May 8, 1996

THE young people in foster care call it the System. But to hear those who came of age among overloaded caseworkers, rowdy group homes or ill-equipped foster families, there's nothing systematic about it. Too often, they rely on their wits and each other while navigating a child welfare bureaucracy shrouded in secrecy and swathed in red tape. They know that for each Eliza Izquierdo horror story there are countless small-scale sorrows that leave them feeling lonely and overlooked.

It was school board election day in New York City yesterday, and Carmelo Saez Jr., ousted as president of his board by three successive chancellors on charges of corruption and patronage, was making the rounds of polling places in the West Bronx. At one, he angrily told poll workers to be sure not to lose the votes cast by himself, his relatives and his friends -- as, he asserted, they had three years ago.

The House voted unanimously tonight to require all states to notify localities when convicted sex offenders who might still pose a danger to children settle in their area. On another crime-related measure, the lawmakers voted to increase drastically the penalties for crimes against the young, the elderly, women and the mentally and physically handicapped.

For more than a decade, Millie Pryles has spent a half-hour each day standing over second graders at the Westminster schools in Atlanta, making them trace and retrace the ovals, loops and humps that will become their cursive handwriting. It is a discipline she knows is fast becoming a lost art. "Both feet on the floor," she tells her 7- and 8-year-olds. "Sit up straight and slant your book." After she explains how to form a letter, the children get to work. When some falter, Mrs. Pryles guides their hands.

Urban Outfitters, the apparel company that caters to the young and multiple-pierced, appears to be an antidote to what is wrong with much of specialty retailing today. So of course it stands to reason that Wall Street likes to torture it.