May 25, 1995

After more than a year of deadlock, Syria has made an important concession by agreeing to discuss the future of security arrangements on the Golan Heights based on principles demanded by Israel, Clinton Administration officials announced today. American and Israeli officials said Syria had abandoned its insistence that the two countries withdraw their troops an equal distance from the Golan Heights.

EXPERIMENTS BRING FRICTION WITH CHANGE Myriad conflicts have been unleashed within the New York City school system by the creation of scores of small experimental schools. [ Page A1. ] NEW YORK CITY MISSING UNIFORM WRAPPED IN MYSTERY As though "The Maltese Falcon" had met "The Pride of the Yankees," the reported theft of an old Babe Ruth uniform from a car in midtown Manhattan opened a window into decades of mystery, money and murder. [ B3. ]

Gov. George E. Pataki and the state's legislative leaders said tonight they had agreed in principle on major changes in the state's sentencing laws, including limiting parole for some violent felons but repealing the requirement that repeat nonviolent offenders serve time in jail. The tentative agreement also would increase minimum sentences for a range of violent crimes, particularly for persistent offenders, state officials said.

A DECADE ago, solving a design dilemma, however minor, demanded a trust fund and a celebrity decorator. At least that was the impression broadcast monthly by America's shelter magazines, whose gleaming photographs and gilt prose seemed less inspirational than promotional. Daily, however, the design industry is turning the drop-leaf tables and is becoming more democratic. To-the-trade-only barriers are under attack. Young decorators court walk-in traffic from the intimacy of cozy shops, not corporate offices. And most encouraging, popular home-furnishings stores like Ikea, Pottery Barn, ABC Carpet and Home, Domain, Ethan Allen and a handful of others are bringing participatory design to the masses by instituting on-site decorating departments. All have design consultants and several offer easy access to trade-only fabrics and custom furniture.

Until recently, E. S. Savas considered himself the quintessential prophet without honor. For more than two decades, ever since he says he learned a crucial lesson from the New York City Department of Sanitation, he has traveled the world preaching the virtues of having private companies perform government services, and he found appreciative audiences just about everywhere, except in the place of his inspiration. "Overseas, I worked in one people's republic after another as they disappeared," said Dr. Savas, a professor in the School of Public Affairs at Baruch College whose first name is Emanuel and who is known as Steve to colleagues, "and I'd always come home to find the one here perfectly preserved. Until Mayor Giuliani came along, the only places in the world that I knew of that were not privatizing were Burma, North Korea, Cuba and the People's Republic of New York."