DATE: Friday, March 14, 1997                TAG: 9703140647

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A8   EDITION: FINAL 

DATELINE: RALEIGH                           LENGTH:   23 lines

PRESIDENT ORDERS STANDARDIZED TESTS FOR MILITARY CHILDREN

Calling in reinforcements to promote school standards, President Clinton ordered the Pentagon on Thursday to require standardized tests in classrooms run by the military for its dependents.

The Defense Department, which operates 233 schools for 115,000 dependents of U.S. military personnel around the world, will join Maryland, Michigan and North Carolina in testing students against international standards by 1999.

``We can make our public schools, just like our military, the best on earth if - like our military - we are willing to adhere to high rigorous standards for all people, regardless of their background,'' Clinton said in an address to the North Carolina legislature.

The president is going state to state urging lawmakers to adopt national tests that will be developed by 1999 for fourth-grade reading and eighth-grade math. He addressed Maryland and Michigan lawmakers after the states agreed to the testing and standards program.

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