June 17, 1986

A recent study by the Massachusetts Department of Education concludes that the imposition of strict new course requirements for high school graduation by itself will not improve a student's education, and might even increase the dropout rate. The study, published late last month, makes no specific recommendations. But Rhoda E. Schneider, general counsel of the Massachusetts Department of Education, said she hopes the study will make clear that the real troubles behind what is widely perceived as declining standards in American public schools arise in elementary and middle school. ''The study confirms that by the seventh or eighth grades the die is cast,'' Miss Schneider said. ''If we want our schools to offer more opportunities to minorities and to girls, the intervention has to come before high school.''

When the 19 government interns began their jobs with the Koch administration last September, some were optimistic about careers in public service, and others arrived with questions and doubts. But few of the young people, participants in the city's Urban Fellows program, expected to step into a government that would be shaken by a municipal corruption scandal that, by the end of the spring, had toppled or stunted the careers of at least 10 politicians and public officials. One of them, Donald R. Manes, the Queens Borough President, killed himself in March as the scandal closed around him. It was an unusual baptism into the world of public service for nascent and aspiring public servants. It did not dull their year in government or dent their enthusiasm, most said. But as events unfolded through the winter and spring in the three agencies involved - the Parking Violations Bureau, the Taxi and Limousine Commission and the Health and Hospitals Corporation - the interns began to wonder and to ask themselves questions.

The 12 Ohrbach's apparel stores are to be discontinued after 24 years of ownership by the Amcena Corporation, the American arm of the Brenninkmeyer interest of the Netherlands. Amcena said yesterday that the big Ohrbach's flagship store at 5 West 34th Street in Manhattan would close next February and the property would be redeveloped for Amcena into offices and some small retail stores. That 10-story building, holding about 410,000 square feet, was built by the founder of Ohrbach's, Nathan Ohrbach, in 1954.

THE same computer-based image processing that brought the rings of Saturn into vividly detailed view as well as other modern techniques are giving art historians a new look at the legacy of the great masters. The new techniques let historians, using penetrating illumination, peer deep below a painting's surface, showing how preliminary sketches and hidden layers of paint allowed artists to test their compositions or convey the grace and beauty of flowing garments. By using the computer processing that allows scientists to enhance photographs, analysts have gathered new insights into the working habits and the individual technical styles of some masters. And some famous paintings have produced surprises. For example, the methods have led one group of analysts to conclude that the Mona Lisa was once adorned with a necklace, later painted out, most probably by the artist, Leonardo da Vinci.

The Coca-Cola Company said yesterday that it had agreed to purchase a major Coke bottling system from the Beatrice Companies for about $1 billion. At the same time, however, Coke announced the collapse of its plans to combine its company-owned bottling operations with those of its largest franchised bottler. The breakdown of the talks with the JTL Corporation of Chatanooga, Tenn., will at least slow Coke's plan to spin off its company-owned bottlers into a separate corporation. Coke has been overhauling its bottling system by buying franchises, keeping some for itself and selling others. Coke's aim is to weed out weaker bottlers and make them stronger either by managing them itself or combining them with more successful franchisees in the same geographical area. Th end result, Coke hopes, will be a more efficient system that sells more soda.