SPEAKER GIVES CONSERVATIVE STUDENTS WORDS OF ADVICE

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Touting the accomplishments of the Republican Congress,
House Speaker Newt Gingrich urged hundreds of youths to keep up the
conservative momentum and set goals from winning the war on drugs to
modernizing government.

The Georgia Republican, addressing the Young America's Foundation annual
national conference for conservative students Thursday, asked his audience
to return to their college campuses ready for the challenges ahead.

One vital mission is to win the war on drugs and violent crime, Gingrich
said. He also drew on the experiences of his audience in pointing to a
``need to dramatically rethink learning and education in America.''

``Our current school system doesn't ... educate young people at the rate
they are capable of learning,'' Gingrich said, asking the students if they
would have been able to push themselves harder in school with the right
incentives.

The speaker pointed to the need to reduce the cost of government and revamp
it all levels.

This is ``not modernizing government in the Al Gore press release sense but
rethinking from the ground up the entire structure of how we deliver goods
and services in an entrepreneurial era,'' said Gingrich, knocking the vice
president's reinventing government initiative.

Checked-by: (Joel W. Johnson)