OPINIONS
/editorials, columns, letters
«7
Newly elected Gov. Jim
Hodges of South Carolina has
just announced plans for a
program called “First Steps.”
The Democrat, who beat
incumbent Republican David
Beasley last year, has visited
with North Carolina Gov. Jim
Hunt and sees early child
hood programs as a political
winner.
Perhaps cooler heads will
prevail in South Carolina and
Hodges’ plan will undergo
serious review. Unfortu
nately, North Carolina politi
cians and policy analysts
have spent little time,in the
past six years thinking about
Hunt’s Smart Start program,
viewing it not as a policy
alternative to be evaluated
objectively but instead a
quasi-religious cause to be
advanced with missionary
zeal.
If Hunt has his way this
year, Smart Start will receive
nearly $240 million in state
taxpayer funds. Next year
(2000-2001) the Smart Start
budget will reach $325
million. That would make
Smart Start one of North
Carolina’s largest public
assistance programs, exceed
ing the cost of Work First
cash welfare ($225 million).
Given the massive “invest
ment” state taxpayers are
making in Smart Start, the
lack of careful consideration
of its potential benefits at its
creation in-1993 is particu
larly galling. It was sold as a
See BEAT On Page 5-A
i credit to Irish homeland and colonies
Manufactures of the Nation
being cramp’d and
discourag’d, the labouring
People have little to do, and
consequently are not able to
purchase Bread at its present
dear Rate; That the Taxes are
nevertheless exceeding
heavy, and Money very
scarce; and add to all this,
hat their griping, avaricious
landlords exercise over
hem the most merciless
backing Tyranny and Op
>ression. Hence it is that
;uch Swarms of them are
driven over into America.”
In North Carolina, at this
same time, “doors were
thrown open to Protestants of
all nations,” as the Lords
Proprietors withdrew, and
Edenton HISTORY
Mary Ann Coffey
Carolina became a royal
colony, wrote Leyburn in
“The Scotch-Irish, A Social
History.” Arthur Dobbs was
among those opening doors to
his countrymen.
The ancestral home of
Arthur Dobbs was Castle
-- .'■ ■ -i~rrt
Dobbs, County Antrim,
Ireland, but he was born in
Scotland on April 2, 1689. His
mother had taken refuge in
Scotland during an era of
Irish political and religious
revolt. The Dobbs, who had
arrived at Carrickfergus in
1599, were prominent mem
bers of the community in
northern Ireland. While little
is known of Arthur Dobbs’
education, “it is obvious from
his writings, his speeches,
and his library that he re
ceived good training,” wrote
Richard Beale Davis in The
Dictionary of North Carolina
Biography.
Dobbs served in the dra
goons for almost 20 years,
and was elected high sheriff
T r
Waving goodbye to WWI vets
A few days ago the Carteret
County News Times reported
that the French government
is awarding the Legion of
Honor to Harvey Gray, a 100
year-old resident of the
North Carolina coast.
Why? The French want to
make the award to every
living American veteran who
served on French soil during
World War I, and Harvey
Gray is one of the few who is
eligible. Only about 3000
World War I vets are still
alive.
This report took me aback.
The same thing happened a
couple of years ago when I
saw a headline in the
McDowell (County) News:
County’s Last World
War I Veteran Dies
The passing from our scene
of the World War I veterans
should not surprise me. After
all, that war ended in 1918.
Its youngest participants
could not have been born
much after 1900. Those still
alive have past, or are fast
approaching, their hundredth
birthdays.
But this passage is impor
tant to me, and I am not sure
how to explain why.
Maybe this way: When I
was a young boy, there were
still a few Civil War veterans
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D.G. Martin
alive. They were just about
as rare as a World War I
veteran is today.
You are thinking, aren’t
you, that this is just another
way of saying that the World
War I is about the same.,
distance back in time now as
the Civil
War was in the early
1940’s?
You are right, I guess. But
for me there sure is some
thing more.
Back in the early 1940’s
when the Civil War veterans
were fading away, most
veterans of World War I
were in their prime—just
moving into middle age.
Some were still young
enough to go to war a second
time in World War II.
But mostly, for me, they
were the men who ran things
when I was growing up.
The store owners, barbers,
church leaders, and govern
ment officials came from the
World War I generation.
They and their generation
formed the “people-scape” in
which my young life was-set.
They were nothing spe
cial—just everything and
•everywhere.
Now, I keep thinking, they
are mostly gone—and if they
are alive, they are as old as
the Civil War veterans were
back then.
Do you think that I have
been caught up in a circle of
the passage of
time - confused and without
a real point for this column?
If you have any sense of
history, maybe the point is
that we are at the moment of
the very last chance with
veterans of World War I.
If you know, or can find,
one of them, take a young
person or a child to see him
and talk to him. Give that
child a memory to connect
that veteran all the way to
the end of the next century.
You will have done, some
thing worthwhile.
All this gets me thinking
about the Second World War,
See MARTIN On Page 6-A
of Antrim, and mayor of
Carrickfergus. He joined the
House of Commons in 1727,
where he promoted the
export of Irish goods. He
aligned himself with the
British government, but
“throughout his long
life...supported causes of the
Irish, Protestant or Catholic,
and was always concerned
for the welfare and suffrage
of the Irish people as equal
partners in the British
nation;” Davis writes.
While Dobbs was fighting
for the rights of the “com
monality” in Ireland, he
believed those rights be
longed to all people in the
British empire. He sent the
prime minister a report
arguing for free trade be
tween England and her
outposts, including Ireland,
the West Indies, and
America. In pursuing this
interest, he underwrote two
explorations for a Northwest
Passage across North
America.
He also invested in land in
North Carolina, and made
plans to “bring a large num
ber of Irish, especially
distressed Protestants, to
settle on them.” In 1745,
Dobbs and a partner pur
chased some 400,000 acres of
land from Henry McCulloh
(who would be instrumental
in James Iredell’s immigra
See COFFEY On Page 5-A
Tolson emphasizes
safety on highways
Norris Tolson wants to run
for governor, and he wants
you to be alive to vote for
him on Election Day.
Tolson, the state secretary
of transportation, is clearly a
longshot candidate for the
Democratic nomination for
governor. He has neither the
name recognition, nor the
political grassroots, of his
two main competitors, Lt.
Gov. Dennis Wicker and
Attorney General Mike
Easley.
In addition, Tolson’s base
for running his campaign is
the biggest sewer in state
government: DOT: Gov. Jim
Hunt, who has prospered
politically employing the
benign neglect philosophy
regarding DOT that has ruled
since the horse and buggy
age, gave him a broom last
year and told him to clean up
the mess.
Tolson’s been trying to lead
DOT out of the scandals at
the Board of Transportation
and in the Division of Motor
Vehicles, which is within
DOT.
He’s had a stable of infa
mous North Carolinians to
handle from Larry Goode to
Algie Toomer to Odell
Williamson.
He’s also had to tell the
public the bad news about the
Transportation Improvement
Plan: It was way
underfunded and overprom
ised, so don’t expect that new
road your town needs. And
he’s had to deliver the bad
news on road maintenance.
It, too, is way underfunded.
Spreading bad news is no
way to get elected governor -
that’s why Hunt never does
it. He leaves it to other
people. But Tolson may have
hit on a key campaign issue,
something that can resonate
with a public caught in
traffic: Those roads are
scary and dangerous.
His first move was to find
money to speed the installa
tion of median barriers on
more than 900 miles of high
speed divided highway. This
is a no-brainer. Highway
NC TODAY
Paul O'Connor
planners have long known
that medians stop the great
majority of the deadliest
accidents, the head-on crash.
Yet the state scrimped and
saved on the installation of
these barriers for too long,
and people died.
Tolson rearranged priori
ties and will have all of the
projects completed in less
than three years, not the
seven that was outlined in the
TIP.
His next move has been to
respond to the state’s terrible
record with truck safety. It’s
in the same league as our
SAT scores. North Carolina
ranks as the fifth most
dangerous state for truck
safety.
Tolson told legislators
recently that he wants sev
eral changes in state law to
go along with some changes .
in DOT and DMV proce
dures. All should make truck
traffic less dangerous, he
said.
His plan calls for higher
fines and increased license
points for truckers who
break traffic laws, electronic
and camera surveillance of
truck speed in high-danger
zones like work areas, and
bans on all alcoholic bever
ages in commercial vehicles.
Tolson did not, however,
take what many consider to
be the most important step -
requiring regular safety
inspections of trucks similar
to the annual inspection
system that exists for private
cars.
Tolson said he first wants *
See O'CONNOR On Page 6-A
New policy grossly unfair to Tarheel students
BY GREGORY MALHOIT
North Carolina's State
Board of Education seems
determined to adopt a “quick
fix” education policy that
could hold back thousands of
students who fail state
administered multiple choice
tests.
The policy is grade reten
tion - an approach that has
been experimented with in
many school systems and
studied by educational
researchers. And after
decades of research on non
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EDITORIAL
promotion policies, many
researchers have concluded
that, despite good intentions,
grade retention does far
more harm than good.
For example, researchers
have found that retention
increases discipline problems
and dropout rates while
actually hurting long-term
student achievement. Finding
like these have recently led
highly respected educators to
conclude that adopting and
implementing a policy that
could hold back thousands of
students would be equivalent
to committing educational
malpractice.
Grade retention ignores
what we know about the
development of human
intelligence: namely that
children learn at different
rates, just as they grow in
spurts. Children do not
always progress nicely along
a “developmental assembly
line.”
They are human beings
with unique skills and abili
ties, most of which cannot be
measured by one multiple
choice test. We also know
that some students don’t test
well, and that tests are not a
perfect measure of what
students know. Nevertheless,
the proposed grade promo
tion policy places total
reliance on a test score.
Such a policy spawns a
number of negative conse
quences, including discount
ing students’ classroom work,
and encouraging teachers to
teach to the test - a practice
opposed by most parents, and
one which penalizes imagina
tion and critical thinking.
Grade retention may also G
violate the civil rights of ;
minority, special education;
and non-English speaking
students.
The state board knows that
at-risk children are not
currently passing the tests,;
and that these students will;
be most dramatically im
pacted by the proposed
policy. Yet the state board !
doesn’t have a realistic plan
to guarantee at-risk students
an equal opportunity to be *
promoted. It is foolish to
believe that we can have 1
higher standards for students
without an investment of new
dollars.
Our lowest-performing •
students won’t stand much of
a chance of meeting the netf
standards if we do not have;;
See GUEST On Page fr-A