The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 15

THE BOSTON GLOBE TUfcSDAY. NOVEMBER 20. 1984 15 Living 24 TV Radio 27 House gives education bill initial OK IAN MENZIES The bill sets a starting salary of $18,000 for teachers at a cost next year of $12 million. Under a "ripple effect" the base salary would create, long-time teachers would receive raises of about $5000, or 24 percent. The raises would cost about $336 million over three years.

The state, rather than communities, would pay the added salary costs. The bill would cost the state $1.2 billion over five years. The legislation also: Establishes procedures to fire incompetent teachers and administrators. Mandates pre-school readiness education, similar to Head Start programs. Requires that local education plans meet state-set goals and objectives.

EDUCATION. Page 17 "We hope to have the bill on the governor's desk by Christmas so we can give our children the gift of high-quality education," Collins said in an interview. Rep. Royall H. Switzler (R-Wellesley), charged during the debate, "This isn't an education bill.

It's a teachers reward bill. It was written by the MTA," referring to the Massachusetts Teachers Assn. During 26 hours of debate, opponents argued that the bill, whose expected cost would reach $566.7 million in three years, not only is unaffordable but destroys local control of schools. Advocates said the state can no longer afford to ignore a system they say has some of the lowest educational funding and learning criteria in the nation. In some schools, they said, the dropout rate is 50 percent, and some communities put in four times as many dollars per pupil as neighboring towns.

Pupil--teacher ratios, they said, range from 13-1 to 40-1. By Andrew Blake Globe Staff After four days of debate, the Massachusetts House yesterday gave initial approval to a costly bill containing sweeping revisions in public education. On a roll call vote of 110-33, the House gave initial approval to legislation that had been amended to require a teacher competency test, state funding for administrators' pay raises and the setting aside of 20 percent of sales tax revenue to fund the raises for administrators and teachers. Rep. James G.

Collins (D-Amherst), House chairman of the Education Committee, said the "strong support for this bill came from the realization that we need a new system of education to meet the needs of a knowledge-based economy." I'fS Mental health coverage curb '85 Blue Cross change would affect patients with mildest diagnoses By Judy Foreman Globe Staff Beginning in early 1985, Massachusetts Blue Shield intends to narrow the circumstances under which it will pay for mental health services and make it significantly more difficult for people with the mildest diagnoses to get coverage for their care. The changes, which have prompted a series of meetings between the insurer and representatives of psychi-' atric, psychological and social work organizations, are likely to mean that many consumers of psychotherapy in Massachusetts will have to be classified as more severely mentally ill than they have been if they are to continue to have their psychotherapy covered. The changes mean that the confidentiality patients and therapists have enjoyed may be vulnerable under the new rules, representatives of all three groups said yesterday. Blue Shield vice president Martin Burke insists the changes will merely make the system more professional and accurate and weed out people who do not really need treatment. However, Dr.

Matthew Dumont, a Chelsea psychiatrist who aired his criticism of the Blue Shield plan last week on WGBH-TV (Ch. 2). said yesterday, "They're penalizing the patients. There will be a tendency toward more pathological descriptions of behavior and a violation of confidentiality." Since Blue Shield insures about 60 percent of Massachusetts residents, the stakes are considerable. The changes it plans, in essence, boil down to this: As of Jan.

1. Blue Shield will insist that all its 6332 licensed mental health providers (psychiatrists, psychologists and independent clinical social workers) BLUE CROSS, Page 16 Movie freak Luis Aira stands beside some of the cassettes he has viewed. globe photo by john tlumacki Simply put, he loves to watch City life- Time to save artery-tunnel New England's movers and shakers, had better wake up or else they'll kiss goodby to- a third harbor tunnel and depressed Central Artery. The feds, directed by the Reagan Administration, are itching to dump on this combined highway-tunnel project. That was made clear in a Federal Highway Administration (FHA) memorandum made public, without fanfare, late last Friday.

If this project, critical to the economic growth of eastern New England, is be saved, it can only be done through the united action of the region's power-money men. This is a job for Boston's fabled Vault, the High Tech Council, Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, New England Council, Associated Industries of Massachusetts, the Business Roundable and labor leaders. Without business-industrial backing, and Republican support, this project, centered on the airport and downtown Boston but serying southern Maine and New Hampshire as well as eastern Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut, will surely die. The Reagan Administration, leastwise its hit men. would love to kill it to in the words of FHA Administrator Ray Barn-hardt, "stick it to the fat man" (House Speaker Tip O'Neill).

Truet Transportation Secretary Elizabeth Dole has also opposed the project but, say observers, only on the basis of inadequate and prejudicial information from Barnhardt. They believe that, approached by a New England delegation extolling the economic benefits. Dole would give the joint project favorable reconsideration. What did the FHA internal memorandum say? Reduced to essentials, it gave approval to the joint-project Environmental Impact Statement submitted by Massachusetts a year ago last September. Approval of an impact statement means the feds consider any environmental impacts as presented acceptable.

Approval of an Environmental Impact Statement must precede any funding- That was the good news. However, the FHA memorandum then went on maliciously to separate the projects. It said widening and depressing the Central Artery was not acceptable for federal funding, adding that the FHA would agree to pay only for redecking the Artery ($33 million). This, as with the Southeast Expressway, would provide no more than already exists, just prevent collapse. What the FHA is doing is approving an enormous rehabilitative disruption for no gain, a senseless approach.

The memorandum also says (tunnel lovers, please note) that it will pay only for the federal share of a two-lane, not a four-lane, third harbor tunnel. If Massachusetts wants a four-lane tunnel, it will have to pay for the "extra" two lanes itself. If this isn't sticking it to Massachusetts, which claims both projects were approved by Congress, what is especially as similar and even larger projects have been and are being funded in New York, Philadelphia and Chicago? Also it's conveniently forgotten that the Central Artery, now 1-93, didn't cost the feds a cent. Massachusetts paid for it all, while other cities had their interstate connectors built with federal monies. It's time, too, that people realized that the tunnel, whether four or two-lane, won't resolve artery jam-ups alone.

Some are under the illusion (or is it delusion?) that drivers, going either north or south, will simply rip into the tunnel before reaching Boston and wind up back on a free-flowing Rte. 93, one end of which is the Southeast Expressway. Not so. The tunnel will mainly serve airport, aid those approaching from the south. Those who want to continue north would have to navigate 5 miles of congested East Boston highways, including McClellan Highway and Squire road, before rejoining 1-95 at Revere.

Everyone seems to forget about those 5 miles, which could get as bound up as the Central Artery. And can anyone imagine 30 more years of that mid-air collision point high over the Charles where the Central Artery, 1-93 and Storrow Drive meet? The artery needs, as far as possible, to be grounded, widened, covered and redesigned for greater safety. To redeck the Central Artery without improvement or correcting its horrific design is beyond comprehension. Yet that's what the feds propose. If left -unchanged, it will gridlock the entire downtown, halt business expansion, pollute the city and deter visits by shoppers and tourists.

One would hope that 30 years from now New England businessmen, industrialists and high-techers won't look back and ask. "Why didn't we do something?" own voracious viewing. "It was a $40 a week pay cut from my last job," he says, "but I more than made up the difference in the money I saved on movies." Like most of his customers, he then "tapered off to one movie every week or two." "What makes Luis differ- ent," adds Marshall, "is that he never tapered off." Luis Aira walks purposefully in front of the shelves of the Video Connection store on Newbury street, straightening the movie cassette boxes as if he were a librarian tending to books. "I've seen this one, I've seen this one, I've seen this one, I've seen this one," he says. There are 2000 movies for rent here, 3000 at another vid TERM MINSKY A jump in tuberculosis among Boston's homeless By Andrew Dabilis.

Globe Staff Fifteen cases of tuberculosis have been confirmed in the last three months in Boston's shelters for the homeless, a significant increase over recent years, authorities said yesterday, and eight more suspected cases are being studied. Massachusetts health officials said that until this fall, only three to five cases of tuberculosis were reported each year for the last five years among Boston's homeless. All but one of those who contracted the disease this year stayed for varying lengths of time at Pine Street Inn, officials said. Other cases have been reported at the Long Island Shelter and Lemuel Shattuck Hospital, where there is a temporary shelter. Dr.

George Grady, head of the Massachusetts communicable diseases division, said all reported cases have been treated, although several were resistant to HOMELESS, Page 19 MaaHMBM Aira bought his JVC VHS video cassette recorder.two years ago. Since then, he has rented and watched a movie a day. often two, and occasionally three, "but I usually fast-forward through a lot of the third one," he says. The remote control for his machine gave out a few months ago from overuse. His video habit costs him $30 a week more, he supposes, than he spends on groceries.

He says he never watches television shows, but almost always has a movie playing on his 21-inch color Zenith, "as a backdrop, like music." The Zenith is on a swivel stand and the recorder is on a movable console "so we can watch in the kitchen, the bedroom, or the living room." says his live-in girlfriend. Donna Casey. "The only place we never take it is the bath room," she says. CITY LIFE, Page 20 eo store down the street, and mtmmmm except for a handful in the hor- ror racks, Aira figures he has seen Just about all of them at least once. Lifting the box for the movie "8'2," he waves it in the air.

"This one I've seen 350 times." Then, "Isn't there anything new here?" Aira is a creature of the video age, an extreme but not unusual example, say managers of the video stores he haunts. The average moviegoer sees per-, haps 10 films a year in theaters, according to the. trade publication Variety. Aira, 26. a freelance director of commercials and rock videos, watches anywhere from 7 to 15 movies a week.

The average customers at the Video Connection "usually blitz on three or four movies a week for the first three to six months they own a recorder." according to Barry Marshall, co-manager. Marshall took a job at the store three years ago to support his THEIR LOVE OF MUSIC KEEPS THEM WARM xJ3' SEASON I h.r -v t. One more headache for N. Shore riders By Gary McMillan Globe Staff A commuter train inbound from the North Shore to Boston hit a cement truck in Chelsea yesterday afternoon, causing lengthy delays for riders already off schedule because of the burned-out railroad bridge between Beverly and Salem. The accident marred what had been a fairly smooth shuttle operation set up by the MBTA to leapfrog the bridge.

No one was hurt in the accident, but the wreck tied up the railroad lines into the evening. The truck was removed from the inbound track in just 50 minutes, but as it was being removed, it got stuck on the outbound track. Trains in and out of Boston were delayed 40 minutes or longer because only one track could be used, MBTA spokesman Bernard Cohen said. At 5:15 p.m., the inbound train grazed a cement truck that was being towed across the tracks at the Spruce street crossing in Chelsea. The truck tipped over and blocked the main inbound track.

Other inbound BRIDGE, Page 18" METROREGION NEWS Pages 15-22 -V: -w, iff I wtti i If h. rf fi -ji-' if if Ai i I I La nrw If I KA hi' 4ftPfr Bundled against early-morning cold, people wait for chase tickets for this year's traditional Christmas Symphony Hall box office to open yesterday to pur- concert by the Boston Pops, globe photo by ted dully.