the United States. Powell is an army general who served as the National Security Adviser in the last months of the Reagan administration. He is 52 years old, a graduate of West Point. He will be the first black ever to be the JSC Chairman. Pres. Bush, with Powell at this side made the announcement this afternoon at the White House. Both spoke to reporters.

PRESIDENT BUSH: As we face the challenges of the '90s, it is most important that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff be a person of breadth, judgment, experience and total integrity. Colin Powell has all those qualities and more.

GEN. COLIN POWELL, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff-Designate: I'm very pleased to be joining your national security team and I look forward to working with you, the Vice President, and all the members of the team as you face the historic opportunities and challenges that are before us. I also feel it a special privilege to be the spokesman for all the millions of great young men and women who are serving their nation voluntarily in uniform.

MR. LEHRER: Powell's nomination must be confirmed by the Senate. We will have more on the story right after this News Summary. Robin.

MR. MacNeil: A Tehran newspaper said today that indirect talks between the U.S. and Iran with Pakistan as intermediary could begin in days as part of the effort to end the hostage crisis. The report appeared in the Tehran Times, a paper close to the thinking of the new Iranian President, Rafsanjani. White House Spokesman said the U.S. was likely to take advantage of a visit to Iran by Pakistan's foreign minister, Sahab Zadi Yakub Khan. Last week, Khan met Vice President Dan Quayle who urged him to become involved in helping facilitate the release of the hostages. The White House said it was premature to expect direct talks with Iran. In Beirut, at least 22 people have been killed and 140 wounded in another round of fighting between Syrian troops and Lebanese Christian forces. Louise Bates of Worldwide Television News narrates this report.

LOUISE BATES: The battle between Christian army units and Syrian- backed militia men erupted again after almost two days of relative calm. Military sources say Christian army units came under fire from Druse fighters, prompting retaliatory strikes with rockets and mortars. The fighting spilled over from the mountains Southeast of Beirut into the capital and its suburbs. The latest bombardment came after Christian army leader Gen. Michele Aun held a news conference in his underground bunker in East Beirut. Aun said he'd continue to try to force the 35,000 strong Syrian army in Lebanon to leave, but leaving Lebanon was almost certainly not on the agenda when Syria's Pres. Assad held talks in Damascus with Aun's adversary Druse leader, Walley Juneblatt. The five month old battle for control of Beirut has produced some of the heaviest fighting the capital has seen. Many of its residents have now fled to the relative peace of Sidon in South Lebanon as life in the underground shelters of Beirut becomes intolerable. But as Lebanon braces itself for the expected Israeli retaliation after the latest car bombing, it may be that refugees from Beirut find themselves under attack yet again.

MR. LEHRER: There was a development today in the search for Congressman Mickey Leland. A weather satellite picked up a radio signal that officials said could be from a downed airplane. The signal came from an area 130 miles Southeast of Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. The plane carrying Leland and 13 others disappeared Monday. Until now, the search has been in another remote area near the Sudanese border. Authorities said it will be several hours before researchers can determine if today's signal is definitely related to the Leland plane. There was a train tragedy in Mexico yesterday. More than 100 people died when a passenger train plunged off a bridge into the San Rafael River near Las Mochas. Another 200 were injured. A government spokesman said heavy rains in the area over the last week may have caused the tracks to give way.

MR. MacNeil: Two airplanes had close calls during the past 24 hours. Today a Trump shuttle from New York had landing gear trouble in Boston. Its nose wheel would not come down so the pilot had to land on just the wheels under the wings. The plane's nose scraped along the runway, shooting up sparks before coming to a stop. Nobody was injured. Last night there was trouble with another DC-10. The Northwest Airlines plane had to make an emergency landing after the tail engine apparently began breaking up. It was a failure of a tail engine that caused last month's crash of a DC-10 in Iowa, killing 111 people, but in last night's incident, the hydraulic lines were not damaged. The head of the Federal Aviation Administration said despite this second incident there was no need to ground the DC-10s.

MR. LEHRER: Eight Northeastern states today agreed to adopt tough auto emissions. The Governors of New York, New Jersey, and the New England states signed an agreement that would require auto manufacturers to improve anti-pollution equipment on cars by 1993. They said they were sending a message to Congress that Pres. Bush's clean air bill does not go far enough. Those standards are similar to those adopted by California earlier this year.

MR. MacNeil: The Soviet government said today it would start paying farmers partly in foreign currency to stimulate production and reduce imports. Farmers growing wheat and other crops on collective and state farms will be paid foreign currency for anything they produce above average levels from 1981 to 1985. They will be free to spend the dollars or other foreign currency as they wish. Chinese police today said they had arrested another student leader of the democracy demonstrations in June. He is 20 year old Jung Hu Gwang, bringing to seven the number arrested of the most wanted list of 21. He was arrested in the Southern City of Gwang Zo. Officials said 18 people had been executed there for theft and robbery, but said the crimes were not connected to the pro democracy protests.

MR. LEHRER: The super secret mission of Space Shuttle Columbia performed its No. 1 super secret job today. Columbia's five astronauts successfully deployed a major new spy satellite into orbit. The Air Force announcement was the first authoritative word on the mission's purpose since it began Tuesday. The shuttle is scheduled to return to earth Sunday. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the Colin Powell nomination, an education fight among parents in Chicago, pricing higher education, and a Roger Rosenblatt essay. FOCUS - COMMAND PERFORMANCE

MR. LEHRER: Colin Powell is our lead story tonight. The Army General was chosen today by President Bush to be the top man in the U.S. Military the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. His appointment jumped him ahead of 30 other officers with more command experience. That is one of the issues we will discuss with a leading member of the Senate Armed Service Committee and a retired Navy Admiral. But first this background report by Elizabeth Brackett.

MS. BRACKETT: At age 52 General Colin L. Powell is the Youngest Four Star General in American Peacetime history. Today's rose garden announcement makes him the first black ever selected to become the Nations top military officer.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Colin Powell will be a key member of my National Security team. A Team of close knit experienced professionals and I am very proud of this team and proud to add Colin Powell to it.

GENERAL POWELL: Thank you Mr. President for your very kind words and thank you sir for this new opportunity to serve you, to serve the men and women of the Armed Forces, and to serve our Nation.

MS. BRACKETT: For Colin Powell this is just the latest in a long line of opportunities he has had to serve the Nation. A decorated Viet Nam Veteran Powell moved quickly through the ranks of the military and positions in Washington. In to the Pentagon as an Assistant to Defense Secretary Casper Wienberger. And in January 1987 in to the White House as Deputy National Security Advisor.

GENERAL POWELL: Thank you very much.

MR. BRACKET: But the following November when Casper Weinberger stepped down President Director replaced him with National Security Advisor Frank Carlucci and Powell moved up to replace him. Powell quickly distinguished himself as a close Advisor to the President. Within a few weeks he was participating in top level Summit talks with visiting Soviet Leader Gorbechov and was candid in his analysis.

GENERAL POWELL: The General Secretary made reference to Nicaragua and said, the are very cryptic I should add, and said it should be possible for them to throttle back their arms shipment, small arms, or ever police weapons, he said at one time if we would do likewise. The were very brief cryptic references which we have to follow up with the Soviets in the days ahead and do it rather quickly to see exactly what is in there.

MS. BRACKETT: Six months later Powell was with the President in Moscow setting the Summit agenda and receiving credit for insuring continued arms talks with the Soviets. But when Ronald Reagan left Washington in Januaryso did Colin Powell. Brent Scrocroft became the President's top security and Powell promoted to Four Star General returned to the Army. In April he was put in charge of the forces Command at Fort MacPherson, Georgia. In charge of keeping one million Army active, reserve and National Guard troops combat ready to defend the Continental United States. The son of Jamaican immigrants raised in the South Bronx Powell recognized how far he had come.

GENERAL POWELL: I like to tell young blacks that we have come a very very long way in this country from the days when I had to drive from New York to Atlanta or Fort Banning, Georgia non stop and to come down I 85 the day before yesterday and know that I can pull off at any Interchange and find a motel that is a long way.

MS. BRACKETT: In may Powell shared that message with graduates of Atlanta's Clark College.

GENERAL POWELL: We have come a long way but we aren't there yet but to all the men of the women I acknowledge the debt that I owe. Those of you who are graduating owe a debt too. You are blessed by living in a country that it is increasingly trying to live up to its dream. Increasingly is allowing doors of opportunity to open that were not open to me.

MS. BRACKETT: And again today at the White House Colin Powell was gracious in recognizing his latest achievement.

GENERAL POWELL: I also fell especially privileged and somewhat humbled to be following an man like Admiral Bill Crowel distinguished Sailor, a great friend, and an outstanding Chairman. They are big shoes to fit in to but I will give it my best. The Nation owes Bill Crowel a great debt of gratitude and Mr. President I am ready to go to it and I look forward to the challenges ahead. Thank you sir.

MR. LEHRER: Now two perspectives on the Powell selections those of Senator John Warner, Republican of Virginia, the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee which will hold hearings on the nomination. Senator Warner was also Navy Secretary in the Nixon Administration. And of Retired Navy Admiral Eugene Carroll, now the Deputy Director of the Center for Defense Information, A Washington think tank. Admiral Carroll was Commander of the Carrier Midway and a Carrier Force in the 6th Fleet and was a Deputy Assistant Chief of Naval Operations prior to his retirement. Senator is this a good appointment?

SENATOR JOHN WARNER, [R] Virginia: Excellent appointment. This is a man that is greatful to have worn uniform of the United States of America Military. He is proud of his family heritage and above all he is greatful to have been born in a country where he can have every opportunity. I think the last note on your film clip should the humility of this man the greatness of him. And I have been in the Oval Office with him on a number of occasions, the Cabinet Room where the toughest of Miliary decisions was under consideration and when he spoke others listened. He will make an excellent Advisor to the President, to the National Security Council which he knows well and to Dick Cheney Secretary of Defense.

MR. LEHRER: How would you access his qualification from a military command point.

SEN. WARNER: He came through really all of the tough jobs in the Army, Company Commander, decorated in Viet Nam all the way to Corp Commander but at the same time was able to accept joint responsibility, that is joint assignments where he worked with all branches of the service and a good deal of contact with the foreign military. And those backgrounds will help him with his work for the future, Jim, stop to think we have START Agreement coming along, hopefully a conventional arms control agreement and he'll have to work on a direct one to one with the Senior Military, Soviet and others throughout the World. This man will be a star in America's cap.

MR. LEHRER: Are you concerned at all over the fact that he was jumped over 30 other Officers in the Military senior to Him.

SEN. WARNER: Well I have studies a good deal of Miliary history. Eisenhouer was jumped during World War II to take over the European Operation. I was Undersecretary of the Navy at time Admiral Zumwalt was elevated over a number of others. That situation eventually worked out all right. We find men and women in uniform except decisions of the President and other civilian bosses when those decisions are fair and this was a fair one and well deserved.

MR. LEHRER: Admiral Carroll what is your assessment of this appointment?

ADM. CARROLL: A man of tremendous intellect, strong character, a man of great achievement but very limited in his practical military experience. He will be the senior Military Advisor to the President of the United States by statute. And in carrying the military information and recommendations he is basing on very limited exposure to these factors. In his last 20 years in the service he served 5 years with the operational units and the other 15 years in Washington. I am afraid that this appointment tends to increase the political content office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and reduce the professional military qualifications that are expected for one who follows in the steps of Omar Bradly and so on.

MR. LEHRER: So because he was on the National Security Staff you think is a liability rather than an asset?

ADM. CARROLL: I think that he will be coloring his views and decisions and recommendations with political experience. He has had a superb political education and his achievements are in political roles. If you looked at somebody like General Robert Hays the present Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff a tremendous record of Military accomplishment very little exposure in the political side. I might mention one other thing General Powell has very limited experience on the Joint Command System which will now head. I can not find any evidence in his biography of any participation directly in joint unified command activities. When he goes to the tank as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to preside over the proceedings of those very important meetings he is probably going to be there for the very first time.

MR. LEHRER: You heard what the Senator just said that he felt that the professional military people in the United States Armed forces will welcome and applaud this appointment. Do you agree with that?

ADM. CARROLL: No I think there will be some resentment. This business of vaulting over officers particularly on the basis of a limited military qualification background is bound to produce a certain amount of resentment. The Air Force also kind of felt like it was their turn at bat and they had General Hays fully qualified. So there will be some resistance. Let's be clear about the President needs a man who is Head of the Joint Chiefs with whom he comfortable and who he trusts but the fact is there are a lot of very able officers who apparently will not have their hopes of this responsibility terminated and perhaps be leaving.

MR. LEHRER: Senator let's go through the Admirals points. First of all that he has had more political experience than military and that may be a liability according to the Admiral.

SEN. WARNER: Well let's just take it on that. I disagree with my former colleague. We served together in the Department of the Navy during the War in Viet Nam. What doers he mean geo political. You are dog gone right. He does have a good geo political background, He can talk to the President and say Mr. President in the segment of the World and I think thus. I also think we should or we should not insert American troops to meet this contingency plan. That is the kind of advice geo political he can give and I think you know that Gene.

ADM. CARROLL: I think that he has to give it from the military standpoint. Who advised the President that we can conduct a surgical strike in Libya.

SEN. WARNER: Putting aside politics and I know the man and he has been in my office many times. And I have seen him work member of Congress and politics doesn't enter his mind but the thing about it is this man is decisive. When he looks a President in the eye and when he looks at members of NSC and works for Dick Cheney they all come out with sound decisions and the bottom line is this appointment, George Bush, our President, wants to be comfortable, have a confidence in the individual who is going to be his chief Advisor. He has worked with Colin Powell when he was Vice President and he made a good decision. And he will be confirmed by the United States Senate.

MR. LEHRER: You don't question that do you?

ADM. CARROLL: No I am positive that he has earned the approval of the Senate because the President has expressed confidence in him and he is an able loyal and productive man. I am raising the objection as a uniformed member of the Navy to the idea that we give precedence to political experience to servings as Aids to Secretary of Defense and on the White House staff over that hard tough experience you get in the troop.

SEN. WARNER: Let me have a final note. Our military set up as the Admiral knows you have the Chairman. He is the Advisor. The orders are executed by field commanders. There in is where you need the greater military experience.

ADM. CARROLL: The decision will be made by the President based on the advice he receives at the moment he has to decided.

SEN. WARNER: The Commander and Chief of the NATO Forces and things like that. They are the ones that you actually want to have the highest degree of military experience. But this man fought in Viet Nam was wounded, a company commander, to corp commander. I question your wisdom on this my good friend.

MR. LEHRER: Do you think that it sends a bad message to the professional Military?

ADM. CARROLL: Yes it does for another reason. In addition to my position that he has only exercised command only 3 or four years out of the last 20. Every Military Officer serving has a problem. What kind of a career should I pursue. The message going out is come to Washington serve your political mentors, make friends where it counts in the temple and avoid those trips to the troop. Don't spend you time on the deck making decisions whether to fire a missile at an Iranian Airliner when you loose your career in one second.

MR. LEHRER: That is a tough message?

SEN. WARNER: No it is not a tough message. When we worked on the Goldwater Nichols act which you and I were discussing a moment ago we put in there the criteria that officers who anticipate.

MR. LEHRER: Excuse me this is a law that reorganizes the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Makes the Chairman more of an Advisor to the President than he was before.

SEN. WARNER: It brings him in closer to the President and also raises the Profile of the Commander and Chiefs. We specifically said in that act Young Officers who want to move up and someday take on the top post of Chairman they have to serve on joint assignments and I'll show you as we conclude a series of joint assignments that General Powell had. I have them with me outside.

MR. LEHRER: But what about the point the specific point as it relates to General Powell that his immediate past jobs were in the White House and not in the Army and field positions. He was the National Security Advisor and before that Deputy National Security Advisor.

SEN. WARNER: I said he started in Viet Nam, company commander, then a battalion, eventually he was corp commander. He was in Germany with the troop. He came back did some called political or assignments with the White House and the Secretary of Defense and then he was returned. He was just finished or in the midst of a troop assignment. So he has rotated back and forth. I think a good deal.

ADM. CARROLL: He did a great deal of ticket punching as we call it in the military. He was a battalion commander one year, a brigade commander one years. he did not command a division which is very unusual in the Army for one that becomes a corp commander for a year. And that is the extent of his military command.

MR. LEHRER: Finally we heard that you both agree that General Powell is going to be confirmed. Is this not that a serious a matter to you Admiral and others who feel the way you are that you are going to actively fight against his confirmation?

ADM. CARROLL: We can not possibly fight against the President of the United States who is Commander and Chief and he selects the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He certainly conferred with the leaders of the Senate on this matter and I am assured his confirmation is already approved.

SEN. WARNER: There was consultation with me and I presume other senior members of the Senate and I gave him the best possible report and I am proud that this Country is going to have this fine American, a real soldiers soldier as the Chief Military Advisor to the President.

MR. LEHRER: Gentleman thank you both very much.

MR. MacNeil: Still to come on the Newshour competing for education resources in Chicago, the rising costs of higher education, and Roger Rosenblatt on Summer. FOCUS - PARENTS & SCHOOLS

MR. MacNeil: Our first education story is about parental involvement in schools. In Chicago, two groups of parents, both working for better education, have focused their attention on the same school. In the process, they've become bitter antagonists. Education Correspondent John Merrow reports.

REGINA WILLIAMS, Teacher: I felt like this was going to be a school that was going to be completely different than any other in Chicago, and I was going to be part of it. I was thrilled. It was a teacher's dream.

JOYCE FRANKO, Teacher: We had a dynamite faculty. You could spot that from the first day, and that we were going to make this school work and let everybody look and say, this is the best school in the city. We have the best teachers; we have the best students.

MR. MERROW: South Loop Elementary School was special. It attracted some of Chicago's best teachers like Joyce Franko and Regina Williams. Its curriculum was built around the performing arts, and so the building includes a dance studio, an art room, and a computer center. The special programs are what educators call a magnet, designed to attract students from outside the immediate neighborhood. It works at South Loop. 30 percent of its students are from other parts of Chicago. But South Loop Elementary was also designed to be a neighborhood school for this community, Dearborn Park, a middle class, mostly minority, enclave right in the heart of Chicago. Former School Board President George Munoz.

GEORGE MUNOZ, Former President, Chicago School Board: What the city has is a policy of trying to continue the city being a vibrant, active place where people live and work also but they bring, they raise their families in downtown, and so the Dearborn Park experiment, if I may, was an experiment where young people and professionals would be attracted to this inner-city life, brand new construction, condominiums, and a promise for a good school, local school. The feeling was if you have a good school there, it will attract more and more people there and when the professionals start having their children, they won't be forced to move out of town for school.

MR. MERROW: For years, professionals moved out to the suburbs to avoid schools like this one just a few blocks from the new South Loop Elementary School. Nearly all of its students live in public housing projects like the Hilliard Homes. The parents in the projects who couldn't afford to move weren't satisfied with the schools either and had been asking for a new school for over 20 years. Finally in 1984, the Chicago Board acted. It built this annex with eight classrooms on project grounds. The parents at Hilliard homes were initially pleased with the annex. But when they found out that only a few blocks away a brand new school was being built for Dearborn Park, they demanded that their children go there and not the annex. Then Dearborn Park parents objected.

GEORGE MUNOZ, Former President, Chicago School Board: Those minorities who have successfully extrapolated themselves out of poverty or out of the public housing mentality, they felt that the boat must go and we can't put everybody on it, otherwise, it will sink and, therefore, you had middle class minorities saying we don't want our children necessarily being mixed with public housing children. That's what we're trying to get away from.

MR. MERROW: The school board, under Munoz leadership, hammered out a compromise. Children from the projects could attend South Loop, but only after spending kindergarten, first and second grades at the annex, to be renamed the South Loop Branch. The compromise made everyone unhappy. The Hilliard parents' objection was that the annex did not have facilities or special programs comparable to those at the main school. The annex library, for example, consists of these few shelves of books located in the kindergarten classroom. Project parents felt their children would be at a serious disadvantage when they transferred to the South Loop School in the third grade.

SHEILA GARRETT: Our kids are the only kids in this neighborhood within the boundary lines that cannot enter the South Loop School. Okay. And to me, that's discrimination.

MR. MERROW: Sheila Garrett is the head of the Hilliard Homes parents group. Two of her children are at the branch school. The oldest attends South Loop.

SHEILA GARRETT: Our kids are our future. We have nothing else but our kids. We're supposed to give them a better education than what we have.

MR. MERROW: Michael Gipson heads of the Dearborn Park parents group. One of his three children is a student at South Loop.

MICHAEL GIPSON, Dearborn Park Parents Group: My concern is the quality of education, not where the kid lives at, not that he lives in Hilliard Homes or Long Grove or Dearborn Park or Printers Row or wherever. I don't care where these kids live at. If they're not adding tothe quality of the program, then they need to be somewhere else as far as I'm concerned. I know this sounds very selfish, very elitist, every kid in the city deserves a decent education, but it becomes a problem when you start saying your kid deserves a decent education at the expense of my kid. As a father, I have problems when my daughter comes home and says, dad, I'm getting bored, because the teacher has to keep going over stuff that I already know, or dad, I'm sad today, I'm sad today because we couldn't dance in dance class because the kids wouldn't behave properly. What do you tell a seven year old who wants to learn, who wants to participate, and is being held back because either her classmates aren't being cooperative or some of her classmates don't understand the work, and with no extra facilities to help the slower kids.

SHEILA GARRETT, Hilliard Homes Parents Group: Mike Gipson has five computers at home. I don't have the computer. I would love one for my kids to get more practice on, you know what I'm saying. Our kids don't have the money to buy the material that they do.

MR. GIPSON: I don't want to say that they don't care. I just, I'm basically saying they are not living up to their responsibility as far as the children's education goes, because you cannot put the whole burden of educating your child on the public school system. If you do, your children's going to come up short every time.

MS. GARRETT: Don't fault the parent for not having the knowledge. I fault the board for that, okay, for not exposing these people. To me, it's like a cycle. It's going around and around and when does it stop? I don't plan for my kids to be drug pushers. I don't plan for my kids to be dish washers. I plan for kids to be lawyers, a doctor.

MR. MERROW: You're the experts. I mean, you're in the front line of this. Does it work educationally to mix kids from poverty background with kids from the middle class, with the more educational advantages, does it work to mix them in a classroom?

REGINA WILLIAMS, Teacher, South Loop Elementary: I don't see how else you could do it. I mean, I think it is the most beautiful thing to see a classroom full of mixed children. You can see children gaining so much from the other children, and I'm not talking about the Hilliard children from the Dearborn Park children. I'm talking about vice versa, because everybody has something. Children learn much more from each other than they do from a teacher. Believe me, they really learn. And children love to help other children. They feel so good when they can help somebody learn something.

MR. MERROW: Chicago's school rules give parents considerable say in managing a local school through what's called a Local School Improvement Committee. Michael Gipson, Sheila Garrett, and other parents from both communities rushed to join the South Loop committee. Writing rules called by-laws was the first step, but unfortunately, the two parent groups couldn't even agree on rules for writing the rules.

MR. GIPSON: We only had to meetings to convene LISC. We went way past two meetings, so, therefore, this damned committee has failed in its task, it should be disbanded, we should allow the principal to set up the LSC election and be done with it.

MR. MERROW: Gipson maintain that parents from the project verbally harassed Dearborn Park parents until all except Gipson dropped out. Garrett denies that charge. In any case, project parents basically wrote the proposed by-laws, but when they came to a vote, the Dearborn Park parents and the teachers combined to vote themdown overwhelmingly. The project group hasn't give up. They're questioning the voting process and examining individual ballots. Up to this point, the conflict, although it was intense, was economic, the haves versus the have nots. But after the by-laws were defeated, race became an issue. Sheila Garrett publicly accused white teachers from South Loop of discriminating against black children from the projects.

MS. GARRETT: My daughter said to me that the teacher prefers white kids better than she do black kids.

MR. MERROW: Garrett made her charges of racial discrimination on a popular Chicago on a popular radio talk show, and not long after that, a teacher at the branch school played a tape of the broadcast to her second graders, which escalated the conflict.

MR. GIPSON: I want to know what you hope to accomplish by going on the air, calling the teachers at the main building racist and you mess our plan up for your kids. Now frankly, I think it was the act of malfeasance. You're already talking about your kids have poor self images, so to tell those kids that these teachers hate 'em just because they live in Hilliard or just because they're black, at best, shows poor judgment. I didn't say you said anything. I said you played it in your classroom.

TEACHER: Played what?

MR. GIPSON: The radio show.

TEACHER: You cannot be an informed citizen if you don't know what's going on, so what's wrong with having children listen to a radio program?

MR. GIPSON: What's wrong with it, first of all, you knew the content of the program before Sheila went on.

TEACHER: I did not.

MR. GIPSON: Because Sheila doesn't do anything without discussing it with you. Now you brought it up. Let's finish it. Sheila doesn't do anything without discussing it with you.

PARENT: There would be more --

MR. GIPSON: Second --

PARENT: Michael, I am sorry. There will be no more discussion on this.

MR. MERROW: Confrontations like this one are now rare, because adults from the two camps only meet if they have to, but children from the projects and Dearborn Park, as well as their teachers, are together every day.

JOYCE FRANKO, Teacher, South Loop Elementary: I've had children that I've gotten along with just fine come in and pull children aside and say, she doesn't like you because you live here and you live here. And before if I disciplined a child it was I was fair, now it's because I'm a racist.

MS. WILLIAMS: I felt that when the by-laws were voted down that something would happen. I didn't know which way it was going to come from, I didn't know which teacher was going to get it, but I knew something would happen. I think the damage that has been done with the radio broadcast is almost irreparable and I don't know how it can be repaired, I don't, because you've taken children and you've used their emotions and they don't understand it. They know they like their teachers. They know their love their parents. And now parents are saying to them perhaps maybe your teacher wasn't so nice after all, you know, maybe your teacher really didn't like you. And I think that these poor children are suffering because they don't know.

MR. MERROW: Can things get worse? Unfortunately, yes. Next year South Loop Elementary School will be overcrowded; it won't have enough classrooms. Chicago's new school board could redraw school attendance boundary lines to reduce enrollment, but that means choosing sides, either supporting a nationally known experiment designed to attract the middle class back into the inner-city, or backing poor parents who are seeking better educational opportunities for their children. Either way, some children lose. FOCUS - COLLEGE COSTS

MR. MacNeil: Escalating college costs and suggestions of price fixing at some of the nation's top colleges are next tonight. The cost of attending college will rise as much as 9 percent this fall, outpacing inflation for the ninth straight year according to annual survey by the college board. That announcement coincides with the Justice Department investigation into whether as many as 20 prestigious institutions may have violated anti-trust laws by colluding in setting tuition and financial aid packages. The investigation and the college board survey have renewed debate over whether institutions are pushing up prices unnecessarily. The average costs for a student at a four year private institution in the coming academic year will be $10,778. But at many of the nation's highest priced schools annual costs exceed $20,000, and it is at approximately 20 of those schools that the Justice Department is looking into charges of price fixing. Here to debate the rising tuition costs issues are Consumer Advocate Ralph Nader and Fred Hargadon, Director of Admissions at Princeton University. Mr. Hargadon, Princeton, as I understand it, shares information about financial aid offers with other colleges. How does that work?

FRED HARGADON, Princeton University: We gather in April when each of us has determined which students we're going to offer admission to. When we know which students have applied for aid and qualified for aid and when we've made a guess at what we ought to offer that student that will make it possible for the student to attend Princeton, the eight Ivy League colleges pool that information and then meet to see which other colleges are admitting the same candidate in any case. The purpose is really two. All of these colleges voluntarily get together because we all happen to agree on awarding aid on a need basis only. We get together in order to share the kind of information we have which determines what that need really is. We happen to believe in the principle that a student should make up his or her mind where to attend college not based on the best offer but based on the best educational match. When we gather to look at those awards, frequently we leave those meetings it having cost us slightly more in financial aid than we had anticipated largely because the net to the students is a gain. We, for instance, will get together and if Yale and Harvard are admitting the same student we are, we think the student needs $10,000, they may think the student needs $14,000. We will ask why they think that. They may have a piece of information that was submitted to them, say a tax return or something, which hadn't gotten to us. We may adjust on that. We would probably increase our award not because Harvard and Yale have higher awards, but because they persuaded us that the information dictated a higher need than we had calculated. It works the opposite way. We may find that information would reduce an award, but in no sense is it price fixing, no sense is it scholarship fixing. We all are part of a national system that uses a common financial aid form which uses the Congressional mandated methodology. That's a system that encompasses almost every college and university. This is a slight refinement on that. It's an art not a science. They may determine that to expect the student to come up with $1500 during the summer, summer job, is unwarranted given the town that student lives in, given the availability of jobs, and that may be known more by one college who's worked for the candidate than the others. It's a sharing of information. Nobody has to change an award at all. In fact, some awards are not changed. People are not persuaded by the evidence and they offer the student different awards.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Nader, that's the system the Justice Department is looking into, thinking that it could be a violation of anti- trust law. What do you think about the system?

RALPH NADER, Consumer advocate: Well, we need more facts. The Justice Department is only investigating. It hasn't made any anti- trust charges. It's a civil case in format. We need more facts on the table, but the structure bothers me, Jim. You have basically, especially with the Ivy League schools, universities dealing with a captive market. You've got only so many students available in a class size at Princeton, Yale, or Harvard, but the number of applicants keeps growing. Many of these schools are getting 15 times the number of applicants compared to who gets admitted. At the same time you have parents who will do almost anything and pay almost anything to get their children into Princeton, Harvard, Cornell or Brown, and you also have financial aid, which cushions the blow of these constantly escalating tuition increases, which for the ninth straight year, as you pointed out, are well in excess of inflation. When you have a captive market like that and you proceed to develop additional uniformities, like scholarship uniformities, same levels of tuition roughly, tuition increases, you're going to I think reach a point where you're exploiting the consumer. But you're not only doing that as a university, you're harming yourself, because it makes the universities, these kinds of captive markets, and these kinds of exchanges and universities, it gets the university to a stodgy, unimaginative, and often wasteful posture, and that is not good for the university and it's not good for the students. There needs to be more diversity, more competition. It's difficult to say this, but if universities don't compete more vigorously over price, they may not compete more vigorously over the tangibles of educational offerings, especially as they bring them to the attention of the students, like civic opportunities and student activities and so on.

MR. MacNeil: Well, let me ask you, Mr. Nader, tell us briefly, who you think the system that Mr. Hargadon has outlined hurts.

MR. NADER: First of all, I think it hurts the students and their parents because I think it's good for the students to feel that these universities independently are trying to become more efficient, more productive, and more imaginative to attract the students, rather than that they are getting together, whatever degree nobody yet knows, to present uniform scholarship packages applicable to specific students and almost uniform tuition increases. When I was at Princeton, and I have to mention this because this is an exercise against nostalgia, when I was at Princeton in the early '50s, the tuition was $600. I believe now it's over $13,000. In real terms, inflation adjusted, it's about 4.2 percent, more than 4 times the tuition that the students pay now that we paid in the early '50s. Now in the early '50s we were told that our tuition paid for half of the education at Princeton. I'm told by the students that they're told the same thing now, that your tuition pays about half. So where is the increase that will account for more than fourfold increase in real terms? Sure, salaries are higher, there are more administrators, there are more services, butmore than four times? I suspect, Jim, that the rapid expansion of capital facilities at these universities, a good portion of which deal with government contracts and corporate contracts, are filtering their wy into jacking up tuition increases.

MR. MacNeil: Let's address that first and then let's go back to whether the other system is unfair.

MR. HARGADON: Let me say first I don't know what is meant by captive market here. We're talking about a relatively small number of institutions who together probably enroll eight or ten thousand students in a given year out of perhaps a million and a half that go to college. We're talking, as you said at the forefront of the show, we're talking about twenty or thirty institutions that maybe have prices like 20,000. You already talked about an average at private institutions at 10,000. The average at public institutions is lower than that. If you look at all of that college board data, you see that the range of prices for colleges and universities and the range of choice is enormous. I don't think we have a captive market by any means. I think we have a healthy market. I think one of the reasons we have a healthy market is that we spend money to have small classes. We spend money to require a senior thesis, which requires a lot of faculty attention. We spend money to keep the faculty of a given size even while the student body remains at say 4500. We spend money to keep that ratio at seven to one. I think we have students applying to our schools in part because those are the kinds of things they want money spent on at an institution they want to attend.

MR. MacNeil: Can I ask Mr. Nader a quick question? Are you saying, Ralph Nader, that if the colleges, to the extent that they do, did not get together and go over financial aid packages, that that would be an incentive for them or disincentive to raise prices that they'd be more competitive in their tuitions, is that what you're saying?

MR. NADER: Yes. I think they'd be more competitive, because I've rarely met a university administrator who does admit to a lot of waste and bureaucracy and tiered management and they wring their hands over it. But I think more to the point is Princeton has smaller classes, Princeton has a precept system, Princeton has a mandatory senior thesis. Harvard has neither of these. And yet Harvard charges a little more for tuition.

MR. MacNeil: What about his point that if you did not get together on things like student aid packages that you wouldn't be raising your prices so rapidly, you'd be more competitive pricewise?

MR. HARGADON: I really don't see the connection. The only reason for getting together is because, and this has to do with our costs, this doesn't have to do with waste, is that we are one of those institutions, we are eight of those institutions, if you will, who very forcefully believe that we ought to be able to admit students on ability without regard to their socio economic circumstances. To do that requires having a financial aid budget of for this year $16 million for 4500 undergraduates. Approximately 40 or 45 percent of them will receive aid. The system is built for that. It's not built to get away on the cheap, not for providing student access to Princeton, for providing quality of the instruction there. When we talk, you happen to have an administrator on your hands who doesn't ring his hands about waste and so forth. In fact, we operate a fairly slim operation if one wants to go in and look at it. The fact is that you cannot teach biology today as we taught it back when tuition was $600. You cannot use the same lab facilities today as when tuition was $600. You would not be keeping abreast of the field and you would not be attracting the bright students who wanted to study it at that higher level.

MR. MacNeil: Suppose the Justice Department, to come back to where we started, suppose after they finish their investigation, they said look, you can't do this anymore the way you do it, it is a violation of anti-trust or something to do the amount of discussion you do, how would that affect what you do, if you couldn't have the conversations you have about student aid packages?

MR. HARGADON: I think, let me say first, people ought to know that this is not a secret to the students who apply to the colleges. All of our application forms carry a joint Ivy statement that says we will get together and share information on your financial aid with the other Ivy institutions and you are likely to receive comparable awards.

MR. MacNeil: What would be the consequence of not being allowed to do that?

MR. HARGADON: Not being allowed to do that, I sense that some students will perhaps receive more aid from one college, not necessarily to bid them away, because they've read the financial aid circumstances differently or have different information than they'll receive from another college. In some cases that will be higher. In some cases, some students will lose out because it will be lower.

MR. MacNeil: And briefly, Ralph Nader, what do you think the consequence of their being told they couldn't do this anymore?

MR. NADER: Well, I think they'd look at their productivity, as an official of Stanford University mentioned in the papers today. I think they'd look at other intangible ways of attracting students in terms of certain quality offerings of education. But I come back to the same point. If Princeton has smaller classes, if it has a mandatory senior thesis, if it has precepts, why is their tuition slightly less than Harvard, which has larger classes, not a mandatory thesis, not a precept.

MR. MacNeil: I don't think Mr. Hargadon can answer that and I can't. So we have to leave it there. Thank you both, Mr. Nader, Mr. Hargadon, for joining us. ESSAY - SUMMER CLOUDS

MR. LEHRER: Finally tonight some summertime thoughts from essayist Roger Rosenblatt, Editor of U.S. News & World report.

ROGER ROSENBLATT: If summer reminds you of the body's vitality, let it also remind you of the body's weaknesses. Seasonal signs of strength and power are blatant. Families noisily head for the sea, kids horse around on beaches, play volleyball, racket ball, tennis, go water skiing, run, work out, swim, swim until your chest heaves and your arms aches, then pile into the car and gallop off to the movies, where the life of energy and perpetual motion has writ laws. Batman swoops, Ghostbusters hustle to the rescue. Even the dead play baseball in the Field of Dreams. In a burly environment like this, it is hard to think that there is a weaker, slower, less active life that exists alongside the displays of force, the people who lie in hospitals, for instance, the long-term cases whose fields of dreams consist of one long sterile corridor after another or even the borders of a single bed, the AIDS patients curl up like babies and wait for an almost guaranteed death. Others suffering varieties of less notable diseases feel the torpor of illness invade their carcasses like a melancholy memory that never goes away. They become their frailties, begin to recognize themselves only by the hollowness in their cheeks, the eyes that stare withdisbelief at the discovery that all their former horse play, the former barbecues and baseball games, should have come to this. What do the mental patients think? Two million Americans suffer from disabling mental illness. Over 1 million live at home with their families at least part-time. They move about more slowly than other people, swirl in the confusion of events past and present, the clinically depressed, the schizophrenics, manic depressives, the obsessive compulsives, the sufferers of Alzheimer's Disease. Around them boisterous, assured, directed life strides along clear and definite lines, speaking ordered thoughts, while in the maelstroms of the emotionally troubled, nothing is clear for long. If their minds were bodies, they would be flat on their backs. Poor children, their numbers swollen to 13 million these days, are weakened by inadequate medical care, neglect, abuse, the absence of family love. The working poor, 8.5 million at last count, labor at jobs that barely keep their heads above water, no recreational swimming for them. Nearly 2/3 of the poor who rent their homes spend more than 1/2 their income on housing costs, no time for racket ball. The aged tentatively push their walkers before them like movable fences. The blind, the lame, the illiterate locked away by the lack of an essential skill from words, ideas, instructions. The uncategorized weak, who simply cannot keep up in this great energetic nation. Children who slump in class and wonder why they do not understand. The easily tired -- the slow witted -- the lonely who travel their solitary roots -- in a season where everyone seems to draw strength from one another, the lonely only watch. Hard to think of them all at a time of a year that advertises the rock as life, that seems to declare that being human is being active and powerful, that frailty is the freak, the exception to the rule. It isn't. For everyone, at one time or another, in one season or another, there is lameness and bewilderment, slowness, shortness of breath, lack of clarity. You see everything in a blur. You hear everything in a fog, even you. One half of life exists that way, which means that one half of life is frail, which means that life is as defined by weakness as by strength. Help the weak ones that cry for help, Nicholas Sako advised his son, but the weak are often too weak to cry and it is up to the strong to notice their presence. And it is up to the strong simply to notice their presence, which, after all, is self- recognition. They are who we are when the weather changes. RECAP

MR. MacNeil: Again, the main points of the news today, Pres. Bush named Colin Powell Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the first black to be chosen for the nation's top military job. Signals that may have come from the plane of Congressman Mickey Leland, missing in Ethiopia, have been picked up by a U.S. weather satellite. The death toll in yesterday's Mexican train crash rose to more than 100. Good night, Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Good night, Robin. We'll see you tomorrow night. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.