February 17, 1993

The fight over the future of Schools Chancellor Joseph A. Fernandez is over, but the citywide war over the controversial social agenda he backed is simply moving to a new battlefield, the elections for the city's 32 community school boards. Many candidates for local school boards, including both opponents and supporters of Mr. Fernandez, have already focused their campaigns around issues the Chancellor came to symbolize, like the distribution of condoms in schools and the teaching of tolerance for gay people.

NEW YORK CITY AFTER SCHOOLS FIGHT, FOCUS ON BOARDS The fight over the future of Schools Chancellor Joseph A. Fernandez is over, but the citywide war over the controversial social agenda he backed is simply moving to a new battlefield, the elections for the city's 32 community school boards. "These elections will be a showdown between those who are in favor of teaching homosexuality, and those who believe that this would be a gross violation of traditional family values," said the head of the Family Defense Council, a group based in Queens. "If this doesn't get the voters out, what will?" A1.

The Economy President Clinton sought to reassure the public that most middle-income Americans would not be hurt by his plan to stimulate the economy. The White House said income taxes would rise only for families earning more than $180,000 a year. [ Page A1. ]

Evidence is continuing to build that the nation's economic expansion that took hold in the second half of 1992 is having a positive effect on battered state finances. Tax collections, not including legislated tax increases, rose nearly 6 percent in the fourth quarter compared with a year earlier, according to a survey of state tax officials by the Center for the Study of States, a research concern in Albany. That is the biggest increase since the beginning of the recent recession and five times last year's rise.

More than 200 women who received mammograms that Nassau County charges were faulty have yet to be notified by health officials more than 17 months after the situation was discovered. The doctor who performed the mammograms, Padma Ram, was charged in September 1991 with providing substandard breast X-rays in her internal medicine practice in Floral Park. An Anonymous Tip The County Health Department held a hearing last month to consider its findings of 386 violations of state procedures. County officials are expected to decide next month whether to fine Dr. Ram. The fine could be as much as $193,000, which would be the largest fine since the state instituted mammogram regulations in 1987.