July 4, 2002

Complicated provisions of new federal education requirements, signed into law in January, spur states and school districts to scramble to identify failing schools as defined by law; in Connecticut, education officials squabble with their federal counterparts over just which schools should be on that state's list; education officials in Trenton, NJ, begin by ranking state's roughly 2,300 schools using test results from past three years and producing list of 274 that did not show requisite annual improvement; all this is part of federal mandate that all schools must close chronic gaps in student achievement by 2014; as part of program, parents of children in failing schools will be able to send their children to another school (M)

Czech Republic's long-derided currency, koruna, has been among strongest in world this year, setting record of 29.07 to euro on July 1; koruna is worth 16 percent more in euro terms than it was year ago, and 27 percent more in dollar terms; economists say that in long term strong koruna could hasten fundamental shift in Czech economy; say that if that shift is not carefully managed, strong koruna could send unemployment rocketing; Czech National Bank says koruna has risen out of line with economic fundamentals and it has tried to stem tide by reducing benchmark interest rates full percentage point so far this year; graph (M)

More women are taking leadership positions at American colleges and universities; Princeton University, which began admitting women as undergraduates little more than three decades ago, now has women in more than half of its top academic jobs; three of eight presidents of Ivy League colleges are women, and about 22 percent of college presidents are women; these gains are due to growing number of women with administrative experience, concerted efforts by many universities to recruit more women at the top and fact that women now account for 56 percent of all college students; on down side, appointment of women as department heads and deans has been spotty, and proportion of women with full-time tenured positions is only 52 percent, compared with about 70 percent among men, nearly same as 20 years ago; photos (M)

Reserve Bank of Australia leaves overnight cash target interest rate at 4.75 percent; New Zealand's central bank raises its main interest rate quarter-point, to 5.75 percent; photo (S)

Swiss government relaxes its minimum-yield requirement on pensions, which insurers have been complaining is too high in current markets; will cut mandated level to 3 percent from 4 percent, effective Oct 1; shares of Swiss Life rally on news; graph (S)g