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Educational Slums

The Parents' Association at Manhattan's Public School 54 had had enough. Last week they hired a lawyer and prepared to force the New York school board to one of two choices: clean up their school, or close it down as a menace to health. Their complaints:

P.S. 54, a dreary, five-story school on the edge of Harlem, is a relic of the school-building programs of 1888. The building has no gymnasium, and its tiny playground is hardly large enough for one class at a time. It has just seven toilets for 600 boys, provides neither toilet paper nor towels. Children...

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President BARACK OBAMA, at NATO talks involving over 50 world leaders, describing the withdrawal of 130,000 combat troops from Afghanistan, planned for the end of 2014
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