Mayor Beth Finch reads proclamation on Jazz Awareness Week as Dr.
Richard Hogg and IVIr. Joseph Ross lool( on.
VOICE ^
SPEAKING FOR OURSELVES
VOLUME 36-NUMBER 8
FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. May 6,1981
LA Ends Mandatoiy Busing
The Los Angeles Board of
Education’s recent unanimous decision
to end the school district’s mandatory
busing program by April 10, marked
the end of a two-year drive to end
mandatory busing.
It all began after a 1979 California
Supreme Court case, in which it was
ruled that Proposition I, an antibusing
initiative chiefly sponsored by State
Senator Alan Robbins, was con
stitutional.
After that victory, the Board of
Education was gradually filled with an-
ti-busing supporters Roberta Wein-
traub, president, and Tom Bartman in
the last two years. Richard Feraro, a
member for almost 12 years, based his
1979 re-election fight on a pledge to
fight the busing order.
That trio formed the heart of Trias,
an ally of Robbins, that appointed An
thony Trias, also anti-busing, to a
board vacancy in 1980.
The newly-adopted policy gives
parents the option to continue sending
their children to distant schools
through June or return them to their
home schools. The school matchings
created for the busing program would
be terminated before classes resumed
next September.
Earlier in the day the decision was
handed down. Judge Paul Egly^who
had ordered the mandatory busmg of
students at 153 schools withdrew from
the desegregation case he had for four
years previously been presiding over.
All of this came just five days after
the Supreme Court in California
refused to hear an appeal by civil rights
groups of a December 19 ruling which
vacated Egly’s busing order.
School Superintendent WilHam
Johnston, not at the meeting, sent a
statement saying educational interests
would be better-served if parents
decided to leave their children in place
for the remainder of the semester.
Education Board members Bartman,
John Greenwood and Trias agreed
with Johnston, but voted to give paren
ts the option. Few are expected to use
that alternative, school officials say.
The vote is expected to affect about
23,000 students in grade one through
nine. Letters will be sent to parents
outlining what considerations should
be made before deciding to move a
child in mid-semester. Parents will be
expected to return the letters with their
decision within a week.
Opposition to the Board’s move
came from Rita Walters, the only black
serving, and the sole supporter of
Egly’s order. Walters, who was atten
ding President Reagan’s education
budget in Washington, was not at the
meeting, but John Mack president of
the Los Angeles Urban League, read a
statement from Walters which con
demned her fellow board members.
Walters statement stressed that the
impact of the decision will place the
board “on the side of school
segregation and unequal protection...”
Board members, however, said they
would redouble their efforts and try to
relieve the effects of segregation by
voluntary means, now that the busing
order has been lifted.
The board also instructed Johnson
to review various voluntary programs
in use such as voluntary busing and
special financial aid to segregated
minority schools to make sure each is
run effectively.
The vote on the policy came after
almost three hours of speeches and
discussion, mostly those people atten
ding the meeting that were opposed to
the board’s action. However, the
members fulfilled their campaign
pledges, and the mandatory busing
became a thing of the past.
School officials will begin tran-
sfering st\ident records and taking care
of all of the clerical and other problems
that could possible arise from a mid-
semester student shift en masse.
The last day students would have to
attend school under the busing
program is April 10, the start of spring
vacation and the midpoint of the
semester, when report cards are
issutd.—College Digest News Service
Jazz Awareness Week
The Honorable Mayor Beth Finch of Fayetteville, has proclaimed April 30
through May, “Jazz Awareness Week”. The observance will coincide with the
Fayetteville/Cumberland County Arts Countil’s “Sunday on the Square”. In
addition, Jazz Awareness Week will also coincide with the Fayetteville City
Schools’ Fine Arts Week.
WFSS-FM, Fayetteville’s only public radio station, has scheduled events for
each day throughout the week. The station has recently been granted permission
to increase its power to 100,000 watts from its current 10 watts. Upon c'' *npletion
of the construction phase, WFSS will be the only full-time ra - ation
programming jazz from the North Carolina Piedmont to Northeaster South
Carolina.
CBS Records’ recording stars, the Heath Brothers (Jimmy and P.:cy), are
donating their time and efforts in an attempt to boost public awareness of WFSS.
They will give a lecture/demonstration at the Old Market Square in downtown
Fayetteville on Sunday, May 3.
There will also be a High School Jazz Band Concert, a Community Jam
Session for all local musicians and other interesting events.
Student Loans Turned
Over To Agencies
Anyone who has ever been late
paying a student loan knows that most
colleges do not push very hard or
threaten their student-defaulters.
Educators just don’t feel comfor
table acting like Louie the Loan Shark
threatening to break your legs.
Well, bad news for student loan
defaulters. Not only is the government
planning on cutting down (or out)
student loans in the future, but they’re
getting downright indignant about
slow repayments of past loans.
So guess who gets to collect it. Not
exactly Louie the Loan Shark, but the
next worse thing: private collection
agencies.
The US Education Department is
planning on turning over student loan
collections to private collectors in two
pilot program areas: Atlanta and San
Francisco.
According to Terrence Bell,
education secretary, the collectors
“have shown that collections by
private firms can be accomplished ef
fectively and with adequate safeguards
to protect students’ rights.”
The agencies receive a percentage of
what they collect as their pay.
At present there are 955 government
employees averaging $15,193 to
$19,747 per year to collect sudent loans
for the government.
Bell says that the government em
ployees have proven successful,
however.
“Of the more than 600,000 guaran
teed student loans in default over the
past four years, nearly 90 percent has
been resolved. Our collectors have
returned more than $3 for every $1 of
cost to the taxpayer,” Bell said.
Loan collecting is a big business in
the United States, if not the entire
world.
Collection agencies typically charge
anywhere from one-third to half as
their cut of collection proceeds.
Lawyers are big in collections, also.
They charge either an hourly rate ($40-
100 per hour) for their efforts, or
something called a “contingent fee”.
A “contingent fee” is where the
lawyer’s client is owed an amount that
the client is not sure about collecting,
and the client does not want to pay
high hourly legal expenses for collec
tion work if there is a significant chan
ce that the money will never be suc
cessfully collected and the cHent will
get stuck with a lost account PLUS
legal expenses in trying to futilely
collect the money.
So the lawyer agrees to collect the
money for a commission, which
typically runs 25-50 percent. If the
lawyer doesn’t collect, he doesn’t get
paid. The lawyer’s fee is contingent
upon successful collection. This
reduces the risk to the client, and im
proves the lawyer’s incentive
noticeably.
The lawyer and client become par
tners in collecting the debt.
Because of the high expense of
collecting monies through legal
methods, many companies will turn to
collection agencies rather than lawyers
to shower the debtor with semi-legal
looking notices, and “final demands”.
Under recent federal law, the collec
tion agencies are not allowed to
threaten to sue you unless they actually
follow through with the threat and are
not bluffing.
So the debtor gets a lot of
threatening mail. If the debt is large,
over $100, $200 or $300 in some cases,
the amount will probably be worth a
lawyer’s time to pursue after the collec
tion agency is unsuccessful.
If the amount is small, and not wor
th a lawyer’s time, then the stream of
increasingly hostile letters is usually a
bluff, and the creditor will write off the
debt as a lost cause that is going to be
too expensive to pursue for the
relatively small amount of money.
Who needs $200 worth of legal fees to
collect $100, and what attorney wants a
one-third commission of a $30 overdue
account? Lawyers have their image to
think of, and what self-respecting
lawyer is going to spend several hours
writing you, phoning you and suing
you for a $10 commission? Lawyers
don’t work for minimum wage, you
know.
So the inexperienced deadbeat is
going to get worried about the
threatening letters from the collection
agency and pay for fear of ruining their
future credit rating.
And the professional, seasoned
deadbeat is going to sit back and
chuckle, coldly calculating at what
dollar level the cUent is going to be
willing to actually sue.
Some of the industries hardest hit by
seasoned deadbeats are mail-order fir
ms selling relatively inexpensive items
by mail: magazine subscriptions,
record clubs, book clubs, anything un
der $100. The professional deadbeats
play these industries like suckers, and
the honest person having unexpected
financial problems does all the
worrying about threatening looking
notices and quasi-legal notices.
Such is life.
Students are notoriously naive about
collection practices. Only deadbeats
and business people understand how
the game is played.--Campus Digest
News Service
Inside this Issue
Willie Spealcs Page 2
Student Aid Cuts Page 4
Jazz Awareness Weelt ... Page 5
Sports Pages 6,7 & 6