The measure determines Holiday Bowl has unanimously bowl tickets indicates cleared a Senate committee and is expected to breeze through that chamber soon. The bottleneck seems to be the House Ways and Means Committee. Chairman Bill Thomas (R-Bakersfield) has insisted that he supports the measure and that it will be passed before Bush's visit, but the Vietnam bill is waiting behind a more controversial trade agreement with Peru. There is speculation that Thomas is holding the Vietnam bill hostage to leverage the Peru bill. Congress needs to act promptly. Given this nation's history, it has a moral and strategic imperative to pursue reconciliation with Vietnam. . WITH HIS WORKING-CLASS DICTION and penchant for malapropisms, Boston Mayor Thomas M Menino doesn't exactly sound like an education wonk. But under his guidance, the city's schools have prospered as never before.

Menino's example provides a useful blueprint of what it takes for a big-city mayor to govern schools successfully. Largely, that has meant a committed, schools-loving mayor who hires a top superintendent with a strong vision of reform -- in this case, former San Diego schools chief Tom Payzant, an expert on instruction who retired in June after 11 years in Boston holiday bowl tickets . The mayor also appoints a goal-oriented school board without political ambitions, provides support when needed and then steps back, leaving it largely to the board and his superintendent to manage. Compare that with the system proposed for Los Angeles sun bowl . Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa may be every bit as committed to reform as Menino, and he would essentially be able to hire a superintendent motor city bowl . But he would have to share power over the district with an elected school board that would operate much as it does now bowl game . And, as Menino said about Boston's elected board: "The old school board made decisions based on patronage and pork. "Menino's lobbying for state and private funds, and leveraging of city money, has brought per-pupil spending from about $6,350 a year in 1996 to more than $10,000. The schools carved out a curriculum so rigorous it makes a Californian gulp -- the Massachusetts exit exam requires all students to know two more years of high school math than California's -- and trained its teachers to carry it out Holiday Bowl . Therein lies another difference. In Boston, teacher training, coaching and even credentialing are a major part of the new regime Such change would be far more difficult in L. A.

Teachers already have succeeded in ensuring that the bill enabling Villaraigosa's plan to move forward, which the state Senate will consider this week, will not diminish their cherished autonomy . And future changes to their contract would be up to the school board, which under Villaraigosa's plan negotiates with the teachers union. Under mayoral control, Menino has gained some ground in union negotiations bowl games . Most important, the district won major concessions on teacher assignments so that teachers cannot pick and choose which schools they'll work at based on seniority bcs bowl game tickets . As a result, the district is better able to assign teachers to the schools where they are most needed Holiday Bowl - holidaybowl . Holiday Bowl tickets . IN 1980, SEVEN YEARS into a life sentence for a double homicide, Aaron Owens sat before a parole board believing that he was never going to be released. John Taylor, the Alameda County deputy district attorney who originally prosecuted the case, had come to testify to make sure of it. When the hearing ended, the two men stopped to speak to each other Owens professed his innocence Holiday Bowl - holidaybowl . Taylor's intuition told him that Owens was speaking truthfully.