Author: By Beth Daley, Jordana Hart and Kate Zernike, Globe Staff

Date: TUESDAY, December 1, 1998

Page: B2

Section: Metro

Have an education issue you want aired, or thoughts on the state of education today? Write to Lesson Plan, City Room, The Boston Globe, P.O. Box 2378, Boston, MA 02107-2378, or send e-mail to educate(at sign)globe.com.

Saying that special education programs in Massachusetts public schools are not monitored closely enough and give uneven services, about 35 parents and advocates spoke before a federal team yesterday that is looking at how the state educates students with disabilities.

A hearing will be held today in Springfield and tomorrow in Westport for parents in those areas to voice their opinions.

While noting that some schools give stellar services to special needs students, many parents at the hearing said their children were denied programs or given inadequate services in other schools.

Marilyn Breakspear said that in Dover, her brain-injured son was promoted to the 11th grade even though he had missed so much school he was not doing that grade-level work. Margaret Smith said school officials in Lynnfield suggested that her learning-disabled son move to regular education because he would be "embarrassed" by being pulled out for remedial help in middle school. Meanwhile, Smith said, her son, who excels in social studies and science, was "falling behind" because he was taken out of those subjects in order to get remedial help in others.

"Services are uneven," said Thomasina Daniels, a Medford parent of two sons with special needs. "It depends where you are."

After the review team, which is from the US Department of Education, completes its meetings this week, a steering committee of parents and state agency representatives will draft an assessment; the federal team will be back in February to conduct another review of the program and issue a report in the spring.

In 1995 and 1997, the federal government cited the state for failing to monitor schools to see if they were providing adequate services to students, such as ensuring that they had all the material and aid they needed to succeed.

There are 159,042 special needs students in the state, or 16.6 percent of all public school students, according to the state Department of Education.

State officials say they are reviewing more and more schools each year, with every public school special education system undergoing an in-depth review every five years. If problems exist, reviews are more frequent.

But Julia Landau, inclusion project director of the Massachusetts Advocacy Center, says the state still is not monitoring the program closely enough; if it were, she argues, then the quality of the programs would not vary so greatly.

Using a $100,000 federal grant called the Tomorrow's Teachers Club, 89 school systems are getting $500 to $4,000 next year to get middle- and high-school students participating in what the state calls "pre-teaching" activities, such as high-schoolers reading to younger students, or working as teacher aides.

More money will go to larger districts and those that already have programs, like the Boston public schools' "Teach Boston" program. Worcester will get $6,000, while Boston is earmarked for $4,000. Barnstable, Brockton, Springfield, East Bridgewater, Easthampton, Easton, Lynn, and Medford are among systems getting at least $2,000.

It might not surprise anyone that the factor cited as most important in the 10th annual survey by the National Association for College Admissions Counseling is grades in college prep courses, with 79 percent surveyed saying this was the top factor. That was followed in importance by admissions test scores, which 51 percent said were most important.

But what might be more surprising is what the 395 admissions officers who responded said did not matter. Twenty-three percent said the dreaded college application essay had no importance, and 26 percent said it had only limited importance, compared with 19 percent who said it had considerable importance. Thirty percent said interviews had no importance, compared with 11 who said interviews were of considerable importance.

Despite how much high schools have been pushing public service, 62 percent of those surveyed said community service projects and extracurricular activities had little or no importance in admissions decisions -- just 5 percent said community service had considerable importance. And notably, despite public worries that colleges are giving out fewer scholarships based on financial need, 81 percent of admissions officers surveyed said they considered ability to pay of no importance in deciding whom to accept.

And if you get on a school's waiting list? The number of schools using a waiting list has dropped by 5 percent, to 29 percent. Of those, 12 percent accepted half or more waiting for admission, 72 percent accepted less than half, and 16 percent accepted none.

The bureau notes that the pilot schools -- which operate free of School Committee and many School Department rules -- were supposed to develop innovative programs that regular public schools could copy. While the pilot schools are indeed innovating, missing from the School Committee's evaluation process "is an assessment of what innovative programs have been developed that can be replicated in other BPS schools. The BPS must first define innovation and replicability before evaluations take place or new pilots are approved."

"You probably didn't realize there was a calculus bestseller list," says Colin Adams, a co-author and head of the math department at Williams College. You're probably right, professor.

The secret to the book's success, according to authors Adams, Abigail Thompson, and Joel Hass, the latter both professors at the University of California-Davis, is its humor, which offers students the rare experience of being able to laugh while learning math.

Of course, this is mathematics humor. One example builds around a parabola with low self-esteem -- "a curve in need of a sedative if ever there was one" -- whose psychiatrist improves his figure with mathematical operations. The glossary defines origin as "the point in space with all coordinates equal to zero. Thought to be somewhere in Iowa."

But there are a few wisecracks understandable to those who haven't opened a math textbook since high school. Students are encouraged to choose professors wisely, watching out for those with tenure, which the book defines as "cannot be fired, even if they are grossly incompetent."

HART ;11/27 CAWLEY;12/01,06:20 LESSON01