5,500 E.D. Employees Back on Job as Talks Continue

By Robert C. Johnston

Washington

About 5,500 Department of Education employees returned to work last week, ending a 24-day shutdown that began with an impasse over the federal budget and was extended for three days by a blizzard. But federal officials are no more certain about the future of the education programs they run than they were before the closing.

Republican congressional leaders have said they do not intend to again shut down the Education Department and other agencies without fiscal 1996 appropriations when their current stopgap budget expires Jan. 26. But President Clinton and lawmakers sent mixed signals last week on the status of their efforts to negotiate a...