From the Publisher

By Louis A. Weil III

Attention, class. It's the year 2000, and you have two days to put out an issue of TIME.

That was the assignment handed to 300 seventh- through tenth-graders in the Northern Valley schools of Bergen County, N.J., last week by their teachers as part of a six-year-old campaign to show talented youngsters how to solve complex problems. The sources for the students' stories were 14 speakers from local universities, government agencies, a law firm and the press, who talked about everything from the latest developments in medicine and genetics to demographic trends and family issues. After a day of listening and note- taking, the students had six hours to turn the information into issues of TIME, complete with cover stories and new sections. Their entries would be judged on content, quality of writing, plausibility and creativity.

The students, who came from nine schools in the region, were divided into groups to produce 21 different magazines. Once senior editor Thomas Sancton explained how the TIME staff puts the magazine together each week, the students took over, assigning themselves to writing, editing and hand printing their magazines on poster boards, as well as creating advertisements, graphs and pictures. Says Sancton: "They were a bright, eager bunch of kids -- the ideal TIME journalists of the future."

What did TIME of the year 2000 report? Smokers will be discouraged to learn that "as of May 1, 2000, cigarettes have been declared illegal." Dan Quayle will be pleased to discover that he has become President. The last homeless person in the U.S. will have found a permanent place to live, somewhere in Chicago, and the cure for AIDS will have come from a wildflower found in the jungles of Africa. A top item in Milestones: Elizabeth Taylor's marriage to Johnny Carson. The covers of the two winning magazines announced the arrival of aliens on earth and superbabies created through genetic engineering. "The kids did a tremendous job," says Patricia Raupers, district coordinator of gifted programs. "They developed some creative ideas under a tight deadline."