/editorials, columns, letters
‘Notebook cleaning time’ provides some tidbits
KAi^iLri-i - rime to clean little
items out of the notebook, again.
• Democratic gubernatorial
candidate Mike Easley, the
state's attorney general, spoke to
reporters at the top of a hotel
stairwell after appearing before
the American Association of
Retired Persons last week.
Reporters asked Easley if he'd
answer a few questions, a
reasonable request considering
that Easley has been mostly
unavailable to the press this
campaign and that his public
schedule has been very limited.
fundraising is taking entirely
too much time for everybody in
every race, especially for us."
Easley said. "We don't have the
national money. Their campaign
is being funded out of Washing
ton."
Easley was refering to national
Republican money that is
flowing to his opponent, Richard
V inroot. who is also spending a
lot of time raising money.
Easley continued: "Campaign
ing is the chance for people to get
to you.”
Sure was. but only for a few
Today
in North
Carolina
PAUL
O'CONNOR
minutes. Easley kept trying to
move away from the reporters, as
his staff conjured up. in emer
gency tones of voice, the need for
the candidate to stay on sched
ule. Asked why he was in such a
rush, Easley said, he didn't know
but that he had to go.
Guess he was off for more
fundraising, now that he'd given
the press all of five minutes for
questions.
At the same time, Vinroot was
holding a press conference
across town.
• Vinroot’s communications
consultant. Jack Hawke, wants
the world to know that Vinroot
was not the first gubernatorial
candidate to run negative ads
this year. He says Easley was '
first — which is probably correct
given a small Easley ad buy this
summer. Hawke was responding
to a column about
Vinroot’s rising negatives in
the Mason-Dixon poll.
• TV viewers in the east have
probably seen Rep. Art Pope’s
ads in which the somewhat
cerebral, some would say nerdy,
Raleigh Republican rows a
canoe. He looks as Comfortable as
Mike Dukakis looked in his tank.
He recently ran into Jack
Nichols, his Democratic oppo
nent, and caught a little ribbing
for the canoe ad - implications
that he's not much of an
outdoorsman. “That's not true.”
Pope said, “I’ve been canoeing
since I was six.”
But from the “You can't win
for losing” department, it turns
out that
Nichols is an avid canoeist
who often takes three-or four-day.
trips, and who has traveled the
Boundary Waters Canoe Area in
upper Minnesota, Pope said.
See O'CONNOR On Page 5-A
The appeal of
offensive news
still enduring
GBSONBURG.
OHIO — Folks
who insist
they read only
The Wall
Street Journal
and National
Geographic,
with maybe an
issue or two of
the
Smithsonian
It's just
small
talk
SCBUf
thrown in for idle chat, scare me. 1 suspect they’re
not being truthful. Or maybe it’s just that they
have never had to stand in a supermarket checkout
line when the person two carts ahead of them has
bought a bunch of stuff with the bar-codes missing
from the bottom. This is a prime-time, trash
reading moment.
Tell me you've never, sneaked a glance at the
sleaze tabloids racked up there. And that you’ve
never wanted to know more about a headline
boasting an in-depth interview with a Martian
claiming George W. is h is long lost uncle who was
banished to Earth as a punishment for syntax
abuse.
I have. And I laugh to myself Ha' Who’d buy
that stuff? And then I answer myself. Millions,
apparently, because folks don’t keep printing
papers that, won’t sell.
t Non-journalism has been around forever. It
probably began with the first guy in the cave who
set about chiseling stuff on the walls like, ‘'Ptero
dactyl admits love tryst with Madonna.”
Around the turn of the 20th century, a couple of
now legendary New York newspaper owners.
Joseph Pulitzer (World) and William Randolph
Hearst (Journal) were slugging it out on the
newsstands.
Pulitzer, who is credited with being a master
syn'thesist rather than an innovator, took a lesson
from the Chicago Times when it ran a story on four
murderers who found God just before being
hanged. "Jerked to Jesus,” was the Times headline.
In a Sunday supplement. Pulitzer's World ran a
story about a French scientist and explorer who
claimed to have'discovered a race of savages with
well-developed tails. There was even a drawing of a
“human man-monkey with a tail " clinging to a
tree. “To be certain that I was not the plaything of
an illusion,” the explorer is quoted as saying, "I
felt his tail.”
Meanwhile, back at the Journal. Hearst was hold
ing his owrn in the inflammatory news department.
“Babies Killed by Score” the headline of one evening
edition proclaimed. “Twenty bodies have been re
See SCHUETT On Page 5-A
Choice improves achievement
BY SHERRI JOYNER
RALEIGH. NC - In August, two studies were
released measuring the effect of private school
scholarships for low-income students. The results
are astounding and demonstrate that cho.ice
programs can narrow if not close the racial perfor
mance gap suprisingly quickly.
, A Harvard study showed that
after two years in private
schools, students receiving
scholarships in New York City,
Dayton. Ohio, and the District of
Columbia scored 6 percentile
points higher than those stu
dents who applied for scholar
ships but did not receive them
and therefore remained in the
public school system.
The other study, by Jay P. Greene at the Manhat
tan Institute for Policy Research, examined
evidence from the Children’s Scholarship Fund
(CSF) in Charlotte - a private scholarship program
that serves mostly minority students. After only
one year in private schools, students receiving a
CSF scholarship improved their standardized math
test scores by between 5.9 and 6.2 percentile points,
and improved their standardized reading test
scores by between 5.4 and 7.7 percentile points.
Not only did test scores soar in Charlotte, but so
did parental satisfaction. Choice parents were
nearly twice as likely to be “very- satisfied” with
virtually all aspects of the schools - including
safety, discipline, facilities, and moral values - as
public school parents were.
The improvement in test scores caused by the
Charlotte CSF program were larger than those
observed in the Tennessee STAR study of class-size
reductions, and the CSF program is less expensive.
When the Tennessee STAR study was released
showing the class size reductions boosted test
scores, politicians and teachers' unions exalted the
results and encouraged educational policies that
would reduce class sizes. Now that a new study
shows that allowing parents to
choose the school that is right for
their children produces an even
larger academic gain, will these
same groups clamor to gfVe
scholarships to poor children to
attend private schools? Probably
not.
The Manhattan Institute study
also showed that private schools
in Charlotte were not creaming the best students
from the public schools and dumping the worst.
Opponents argue that private schools will refuse
students because of stringent academic standards.
According to the Charlotte study, only two students
failed to attend the school of their choice because of
an admissions test, and there was no evidence that
any students were expelled for similar reasons.
Opponents also argue that the money spent on ’
scholarships would be better spent improving
public schools. This is not the case. Looking at
previous studies that identify the cost and success
of education reforms, it is easy to see that scholar
ships for private schools are the most cost-effective
solution.
See BEAT On Page 5-A
I Carolina
BEAT
Voting for the
bonds; my own
special reasons
“When are
you going to
weigh in on
the bond issue
in your
column?”
Some people
who know (hat
I worked for
University of
North Caro
One
on
One
D.G.
MARTIN
lina (System) and for several of its campuses have
been asking me that question.
It is their way of telling me that 1 should share
my opinion about the upcoming vote on the higher
education bonds with my readers.
While I was on the university payroll, 1 was
reluctant to use my column to push the higher
education agenda - thinking my editors and
readers might see a conflict of interest. And even
though I have left the university it is hard to break
the old feeling of restrictions.
But now, as an ordinary taxpayer. I have a right *
to share my opinions about how my tax money is
to be spent. No, I have a duty to speak out.
So here is what I think. The higher education
bond referendum is a critical opportunity for us to
improve our state - not just for those, who will be
students in the universities and community
colleges, but for all of us.
The public information effort by the universities
and community colleges has laid out the case for
the investment in great detail. And the broad
bipartisan coalition of the state’s political and
business leaders in support of the bonds gives
assurance that the vote is not a Republican
Democrat or liberal-conservative issue.
State Treasurer Harlan Boyles, whose protective
ness over the state’s credit rating is legendary,
supports the investment and assures us that the
bonds can be repaid without increasing our taxes.
(And the viewers of UNCTV's great programs
such as North Carolina Bookwatch - know that
without funds from the bonds to meet the Federal
requirement to convert to digital transmitting,
North Carolina’s state wide public television
network may lose its broadcast licenses.)
This broad-based support boosts my commit
ment, but my vote in favor of the bonds will also be
a matter of personal urgency based on things I
have seen during my 12 years of working in the
university environment.
For example, last year wh ile I was work i ng at UNC
Pembroke, I got a chance to watch its science faculty
in action. Although that institution focuses on in
struction of undergraduate students, the faculty’s
See MARTIN On Page 11 A
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Which type of tax cut is most beneficial?
BY DR. MIKE WALDEN
NC Cooperative
Extension Service
Fall is in the air, the election is
around the corner, and presiden
tial candidates are touting their
favorite tax-cut plans. While
every .candidate proudly states
that his or her tax-cut plan is the
very best, tax-cut plans can be so
complicated that two analysts
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You
DECIDE
can interpret the same plan quite
differently.
How can the average person
judge tax-cut programs? There
are many ways, but one of the
most important questions is
whether the tax cut is targeted or
across the board.
A targeted tax cut is one that is
only available to taxpayers who
meet certain conditions. For
example, tjie home mortgage
interest tax deduction is a tax cut
targeted to homeowners with
mortgages, because they're the
only ones who qualify. Renters
and homeowners who have paid
off their mortgages don’t get this
tax cut.
The current federal income tax
code is chock full of targeted tax
cuts. Households with child-care
expenses, excessive medical
expenditures and college and
retirement savings are among
those eligible for tax reductions.
These targeted tax cuts differ
from across-the-board cuts,
which give all taxpayers a
specified percentage tax cut
regardless of how they spend or
save. In the purest form of
across-the-board cuts, all taxpay
ers receive the same percentage
reduction. In a variation qf the
across-the-board cut, the percent
age reduction can vary by the
taxpayer’s income.
There are some clear pluses
and minuses to each approach.
Targeted tax cuts certainly helpl
specific types of taxpayers, so if
you’re in one of these groups,
you may like the cuts. For
example, if a targeted tax cut is
provided for elderly households
with prescription drug costs and
you are one of these households,
then you may support this
approach. However, if you don't
have significant prescription
drug costs, this targeted cut may
be irrelevant.
There’s one big caveat to
targeted tax cuts. Often they only
apply to households with in
comes below a certain level. This
means the designer of the target
tax cut must decide which
households, based on income,
deserve the tax reduction and
which don’t. Obviously, there’s
no easy ,way to do this, and any
t income limit will raise questions
* of fairness.
Many people are calling for
simplification of the tax code, but
targeted tax cuts do just the
opposite: They complicate the tax
code. Targeted tax cuts add more
deductions and credits to the tax
code and taxpayers must make
an effort to find out if they
qualify.
And taxpayers also have to do
See DECIDE On Page r,.A