• Testing, Testing:Shhh, It’s a Secret

New Avenues for Roads

• A Gay Ol’ TimeAt the University

The X-Rated Title IX

Volume 11, Number7

July 2002

www.CarolinaJournal.com

A Monthly Journal of News,Analysis, and Opinion fromthe John Locke Foundation

www.JohnLocke.org

ContentsCalendar 2State Government 3Education 6Higher Education 10Local Government 14Books & the Arts 18Opinion 20Parting Shot 24

The John Locke Foundation200 W. Morgan St., # 200Raleigh, NC 27601

NONPROFIT ORG.U.S. POSTAGE

PAIDRALEIGH NC

PERMIT NO. 1766

C A R O L I N A

JOURNAL

Gov. Mike Easley signed the “Education Revenue Act” amid great fanfare at a ceremony Sept. 26 at Wiley Elementary School in Raleigh.

Local School Districts Look For Quick Savings

In fiscal crisis, some urgecareful study of researchon program effectiveness

Continued as “A Second Look,” Page 3

By SHERRI JOYNERAssistant Editor

RALEIGH

A lready expecting cuts, districts arein the midst of balancing their ownbudgets. Some North Carolina

school systems are expecting to lose severalmillions of dollars, depending on what theGeneral Assembly decides. And a few ex-pect reductions in federal funding, too.

Nonteaching positions will be the firstplace that many districts make cuts. DonMartin, superintendent of Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools, has suggested cut-ting vacant positions, including assistantprincipal and curriculum-coordinator po-sitions. Dr. Mary McDuffie, superintendentof Northampton schools, has also said herdistrict will cut positions.

Bladen County school board membersare planning to eliminate staff positions inthe central office. Superintendent ByronLawson said that district officials would notreduce teacher positions, but that athleticsand physical education programs may becut.

Guilford County Superintendent Terry

Grier presented a detailed district budgetin May that included a 23-item list of pos-sible cuts. At the top of the list was a pro-posal to cut 39.5 central office positions andcreate a two-tiered busing plan for schoolsin the district. Board members didn’treadily accept Grier’s plan but did decideto look at each item of the budget. Grier’soriginal list had added up to $17.5 millionin savings and 364 positions.

Last year, Guilford County’s schoolbudget painted a different picture. Grierasked for an additional $7.74 million lastsummer to create several new initiativesand increase teacher and employee pay.Now Guilford and other districts are strug-gling to continue new programs that werestarted in the last few years.

Not all districts are expecting to makecuts. Randolph county commissioners arediscussing using reserves to provide greaterfunding for Randolph County Schools andAsheboro City Schools. Robert McRae,Randolph schools superintendent, is ask-ing for $350,000 to fund a new middleschool. Commissioners are hoping the Gen-eral Assembly will give them the authority

to levy a half-cent sales tax to offset the cost.Orange County school board members

are also talking tax increases. School boardmember Keith Cook wants a district schooltax to ensure Orange County students re-ceive the same educational opportunities asstudents in the Chapel Hill school district.Chapel Hill receives $3,366 per pupil in lo-cal funds, more than any other district inthe state. Orange County isn’t far behind.The district receives $2,366 per pupil in lo-cal funds, ranking it fourth in the state. Theaverage North Carolina district receives$1,304 per student in local funds.

The story of local budget crunches aresimilar across the nation. Clark County,Nevada has been innovative in cuttingcosts. The district asked staff to conserveenergy by turning off unused equipmentand coming in as early as 4:30 a.m. so theycould leave by 12:30 p.m. The district ex-pects to save $1.7 million in air-condition-ing costs this summer. Schools have alsobeen asked to turn off vending machines.The cost of operating all 4,000 vending ma-chines in the district is about $1.4 millioneach year. CJ

By SHERRI JOYNERAssistant Editor

RALEIGH

In September 2001, Gov. Mike Easleysigned a “budget for education.” Itbegan last summer as the “Education

Revenue Act.” At least that is what support-ive legislators were calling it. Now theirhopes for education spending to continuesignificant growth during an economicslowdown are fizzling as the state’s bud-get deficit has forced lawmakers to trimmany government programs—includingthose in education.

Cutting hundreds of millions of dol-lars in the state budget without affectingeducation expenditures would be a difficulttask. Education is by far the largest item inthe state budget. More than half of the bud-get every year goes to education alone.

But some analysts point out that find-ing savings in education budgets need notharm academic achievement and shouldcome where taxpayers get the least bang fortheir buck. Some education programs canbe cut without harming the classroom, theysay, pointing to North Carolina’s multimil-lion-dollar annual investment in nationalboard certification for some teachers.

National board certification

This year the state will spend at least$15.3 million on teachers who have alreadyreceived certification from the NationalBoard for Professional Teaching Standards.But according to several independent schol-ars, there is no evidence to support thepremise that nationally certified teachersboost student achievement.

North Carolina heavily subsidizes theprogram, which costs taxpayers about$6,692 for every newly certified teacher. Thecosts are incurred in test fees and substi-tute pay. Candidates for national certifica-tion receive three days of paid leave to pre-pare for the test. North Carolina law allowsstate-paid teachers with at least three yearsof experience, the following:

Taking a Second Look at North Carolina’s Education Budget

100%50%0 %

School Vouchers

Tuition Tax Relief

Charter Schools

Year-Round Options

Magnet Schools

57%

80%

71%

75%

84%

Business Leaders On School Choice

Favor

Oppose

NA

% of NC Business Executives in March 2002 JLF Poll

George Stephens, an adjunct scholarwith the John Locke Foundationand an economics and real estate

consultant in Raleigh, will be the featuredspeaker at a Locke Foundation luncheon inRaleigh on Wednesday, July 17. The pro-gram will start at noon at the BrownstoneHotel.

Stephens is the author of Locke, Jeffersonand the Justices: Foundations and Failures ofthe U.S. Government (Algora Publishing,New York, N.Y., Spring 2002), a history ofhow 17th Century Englishman John Lockeinfluenced American government. Hetaught economics at North Carolina StateUniversity for several years.

His many articles for the Locke Founda-tion and its newspaper, Carolina Journal,have dealt with such topics as transporta-tion policy, land use, property rights, andthe history of political thought. He is alsothe author of “City Planning and PropertyRights: Rethinking Regulation,” a Lockeresearch paper. His career in public policyincludes positions in local, state, and fed-eral government.

He received an undergraduate degreein economics from the University of NorthCarolina at Chapel Hill in 1952 and a mas-ters degree in city and regional planningthere in 1958. He served in the United StatesNavy from 1952 through 1956 as an officer,first on the USS Rolette, an amphibiousforces ship, and then on the submarine USSBlackfin.

In his latest book on Locke, Stephenssays Locke’s writings and beliefs were all-important, because he explained why gov-ernment was created. The Founders con-sciously wrote his principles into the Decla-ration of Independence and the Bill of Rightsof the Constitution, so there is little doubt of

John Locke Scholar George Stephens to Speak in July

C A R O L I N A

JOURNAL

Richard WagnerEditor

Paul Chesser, Michael LowreyAssociate Editors

Sherri Joyner, Erik Root, Jon Sanders

Assistant Editors

Thomas Paul De WittOpinion Editor

Andrew Cline, Roy Cordato,Charles Davenport, Ian Drake,

Tom Fetzer, Nat Fullwood,John Gizzi, David Hartgen,

Lindalyn Kakadelis, George Leef,Kathryn Parker, Marc Rotterman,Jack Sommer, George Stephens,

John Staddon, Jeff Taylor,Michael Walden

Contributing Editors

Hans Hurd, Rheta Burton,Brian Gwyn, Nathan Lintner,

Thomas CroomEditorial Interns

John HoodPublisher

Don CarringtonAssociate Publisher

Published byThe John Locke Foundation

200 W. Morgan St., # 200Raleigh, N.C. 27601

(919) 828-3876 • Fax: 821-5117www.JohnLocke.org

Bruce Babcock, Ferrell Blount,John Carrington, Hap Chalmers,

Sandra Fearrington, Jim Fulghum,William Graham, John Hood,

Kevin Kennelly, Lee Kindberg,Robert Luddy, William Maready,J. Arthur Pope, Assad Meymandi,

Tula Robbins, David Stover, Jess Ward, Andy Wells,

Art ZeidmanBoard of Directors

CAROLINA JOURNAL is a monthly journalof news, analysis, and commentary on stateand local government and public policyissues in North Carolina.

©2002 by The John Locke FoundationInc. All opinions expressed in bylined ar-ticles are those of the authors and do notnecessarily reflect the views of the editors ofCarolina Journal or the staff and board ofthe Locke Foundation.

Material published in Carolina Journalmay be reprinted provided the Locke Foun-dation receives prior notice and appropri-ate credit is given. Submissions and lettersto the editor are welcome and should bedirected to the editor.

Readers of Carolina Journal who wishto receive daily and weekly updates from CJeditors and reporters on issues of interest toNorth Carolinians should call 919-828-3876 and request a free subscription toCarolina Journal Weekly Report, deliv-ered each weekend by fax and e-mail, orvisit Carolina Journal.com on the WorldWide Web. Those interested in education,higher education, or local governmentshould also ask to receive new weekly e-letters covering these issues.

Calendar

ON THE COVER

•�In September 2001, Gov. Mike Easleysigned a “budget for education.” It beganlast summer as the “Education RevenueAct.” At least that is what legislators werecalling it. Now hopes for education to re-main a priority during North Carolina’sbudget disaster are fizzling as officials lookfor ways to reduce many government pro-grams—including those in education. Page 1

NORTH CAROLINA

•�North Carolina spends more than $14 mil-lion a year on salaries for state employeeswhose job is to provide the public informa-tion about its government. Page 4

• Ever-changing leadership and conflict-ing studies have contributed to perhaps themost confusing year yet for the GlobalTransPark in Kinston. Page 5

EDUCATION

• Assistant editor Sherri Joyner exploresNorth Carolina’s unstable high-stakes testscores over the last few years. Page 6

• Locke Foundation intern Nathan Clarksays the environmental miseducation ofchildren extends beyond the science classand into all aspects of their curriculum. Page 7

• Lindalyn Kakadelis recently traveled toItaly, and says it is decentralizing its na-tional education system. Page 7

• While scores on the state writing tests fellthis year, a Forsyth County charter school

with a large minority student populationperformed well. Page 7

• Nudged by tougher federal standards, theN.C. Board of Education is planning a widerange of changes for next year. Page 8

HIGHER EDUCATION

• The University of North Carolina atChapel Hill received several recommenda-tions recently to improve its climate for gayand lesbian students. Page 10

• The U.S. Supreme Court is likely to re-view a ruling in favor of the University ofMichigan’s use of racial preferences in ad-missions decisions. Page 11

• Five white professors have filed a law-suit against Livingstone College inSalisbury, alleging the private black collegediscriminated against them. Page 11

• Mike Adams, assistant professor at UNC-Wilmington, says a new women’s resourcecenter at the school advances a prochoiceabortion agenda. Page 11

•In the latest incident of a nationwide prob-lem, several December issues of the conser-vative student publication at Duke Univer-sity were stolen. Page 12

•Assistant editor Jon Sanders explores thepurpose and need for university freshmanorientation programs. Page 13

LOCAL GOVERNMENT

• Two highway projects are demonstratingpossible means to address some of thestate’s road problems. Page 14

• Assistant editor Erik Root reports that thepower of homeowners associations is on therise nationally and in North Carolina. Page 15

• An interview with Asheville City Coun-cilman Dr. Carl Mumpower. Page 16

THE LEARNING CURVE

• Reviews of the books Reassessing the Presi-dency, edited by John V. Denson, and thenovel Doctored Evidence by Michael Biehl. Page 18

• Reviews of the books Love and Economics:Why the Laissez-Faire Family Doesn’t Work byJennifer Roback Morse and A Nation of Cow-ards: Essays on the Ethics of Gun Control byJeff Snyder. Page 19

OPINION

• Editorials on partisanship in the statelegislature’s redistricting and budget fightsand the last two troubling legislative ses-sions. Page 20

• Editorials on the higher education bondsand cleaning up corruption in the state Di-vision of Motor Vehicles enforcementbranch. Page 21

PARTING SHOT

• Fresh off his successful promotion ofadorning Capitol statues in Carolina Hur-ricanes game jerseys, Gov. Mike Easley hashis eyes set on another sports campaign.Easley’s newly formed sports promotioncommission announced a new campaign tohighlight the recent successes of a localmiddle school swim team. Page 24

Contents

George Stephens

their intent. Stephens demonstrates that theconcept of a “living constitution,” one thatchanges with the common law, has no basisin law or history. The Framers intendedthat their words and their interpretation befollowed, except where amended by theprocedure specified in the U.S. Constitu-tion.

Interpretation is revealed in U.S. Su-preme Court opinions, and Stephens tracesLockean principles throughout the court’shistory, discussing the 19th Century inwhich they were honored and the 20th Cen-tury in which they were not. In recent opin-ions he finds reason to believe that the“welfare state” may be on the way out in the21st century.

Stephens’s book explains why the NewDeal was unconstitutional, and it includes acalculation of a current budget sufficient to

support the constitutional operations of thefederal government. The budget is 20 per-cent of the one Congress recently adopted,and Stephens says it could be raised with-out an income tax.

Stephens’s historical account would aidthe selection of judges, especially SupremeCourt justices, where upholding the greatLockean rights, which are our heritage, isparamount.

The cost of the luncheon is $15 per per-son. For more information or to preregister,contact Kory Swanson at (919) 828-3876 orevents@johnlocke.org.

Shaftesbury Society

Each Monday at noon, the John LockeFoundation plays host to the ShaftesburySociety, a group of civic-minded individu-als who meet over lunch to discuss theissues of the day. The meetings are con-ducted at the Locke offices in downtownRaleigh at 200 W. Morgan St., Suite 200.Parking is available in nearby lots and decks.Shaftesbury will continue to meet weeklythroughout the summer.

If you would like to join us, call KorySwanson for details or email him atevents@johnlocke.org.

“Locke Lines”

The John Locke Foundation producesa monthly audio magazine called“LockeLines” that features speeches madeat JLF events each month. “LockeLines” in-cludes Headliner speeches as well asShaftesbury Society speeches and commen-tary by Locke staff.

To subscribe, call Kory Swanson at (919)828-3876. CJ

July 2002C A R O L I N A

JOURNAL North Carolina

Continued From Page 1

• $2,300 assessment fee• Three days of paid release time• A salary differential (separate salary

schedule) of 12 percent of their state salaryfor the life of the certificate, which is 10years. For every year following initial cer-tification, the General Assembly’s Fiscal Re-search Division estimates the averageteacher earns an additional $4,170 annually.

Considered a pioneer in NBPTS partici-pation, North Carolina has 3,668 certifiedteachers. Former Gov. Jim Hunt heavilysupported the program and his involve-ment as the founding chairman of theNBPTS helped push legislation to supportthe certification.

Michael Podgursky, chairman of theEconomics Department at the University ofMissouri-Columbia, challenges the efficacyof the program. While the NBPTS has beenin operation for more than 13 years and re-ceived nearly $100 million in federal sup-port, Podgursky found that there is “noevidence that this costly and time-consum-ing process is actually any better at identi-fying superior teachers than assessmentfrom supervisors, principals, or parents.”

Podgursky pointed out several prob-lems with the NBPTS. For instance, neitherparents nor school supervisors are asked toassess the quality of the teacher, and the cer-tification does not include a mechanism toensure that the candidates actually did theirown work — a problem because manyschools hire coaches and facilitators to helpteachers prepare their portfolios.

“At best,”�Podgursky said, “the na-tional board portfolio and assessment tellsus that a teacher knows how to be a goodteacher. Whether she summons the effortto actually put theory into practice day af-ter day in the classroom is another matter.”

Robert Holland, a senior fellow of theVirginia-based Lexington Institute, alsoquestions the purpose and results of theNBPTS. “The board’s standards heavily fa-vor child-centered ideology over traditionalteacher-directed instruction,” Holland said.“[I]n 1999, Danielle Dunne Willcox foundthat national certification emphasizes agrasp of pedagogy far more than it doesknowledge of content.”

Cutting nonteacher expenses

Savings could also be realized by reduc-ing or eliminating items in North Carolinapublic schools, community colleges, anduniversities that do not fund classroomteachers or professors.

While teachers are the key players inclassrooms, North Carolina has a largenumber of support personnel. Teachers rep-resent just over half of all personnel em-ployed by the public school system.

Fifty-one percent of all public schoolemployees in North Carolina are teachers,compared to 80 percent in Japan. Supportstaff, teaching assistants, administrators,psychologists, and guidance counselorshelp make up a large share of the schoolsystem.

The numbers may not seem alarminguntil other factors are taken into consider-ation. North Carolina spends on average$137,000 per classroom, with teachers mak-ing only about one-fourth of that amount.

The evidence of North Carolina’s rela-tively high investment in support staff canbe further demonstrated by looking at na-tional rankings. The state ranks 11th in thenation in teachers, but sixth in teaching as-sistants and ninth in guidance counselors.

The number of nonteaching staff hasgrown more rapidly than the number ofpupils and teachers in public schools overthe last two decades. According to the U.S.

Department of Education, nationwide therewere 8.3 pupils per staff in 1999, comparedto 9.8 pupils per staff in 1980.

It is not impossible for schools to oper-ate with fewer personnel. Private and char-ter schools are proof. Both operate withfewer nonteaching personnel than publicschools have. These positions are also thefirst to go when districts have to tighten thebelt on their budgets.

Sen. Virginia Foxx, R-Banner Elk, saidschools, including community colleges anduniversities, should look at administrativecuts first.

“I would get rid of all the public infor-mation officers in the public schools,”�Foxxsaid. “These position are fairly new and areonly in charge of P.R.work.”

As a former presi-dent of a community col-lege, Foxx is familiar withcutting positions. Withinjust a few months sheeliminated six adminis-trative positions at hersmall college. “I had di-vision directors who didabsolutely nothing. Everyposition should be looked at to see if it isadding value to the school,” Foxx said.

A push for higher education

The Excellent Schools Act, passed in1997, increased spending on professionaldevelopment and training programs forteachers, financed expansion of computerand technology use, and gave large salaryincreases for teachers receiving masters’ de-grees or national certification.

On the other hand, North Carolinaschools spend relatively little on rewardingdemonstrable teacher quality. While ABCbonuses are awarded to entire schools, notindividual classroom teachers, on the basisof test scores, the state invests a larger sumin encouraging teachers to pursue ad-vanced degrees and certification. For ex-ample, taxpayers spend an average of about$113 million a year in higher pay for the32,255 teachers statewide with master’s de-grees.

The presumption is that teachers withadvanced degrees generate better out-comes. Studies don’t bear that out.

An analysis of North Carolina surveysfrom the 1998 reading and 1996 math Na-tional Assessment of Educational Progressby David Grissmer of the RAND Corpora-tion found that advanced degrees madelittle difference in the classroom. Resultsfrom the nationally recognized test foundthat teachers with master’s degrees are un-likely to produce significant gains in stu-dent achievement.

Increased spending on professional de-velopment and training programs for teach-

ers also seems to make little impact in stu-dent outcomes.

North Carolina could save an addi-tional $579,000 next year by eliminating thecontroversial Schools Attuned Program.The program, created by “All Kinds ofMinds,” trains teachers to focus on “eightneurodevelopment constructs that affectlearning“ so teachers can use “behavioralsupports and strategies [to] improve thelearning environment for all students.”

Dr. Mel Levine, founder of the pro-gram, believes that “to treat everyone thesame is to treat them unequally. We aremaking a plea for the understanding of di-versity, for greater flexibility in educationand parenting, so that every child can find

success in his or her ownway.”

Researchers havefound that contentknowledge, rather thanpedagogy similar to thatfound in the Schools At-tuned Program, makes agreater difference in stu-dent achievement.

In the near future,teachers will be required

to pass rigorous tests in their subject areasor have degrees in their subject area. Withits national “No Child Left Behind” law, theBush administration has sought to focusprimary attention on whether teachers un-derstand the content they are assigned toteach.

Cutting class-size reductions

Statewide, class sizes have been fall-ing and the teacher-pupil ratio has risenabove the national average. At the signingof North Carolina’s state budget last fall,Easley said, “The class size is getting a littlesmaller…and the smiles on teachers’ facesare getting a little larger.”

Educators have demanded more teach-

ers and smaller class sizes statewide, butthere is little evidence to show that smallerclasses produce substantially higher aca-demic gains.

The project STAR study in Tennesseehas led some policymakers to conclude thatsmaller class size increases student learn-ing. Economist Eric Hanuschek of the Uni-versity of Rochester has a different take onthe STAR results. He found that most gainsin the study were made in kindergarten andmerely sustained in the following years.Other studies in Wisconsin and Floridashow similar results.

In a study of Florida’s class-size reduc-tion program, Dr. Patrick Harman, seniorevaluation specialist, said, “STAR research,as well as a smaller study done in NorthCarolina, suggest that the main benefits oc-cur in the first year a student is in a smallclass.”

In general, researchers cannot saywhether one year of small classes may beas effective as three or four years in smallclasses.

The North Carolina NAEP data ana-lyzed by Grissmer also showed that rela-tively smaller class sizes had no substan-tial increase in the scores of students. In fact,the analysis also showed that eighth-gradescience students in North Carolina inclasses with more than 30 students scoredsignificantly higher than eighth-graders insmaller classes did.

North Carolina’s authorized 2002-03budget included $25.1 million to reduceclass sizes of at-risk and kindergarten stu-dents. The just-passed Senate version of thebudget has cut funding for class-size reduc-tion, to Easley’s dismay.

Education experts question whether somuch money should be used to fund a pro-gram that makes so little a difference in stu-dent achievement. Neal McCluskey of theCenter for Education Reform in Washing-ton questioned the use of millions of dol-lars to fund a program lacking strong evi-dence. McCluskey concluded that class-sizereduction programs only serve to displaceeffective programs and teachers.

Some schools are reducing class sizewithout asking for additional state dollars.Draper Elementary in Rockingham County,for example, chose to reduce class size byconverting existing teacher’s assistant po-sitions into teacher positions.

The program was not readily acceptedby all teachers. Two kindergarten teacherschose not to reduce class sizes and optedinstead for a teacher’s assistant. After onlyone year, one of the teachers decided to re-duce her class size also.

Because of facility restrictions, not allschools were able to do this. “Draper wasable to do this because we didn’t have thebiggest barrier to reduce class size — facili-ties,” said Principal Steve Hansel. “We hadthe necessary classrooms.” CJ

Education expertsquestion whether somuch money shouldbe used to fund a pro-gram that makes solittle difference.

NC Public School Full-Time Personnel, 2001-2002

Teachers 51.4%

Teacher Assistants 16.7%

Instructional Support 6.7%

Administration 3.8%

Other 21.4%

51.4% Teachers

Support Staff and Adminstrators

SOURCE: Statistical Profile of NC Public Schools, 2002

$16,000,000

$14,000,000

$12,000,000

$10,000,000

$8,000,000

$6,000,000

$4,000,000

$2,000,000

$ 01994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001

North Carolina's Annual Cost for National Board Certification

Total Spent

Each year, the number of teachers seeking certification has risen. The cost to certify each teacher includes a one time fee of $2,300, $222 for a substitute, and an average yearly salary of $4,170. The graph represents the amount of money North Carolinians spends each year on certified teachers.

A Second Look at Education Budgets in North Carolina

3

4 July 2002C A R O L I N A

JOURNALNorth Carolina

Around the State

By PAUL CHESSERAssociate Editor

RALEIGH

North Carolina spends at least $14million annually for salaried posi-tions to provide public informa-

tion about the workings of state govern-ment. More than half the amount is ex-pended by the University of North Carolinasystem, which has nearly $7.5 million tiedup in information and communications sala-ries.

A report provided by the Office of StatePersonnel to Carolina Journal revealed varia-tions in total public information salariesallocated for each state agency. For instance,the report lists 35 such employees in theDepartment of Environment and NaturalResources with a total of $1.2 million insalaries. On the other extreme, the StateTreasurer, State Auditor, and Departmentof Revenue each list a single employee forpublic information.

But it is the wide-ranging UNC systemthat gobbles significant dollars in order toget its message out through publicationsand media. UNC-Chapel Hill pays almost$2.8 million in salaries for public-informa-tion jobs. North Carolina State Universitypays $834,107, and East Carolina Univer-sity pays $662,949. The central UNC systemadministration maintains $614,031 in infor-mation and communications payroll.

The tiny N.C. School of the Arts em-ploys three information specialists at a totalof $101,861 in salaries. That exceeds theamount allocated for four other UNC uni-versities, each of which has a majority blackstudent enrollment.

Outside the UNC system, DENR listedthe most public-information employees ofany state agency with 35. DENR pays about$1.2 million in those salaries, with severalpositions for divisions under its manage-ment. For example, four employees earn$118,844 as information specialists for theNorth Carolina Zoo. Five others are paidmore than $185,539 for museums in thestate.

The Department of Cultural Resourceswas next highest with 21 employees listedat $617,616 in salaries. Those include $72,372for history museums, $101,798 for the Mu-seum of Art, $31,157 for the symphony and$247,283 for Archives and History. Even theBattleship North Carolina Memorial inWilmington has its own information andcommunications specialist at almost $31,000.

Gov. Mike Easley’s two top press secre-taries each earn more than $70,000 annually—among the highest salaries in the report.Pay for communications directors in eachagency varies, with the lowest at $38,474 inTreasurer Richard Moore’s office.

The report did not include expendi-tures for employee health insurance or otherbenefits. If unfilled positions were includedin the report, the budgeted amount wouldexceed $16 million for information jobs.

The list includes employees who helpproduce state publications, craft press re-leases, answer questions from media andtaxpayers, provide requested documents,arrange interviews with officials, schedulepress conferences, and promote departmentaccomplishments and activities. They alsoproduce in-house and employee newslet-ters and memoranda.

But whatever their responsibilities,some question whether those who work inpublic information are clearinghouses forinformation requests, or simple promotersand protectors for their departments andleaders.

“I think many of these press people areused as somebody to hide behind when you

•�When Gov. Mike Easley an-nounced his state budget proposalsfor 2002-2003, reporters pepperedhim with questions about why hetook money from the Highway TrustFund, deferred tax cuts, and the To-bacco Trust Fund for the generalbudget. The governor’s proposalseeks $40 million from the TobaccoTrust, but reporters failed to askEasley why he wasn’t asking thelegislature to give the state access tomoney held by the Golden LEAFFoundation, which manages and dis-tributes half of the state’s tobaccosettlement money for economic de-velopment. As of April 30, GoldenLEAF had received almost $253 mil-lion, and is expected to receive $2.3billion by 2025. Asked by CarolinaJournal whether Golden LEAFmoney had been considered for thegovernor’s budget, deputy statebudget officer Charles Perusse said,“The governor has been committedto using that money for [economicdevelopment]. We just didn’t talkabout it much.” A Senate plan passedin June would take $40 million inpayments to Golden LEAF next year.

•Gardner M. Payne, a spokes-man and strategist for the prolotterygroup North Carolina Lottery forEducation Coalition, previously wasa personal assistant to former DOTSecretary Garland Garrett, Jr. LastDecember a federal grand jury in-dicted Garrett and his father on 246counts of illegal gambling andmoney laundering stemming fromtheir ownership of a video pokerbusiness. The indictment alleges thatthe activities took place from 1988 to2000. Payne worked for Garrett dur-ing that period. Charges weredropped last month against Garrett,Sr., because he suffers fromAlzheimer’s disease.

• Gov. Mike Easley’s educationadvisor, J.B. Buxton, learned thatschool superintendents would tes-tify June 11 before the Senate aboutthe budget shortfall and their needs.The Daily Advance of Elizabeth Cityreported that Perquimans CountySupt. Ken Wells received a call fromBuxton the day before. Wells toldthe newspaper about the call. “Itwas like, ‘we hope you support thegovernor’s budget. But if you get achance to support the lottery, (pleasedo).’” Wells’s Senate speech focusedon the needs of Perquimans, and leftout the lottery. “I’m not getting intothe politics of this,” he said.

• The Mooresville Tribune re-ported that VisionsWorks YouthServices, an organization that pro-vides guidance to juvenile offend-ers, may be in danger of losing pub-lic funding because of mismanage-ment. The state, through two crimeprevention agencies, appropriatesmoney to the counties, which thendetermine where the money isawarded. VisionsWorks is seekingmore than $200,000 from IredellCounty in such funds, but commis-sioners questioned the organ-ization’s spending habits, becauseVisionsWorks Executive DirectorTony Burton drew salary for threemonths last year while on sabbaticalin Europe. CJ

Public information officers pitch state’s message

Information Please? Salaries Cost $14 Million

State Spending on Public Information

don’t want to answer questions,” said StateSen. Hugh Webster, R-Caswell.

Webster last year introduced a bill thatwould eliminate all state public relationspositions. It went nowhere.

Webster sought the move because heviews most of the positions as an unneces-sary layer of bureaucracy, and one thatoften doesn’t properly serve taxpayers, law-makers, or the media.

“We shouldn’t be in the position, astaxpayers, of paying the hierarchy of thesemany departments,” Webster said.

Open-government advocates say justabout any state employee, in their area ofresponsibility, ought to be able to answerquestions or fulfill information requests.

“My experience is that public informa-tion officers are media managers, and in theworst case they’re spin doctors,” said JohnBussian, a lawyer who represents mediaorganizations in public information obstruc-tion cases. Bussian’s clients include theNorth Carolina Press Association and theFreedom Newspapers chain.

Webster says he regularly receives eva-sive treatment when seeking information.

“We call it the mushroom treatment,”he said. “Keep ’em in the dark and feedthem a lot of crap.”

Bussian said those in public informa-tion positions have a duty to respond fully

to all inquiries.“If you want to justify the expenditure

of tax dollars,” he said, “then I would wantthese people picking up the sword in a wayof explaining government functions to thepeople.”

“If somebody (in government) can’t dohis job with full disclosure,” Webster said,“then let’s just do away with his job.”

All government documents are publicinformation, unless they are pertinent to acriminal investigation. Bussian said eachagency has a custodian of records, which isnot the same as a public information officer.

“The Public Records Act is clear that itrequires all public records requests to thestate be answered by the custodian ofrecords for each agency,” Bussian said.

He said the recent case in which thegovernor told agencies to refuse to provideinternal working budget documents to TheNews & Observer, which the newspaper suedover, was a clear violation of the act. He saidthe governor’s subsequent policy of requir-ing newspapers to obtain informationthrough agencies’ public information offic-ers is illegal, and a bad idea.

“If you’re fortunate you’ll get therecords you request, but you’ll rarely get ananswer to your questions,” Bussian said. “Ifthere’s one thing a PIO is not, it’s not apublic records law specialist.” CJ

Selected items and total from a survey of salaries, by agency, of stateemployees identified as communications and public information specialists

No. of Employees Salary Total

Governor’s Office 8 $ 339,270Lt. Governor’s Office 2 $ 84,258Secretary of State 3 $ 105,743State Treasurer 1 $ 38,474Dept. of Justice 5 $ 171,036Dept. of Labor 9 $ 286,094Dept. of Public Instruction 4 $ 229,669State Auditor 1 $ 64,482Dept. of Agriculture 9 $ 326,216Dept. of Insurance 3 $ 120,069Dept. of Administration 3 $ 112,820Dept. of Transportation 19 $ 728,112Environment & Natural Res. 35 $ 1,263,364Dept. of Health & Human Svces 10 $ 474,823Dept. of Corrections 6 $ 223,923Dept. of Commerce 12 $ 475,668Dept. of Cultural Resources 21 $ 617,616Dept. of Revenue 1 $ 44,036Crime Control & Public Safety 2 $ 80,207Dept. of Juvenile Justice 2 $ 75,372UNC-Chapel Hill 78 $ 2,793,647UNC System Gen. Admin. 20 $ 614,031Entire UNC System 223 $ 7,498,823UNC Hospitals 25 $ 655,432

TOTAL* 475 $13,995,838

*Includes agencies not listedSource: Office of State Personnel As of April 30, 2002

July 2002C A R O L I N A

JOURNAL North Carolina 5Conflicting studies, conflicting uses, changing leadership

Global TransPark: Flying Erratically and Below the Radar

We Want Less!Concerned About Issues Such AsTaxes, Regulations, Property Rights& Patient Choice in Health Care?

Thousands of your fellow NorthCarolinians are, too — that’s whythey have joined North CarolinaCitizens for a Sound Economy tofight for less government, lowertaxes, and more freedom. They aremaking their voices heard.

Fighting for the People’s Agenda

North Carolina Citizens for a Sound Economy holds politicians accountable fortheir votes on taxes, regulations, and other issues. Its aggressive, real-timecampaigns activate a grassroots army to show up and demand policy change.

And it gets results. CSE has helped to defeat three large tax increases in NorthCarolina and defended property rights, parental choice, and individual freedombefore the state legislature, county commissions, city councils, and elsewhere.

Here’s what some are saying about Citizens for a Sound Economy:

• “They have been doing a great job all over the country educating people.”— President George W. Bush

• “CSE is a great organization . . . The hundreds of thousands of volunteeractivists that are members of CSE are vital to this country’s economic prosperity.”

— U.S. Rep. Richard Burr of Winston-Salem

• “You guys are everywhere! CSE is a great organization. CSE, thanks.”— Sen. John McCain

Get Involved!Join North Carolina CSEand Make a Difference!

115 1/2 West. Morgan St.Raleigh, NC 27601www.cse.org1-888-446-5273

North Carolina CSE members protest statetax increases at an August rally in Raleigh.

NORTH CAROLINA

“I’m overwhelmed andtrying to figure out whatI’ve gotten into.”– GTP’s new Execu-tive Director CharlesEdwards

By DON CARRINGTONAssociate Publisher

RALEIGH

On June 3, when Charles Edwardstook over as the latest executivedirector of the Global TransPark

in Kinston he told The Free Press of Kinston,“It’s like any first day on the job. I’m over-whelmed and trying to figure out what I’vegotten into.” His comments seem to reflectwhat so far has been a confusing year for theGTP. There have been conflicting studies,conflicting proposals for the use of the facil-ity, and, perhaps most confusing, conflict-ing and ever-changing leadership.

Conflicting studies

Last year the General Assembly askedthe N.C. Department of Transportation’sAviation Division to study the transfer ofthe GTP’s fixed assets and operations fromthe GTP Authority to another appropriateentity. Sometime during March or April ofthis year, DOT officials significantly altereda detailed version of the report to excludenegative information about the GTP.

The earlier version of the reportweighed advantages and disadvantages forsix potential alternative scenarios on the fu-ture of the GTP. The final version presentedto a legislative committee gave a single rec-ommendation: to assign oversight of theGTP airport to the state Division of Avia-tion for two years.

The final version was created under thedirection of DOT Chief Deputy SecretaryGene Conti, according to DOT Deputy Sec-retary David King. “It was what Genewanted,” King said. “He made a judgmentthat this was responsive to the legislature."

Conti was appointed vice chairmanof the GTP Authority by Gov. Mike Easleyon March 27. The final edited version of thereport was released May 7, long past its duedate of Feb. 15.

The six alternatives discussed in theoriginal version were: (1) to do nothing,with disadvantages including that “to dateperformance has been less than satisfac-tory. The political reper-cussions from this sce-nario would be very dam-aging. The Global Trans-Park is perceived as amajor financial liability;”(2) privatize the operation;(3) transfer it to DOT’sAviation Division; (4) setup a public-private part-nership; (5) set up a re-gional authority; and (6)shut down the existing GTP offices and turnover all fixed assets to the City of Kinston.“Politically, the ramifications of this actionwould be extreme and potentially disas-trous to many elected and appointed indi-viduals,” the document said.

Conflicting uses

For 10 years GTP boosters pushed theproject as an all-cargo airport surroundedby just-in-time manufacturing facilities.Now, just as the legislature considers an-other year of funding, three other ideas arebeing proposed.

In a March 22 letter to the U.S. Transpor-tation Security Administration, Bill Will-iams, director of the DOT’s Aviation Divi-sion, proposed that an Air Security Institute(a counterterrorism training center) be es-tablished at the GTP. Citing the events ofSept. 11 and the recent formation of theTSA, Williams wrote, “The facilities of theGTP are in place and ready for adaptation

to any aviation threat scenario currentlybeing considered.”

Williams also touted the recent comple-tion of an 11,500-foot runway and an up-dated instrument landing system, whichmeans “training exercises involving jumbo-jet aircraft hostage takeovers in the air canbe done in any weather situation at an air-port that has real terminal facilities.”

Williams also noted a positive side toKinston’s remote location. “The location ofthe proposed TSA Air Security Institute inKinston, NC, would allow operational sce-narios to be conducted under far less scru-tiny than at other comparable airports.”

In a separate proposal on April 19, theGTP Authority requested $1 million fromthe U.S. Department of Transportation to“complement and complete a community-led incentive package designed to bringaffordable jet service to the businesses andcitizens of a multi-county region spanningEastern North Carolina.” Officials from theNew Bern and Greenville airports say theyoppose the funding because it would givethe GTP an unfair advantage.

On May 28, the Kinston Convention andVisitor’s bureau sent a delegation to Torontoto offer the GTP as a location for motionpictures. “There’s less of a problem withsecurity here and the airport is relativelytranquil,” Stuart Johnson, president of theKinston Film Commission, told The FreePress of Kinston.

Who’s in charge?

Ten years ago the General Assemblycreated the GTP Authority as a state agencylocated within DOT. According to the gen-eral statute, the “Authority shall be locatedwithin the DOT, but shall exercise all of itspowers… independently of the Secretary ofTransportation… subject to the directionand supervision of the Secretary only withrespect to the management functions ofcoordinating and reporting.”

The authority’s board of directors is com-prised of 20 members, seven of whom areappointed by the governor. On March 27,

Easley appointed himselfchairman of the GTP Au-thority. He named Contito the board, and Contiwas elected vice chair-man. As DOT’s chiefdeputy secretary, Contireports to the DOT secre-tary, which appeared toset up a conflict of inter-est, or overlapping re-sponsibilities in conflict

with the law setting up the GTP Authority.On May 7, when Conti presented the

altered version of the GTP study to a legis-lative committee he said that DOT plans totake over development efforts at the air-port. He also told Carolina Journal that legis-lation was not required.

The GTP Authority has also had threeexecutive directors within the last ninemonths. The directors were Paul Busick,Lonnie Blizzard, and Edwards. Edwardsworked on the original feasibility study aswell as the GTP master plan. Those studiespredicted the GTP would generate 50,000jobs by the year 2000.

For the past few years Edwards was theNorth American chief executive officer ofCargoLifter, Inc. The German firm had an-nounced plans to erect a $120 million plantthat would build large airships at a site inCraven County. The company recentlyclosed its U.S. operation and now it appearsto be terminating all operations in Ger-many. CJ

Feb. 15: GTP study due but not received

March 19: DOT receives and alters GTP study

March 22: DOT offers GTP to federal government as counter-terrorismtraining site

March 27: Paul Busick resigns as executive director

March 27: Easley names himself GTP Authority chairman and Contibecomes vice chairman

April 19: GTP applies for $1 million federal grant to restore passengerservice to Kinston

May 7: Conti releases altered GTP study

May 20: Carolina Journal reports original GTP study

May 22: Easley announces $3.8 million in federal fundingsecured for new landing system

May 28: CargoLifter’s headquarters in Germany declares inability to paycreditors and employees

May 28: Kinston officials promote GTP as a movie set

May 31: CargoLifter closes U.S. offices

June 3: CargoLifter’s U.S. CEO Charles Edwards becomes GTP executivedirector

2002 Developments at the GTP

6 July 2002 C A R O L I N A

JOURNALEducation

The High Stakes in Student TestingSchool Reform Briefs

• After several years of legalwrangling, a state appeals court hasordered the Asheville City Schoolsto pay local charter schools localmoney collected from supplementaltaxes, court fines, and forfeitures.

Francine Delany New School forChildren in Asheville sued the dis-trict in 1999 after the board refusedto pay the charter schools the addi-tional $1,100-per-pupil allotment itgave to other public schools fromfines.

Under state law, school systemsare required to give charter schoolsthe same per-pupil allocation as anyother school in the district. Charterschools are essentially public schoolsof choice. They operate similarly toother public schools, are required toadmit every student, but are able tomake small innovative choices, suchas what type of curriculum to use.

In a unanimous decision, a three-member panel of the Court of Ap-peals concurred with the lowercourt’s ruling that the school is en-titled to the money. The school sys-tem is planning to appeal the deci-sion to the N.C. Supreme Court.

“It would basically cripple theschool system’s ability to operateand create a windfall for the char-ters,“ Supt. Robert Logan said. “Iwant people to understand some-thing would have to be cut. It’s go-ing to have an impact on our instruc-tional programs.”

As it stands, the district needs topay about $792,000 to Delany andtwo other charter schools operatingin Buncombe County. The moneywould come from the schoolsystem’s fund balance, which standsat $1.2 million.

“We hope that the city will stopspending taxpayer money trying todeny public schools in its district themoney the attorney general, the stateappeals court, and BuncombeCounty Superior Court all say weshould be getting,” said Peter Millis,a teacher at Francine Delany School.

The Court of Appeals ruled that“[t]he Legislature clearly intendedfor charter schools to be treated aspublic schools subject to the uniformbudget format,” Judge WandaBryant wrote in the court’s opinion.As reported by the Citizen-Times.

• According to a study by theGuilford County School System, el-ementary students are showinggains in reading and math, whilemiddle-school students are not.

The report commissioned by thedistrict found that last year, only fourof the district’s 18 middle schoolsproduced a year’s worth of growthin both reading and math.

“Your district overall looks goodcompared to the average districtacross North Carolina,” said WilliamSanders, who conducted the analy-sis. “That’s not to say all your schoolslook good, because they don’t.”

Sanders developed the Tennes-see value-added growth model.

Supt. Terry Grier said he has in-structed middle-school principals toaddress the issue. Possible changescould include making curriculummore rigorous and putting more em-phasis on reading and math. As re-ported by the News & Record ofGreensboro. CJ

By SHERRI JOYNERAssistant Editor

RALEIGH

The term “high stakes” is frequentlyused to describe testing and account-ability. The basic premise of using

test scores for accountability, either to mea-sure averages or value-added growth, hasshown potential. Many analysts believe thatmeasuring growth in scores is the best wayto reward schools and teachers, and arguethat its inclusion in an accountability sys-tem will improve student learning.

William Sanders, formerly with theUniversity of Tennessee, and now withCary-based SAS Institute, created one ofthe first methods to measure growth. Hismethod, the Tennessee Value-Added As-sessment System, has shown that a child’sability to learn is more closely linked to theeffectiveness of the teacher than race, socio-economic status, class size, or spending.

Value-added assessments have dem-onstrated their merit, but some experts saythat they should be approached cautiously,especially when using them to determinehigh-stakes personnel decisions — a direc-tion all states are taking under the No ChildLeft Behind Act. In a recent article, Univer-sity of Massachusetts economist Dale Balloudiscussed problems that must be consid-ered when using testing assessments as amechanism of accountability. They include:1) measured gains are noisy and unstable,and 2) gains in scores may be influenced byfactors other than school or teacher quality.

It isn’t a new discovery that testingmethods are “noisy.” This term is usedbroadly to describe errors caused when at-tempting to measure student success. Seri-ous problems arise when an attempt is madeto take the difference between two test scoresto measure growth. Each test is subject tomeasurement error.

“When we subtract one score from an-other,” Ballou wrote, “a good deal of theportion of the scores that represents trueability will cancel out. The result; the pro-portion of a gain score that represents mea-surement error is magnified vis-à-vis theinitial scores. In statistical parlance, gainscores are much noisier than level scores.”

Value-added assessments can also failto take into account factors that may con-tribute to a student’s rate of progress forlearning. It is unlikely that schools will havea broad range of student background avail-able, beyond what is normally collected,when determining a student’s growth.

“It is much harder to measure achieve-ment gains than is commonly supposed,”Ballou concluded.

This does not mean that testing doesnot have value. Measuring growth remainsthe best indicator of student success andstatisticians are finding ways to make itmore reliable.

One such method is to take a rollingaverage. Combining scores over two or threeyears, and then measuring changes in therolling averages, can generate more confi-dence in the result. Another improvementmight be to add in other measures such asattendance rates, dropout rates, and pro-motion rates. “The richer the measuresused,” wrote Dr. Anita Summers, a profes-sor emeritus of public policy at the Univer-sity of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, “theless weight there is on the psychometricconcerns involving test scores.”

Questions about North Carolina

A central component of NorthCarolina’s ABCs accountability system isthe expectation that children show a year’s

worth of growth each year. But some ques-tion whether North Carolina’s system is upto the task of measuring such a chance. Thesystem does not measure growth at theindividual student level. The best it canoffer is group measurement of students,such as all fourth-graders in a school.

In North Carolina, testing officials havenoticed unstable test scores in the last fewyears. Last year, a student had to answeronly 28 percent of questions correctly on thestate math test to score a passing markbecause the state failed to adequately fieldtest it. This year, the writing test scoresdropped dramatically. Only 47 percent offourth-graders scored at or above gradelevel this year on writing tests, down from69 percent last year.

The writing task force suggested in Janu-ary that the state’s writing test be canceleduntil changes could be made. The groupfound that the current tests did not fairlymeasure writing performance, were gradedarbitrarily, and failed to take into consider-ation spelling or grammar.

In 2001 two independent analysts, Tho-mas Kane and Douglas Staiger, studiedNorth Carolina’s testing system for theNational Bureau of Economic Research.Their study, which has yet to receive asignificant response from DPI officials,found that about half of the variance be-tween schools in value-added in 4th grademath and reading was due to samplingvariation and other one-time factors. Morethan three-fourths of the variance amongsmall schools was due to onetime, nonper-sistent factors. “Such volatility can wreakhavoc when rewards and punishments aredoled out on the basis of changes in testscores,” they wrote. “School personnel areat risk of being punished or rewarded forresults that are beyond their control.”

The issue of transparency

Another serious problem with account-ability in North Carolina is the secrecy ofstate tests. While teaching students thattrue science is an open, public activity andthat every citizen has an opportunity toparticipate, North Carolina’s State Board ofEducation secretly measures studentprogress each year. According to the state’sweb site, “[t]ests are categorized in one ofthe following three categories (a) secure, (b)secure for local use, or (c) released.” Re-leased tests are considered public domain,but few state tests are released.

Not even parents of a failed student canmeet with the teacher or the principal toreview their child’s tests. No principal or

Despite problems with school testing, serious decisions rely on its outcome.

North Carolina tests in secrecy, generates unreliable data on annual growth

teacher has, in theory, ever seen even onetest item on any tests since a 1994 sampletest was declared “secured for local use.”Even this test is “secure” and not open topublic view. The district superintendentmust still approve any and all uses of the 8-year-old document.

Such secrecy weakens the concept of astate agency being “accountable” to thepublic by virtue of a scientific measurementof its performance. Without access to theactual tests, the public can be forever ledblindly to whatever conclusion the agencywishes to draw.

Despite obvious problems with thestate’s testing program, serious decisionsrely on their accuracy. Teachers receive bo-nuses based on the outcome of state testsand students are often required to passthem at certain gateways in order to bepromoted to the next grade.

One solution to the transparency prob-lem might be to rely on someone other thanthe state to devise tests. Most states use oneof the popular nationally administered tests.The tests are given to tens of millions ofstudents nationwide each year and includewell-documented tests such as the Metro-politan Achievement Test, the CaliforniaAchievement Test, and the Iowa Test ofBasic Skills. North Carolina is one of only 16states that devises their own tests.

Still, even most other states that havedevised their own tests make prior years’tests available. Texas, for example, pub-lishes each year’s complete tests on the webafter they are administered.

The right direction

For all its flaws, North Carolina’s as-sessment program is still a step in the rightdirection, in the minds of many analysts.Often-proposed alternatives to testing, suchas subjective surveys or portfolios, are “sim-ply untenable,” Summers said. “Subjectiveevaluation allows the information essentialto the rational allocation of educational re-sources to be derived politically rather thanscientifically.”

Defenders of North Carolina’s account-ability system cite a recent study by ThePrinceton Review that ranked it tops in thenation. While the study failed to take intoconsideration proficiency levels or cutoffs,and appears (like much of the state’s educa-tion establishment) to be unaware of therobust nationwide debate developingaround North Carolina’s testing program,it does signify that no state seems to haveyet found a model that answers all method-ological and statistical questions. CJ

By NATHAN CLARKEditorial Intern

RALEIGH

Environmental education is one of the most popularfads to sweep through America since Wham-0’sHula-Hoop of the 1950s. Millions of impressionable

students from preschool to the 12th grade are instructedthat a continued rise in global population will result inworldwide war and famine, that the continued depletion ofthe ozone layer will result in an epidemic of skin cancer,and that the continued rise in global temperature will causeglaciers to melt and flood coastal cities such as New Yorkand New Orleans.

The environmental miseducation of children is notrestricted to science class. It is integrated into all aspects oftheir curriculum. In art class students are prompted todraw pictures of endangered animals, in math class stu-dents sell candy bars for a fund-raising campaign to helpsave the rain forest, and in English class students writeletters to their congressmen urging the legislators to savethe planet.

Some of you may be asking yourself what is wrongwith teaching students about environmental problems thatface our world? The answer to that question is nothing, butthe information should be based on sound and unbiasedscience. If taught correctly, environmental education canbe captivating and useful. It can serve as a useful tool tobring to life other scientific disciplines such as biology,chemistry, and ecology. Besides integrating other aspectsof their scientific studies, environmental education alsomakes children aware of genuine environmental problemsfacing the world and encourages them to think criticallyand creatively and should be taught in schools — in anideal world.

However, we live in the real world where environmen-tal education is flawed and downright scary when fully

7

ANALYSIS: Scaring kids with nature

Environmental Education, Fad and Foe

July 2002C A R O L I N A

JOURNAL Education

A New ChapterFor Italy’s Schools

Last month I had the unique opportunity tovisit Italy. While traveling the country, Igrabbed an opportunity to investigate its

education system. Big changes are now happeningin Italy — including the decentralization of a na-tional education system. An overhaul of the Italiangovernment recently took place and a conservativemajority is now in office. The political change hasprodded a decentralized education system, givingmore power and control to the regional and locallevels.

It was fascinating listening to Dr. Bove, generaldirectorate of International Relations within the Min-istry of Public Instruction, discuss the transfer of astrong national, centralizededucational system to a de-centralized system. We dis-cussed educational issuessimilar to what we face in theUnited States. As Dr. Bove putit, the Italian education sys-tem is becoming more like theAmerican education system.

One area Italy is rethink-ing is its school-to-work pro-grams. Like most countries,Italy is seeing the demand forhigher expectations in theschoolroom. Currently, thereare more private upper-sec-ondary schools (24 percent), serving ages 15 through19 in Italy, than primary (10 percent), and lower-secondary schools (9 percent). Although school-to-work programs have gained a following, especiallyamong some U.S. educational groups, they are dy-ing out in Italy and also in the United States. Citinga need for more years learning the basics, the Italiansystem has mandated one year and proposed add-ing another year of upper secondary school tostrengthen student’s basic skills.

When it comes to choice, Italian families are stilllimited. Bove explained that Italy followed otherEuropean systems to develop choice in educationalproviders. Nonetheless, this “choice” is very con-fined. The same debate of government control ver-sus parental control we see in America is presentthere. Fear tactics about keeping money only instate-run schools reminded me of the same argu-ments I hear in North Carolina. In Italy, families arefree to choose the kind of school, but not manychoices are available. A private school becomes an“equal school” when it meets an extensive list ofrequirements. There are scholarships or tax breaksfor families if their income falls below a certainthreshold. Charter schools are a new idea and thenation has only one. Home schooling is also anoption, but rarely seen.

Controversy in Italy has hit particularly hard inthe area of teachers. In previous years, teachers werehired by bureaucrats in Rome, not by local authori-ties. Teacher strikes are also commonly plannedoccurrences. The concept of merit pay for actualstudent achievement is not even discussed.

Italy was lucky that the “progressive” whole-language reading approach never won the nation’sappeal, and it shows with only a 2 percent illiteracyrate. Even though the literacy rate is very high,unemployment rates are also high. Parliament istaking steps to strengthen free-market concepts andreform the government.

Bove and I started a dialogue that will continueas the country redefines itself under new conserva-tive leadership. Bove invited me back to visit schools,and I may have another opportunity next year.Whether strong nationally controlled governmentschools or locally controlled government schools,both have the same flawed thinking. A monopolystifles the benefit of free-market concepts. As realchoice options become more of a reality in the U.S.,poorer quality schools will close and better qualitywill survive. When schools compete, students win.Those in America who think a national educationalsystem can “fix” problems are in denial. CJ

examined. The curriculum taught is usually low on factand high on emotion. Teachers usually skip basic scientificprinciples in favor of complex and highly controversialtopics such as population growth and global warming.Lessons are filled with emotionalism and laced with scaretactics. Teachers often show videos of starving children inAfrica to reinforce the dangers of population growth. El-ementary school-age children are left confused and upsetby these images and naturally look to their teachers foradvice and guidance on what is right and wrong. Unfortu-nately, environmental education teachers steer them downthe wrong path using them as political pawns in the envi-ronmental war.

To illustrate this point fully are two letters written toPresident Bush from two elementary schoolchildren inNashville, Tenn. A 9-year-old girl writes, “Mr. President, ifyou ignore this letter we will all die of pollution because ofthe hole in the ozone layer.” A 10-year-old girl writes, “ I amtoo young to die, I might add, so stop burning the Earth!”These letters clearly show these girls are scared and fright-ened about the world in which they live. After fillingchildren with fear, environmental education seeks to moti-vate children to change their lifestyles and plant leftistpolitical seeds of thought into their impressionable minds.

Fads come and go. They end because people grow tiredof them, because there is nothing substantial to keep theirinterest piqued. Think about it. What was so exciting aboutswinging your hips so you could keep a large plastic hoopabove your waist? Absolutely nothing.

Similarly, environmental education will fade — in itscurrent form there is nothing to keep it afloat. Based onshoddy science and scare tactics, its popularity will even-tually end. But at what cost? You cannot think of the 1950swithout thinking of poodle skirts and Hula-Hoops. Willthe same be said of environmental education during theearly 21st century? CJ

Students at Claremont Elementary School in Claremont, N.C., show off grocery bags with an Earth Day message.

Charter School’s Writing Scores SoarBy SHERRI JOYNERAssistant Editor

RALEIGH

S cores on this year’s state writing tests fell dramati-cally statewide, sending state officials into shock.Education officials are continuing to look for rea-

sons for the decline.Durham Public Schools were particularly surprised to

see the drop. Only 50 percent of Durham’s fourth-gradersscored at or above grade level, down from 67 percent lastyear. Only 46 percent of Durham seventh-graders scored ator above grade level. The results came as a surprise becausethe system had implemented a program to help studentsorganize ideas and details into paragraphs and sentences.

Despite steady drops on the writing test across thestate, Forsyth Academies, a charter school in Forsyth County

with a large minority student population, performed well.The school, which is run by National Heritage Academies,had a 90 percent passing rate on the writing test. Over halfthe school population is black.

Russell Harper, principal at Forsyth, said curriculumhad a lot to do with this year’s success. The school usesShurley Grammar to help the children learn good writingskills. But when it came down to it, high expectations madethe difference.

“We expect a lot from our students,” Harper said. “Ourchildren are writing in journals everyday. Even the young-est have writing journals.”

Harper also pointed to the fact that his students learnbasic English. “We simply teach the kids the rules ofgrammar. They learn punctuation, they learn spelling, theylearn capitalization. CJ

LindalynKakadelis

8 July 2002 C A R O L I N A

JOURNALEducation

Quality of Teachers Is Low,Education Secretary Says

School Reform News From Across the Nation

For many years, research has foundteacher quality a key determinantof student success. The implica-

tions of studies by James Coleman andWilliam Sanders reinforces those find-ings.

Last month, U.S.Secretary of EducationRod Paige issued a re-port to Congress not-ing the continued fail-ure of traditional sys-tems of teacher certifi-cation, including col-leges of education, totrain quality teachers.

According to Paige, academic stan-dards for teachers are too low. Teacherlicensure tests are at a high school levelof difficulty. “Not surprisingly, morethan 90 percent of teachers pass thesetests,” the report says.

Other problems with the currentsystem are the barriers and variety ofrequirements placed upon people whoenter teaching through alternate routes.

The report shows that contentknowledge and verbal ability are linkedto student achievement. The report,however, questions the importance ofpedagogy, degrees in education, andthe amount of time spent in practicingteaching. Scientific evidence raises ques-tions about the value of attendingschools of education, the report says.

A recent study by economists DanGoldhaber and Dominic Brewer foundthat while certification mattered, therewas no difference between teachers whoreceived certification the conventionalway and teachers who did not completesuch programs and were teaching onemergency or temporary certificates.

Paige also outlined a new model forteacher preparation and certification thatincludes high standards for verbal abil-ity and content knowledge and stream-lined certification requirements. “At-tendance at schools of education wouldbe optional; if teacher-training programsbased in schools of education provedvaluable to teachers and their employ-ers, then demand for such programswould remain,” the report says.

Most states under the No Child LeftBehind Act will be eligible for almost $3billion in flexible grants to improve thequality of teachers using research-basedstrategies. In return, districts would berequired to demonstrate that teachersin core academic subjects are highlyqualified. The full report can be foundonline at: http://ed.gov/offices/OPE/News/teacherprep/AnnualReport.pdf.

States and teacher preparation

The Education Trust also released areport on teacher preparation in June.“Interpret With Caution: The First StateTitle II Reports on the Quality of TeacherPreparation” identifies many of the samediscouraging data as the federal report.

Most alarming is the fact that 11states don’t require content-knowledgeassessments. The states are: Alabama,California, Delaware, Kansas, Maine,Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, NewYork, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin.Eight states, Arizona, Idaho, Iowa, NorthDakota, Utah, Washington, and Wyo-ming, don’t test at all. “An astounding

23 states do not require subject area con-tent knowledge tests for both secondaryEnglish and Mathematics,” the reportsays. For the more information, go to:http://www.edtrust.org/main/docu-ments/titleII.pdf.

Choice works

A new study of fourpublic school-choiceprograms in Minnesotafound that choice en-couraged improvementfor both the students

and the system. The study, “What ReallyHappened? Minnesota’s Experience withStatewide Public School Choice Pro-grams,” identified that the growth rate ofthese programs outpaced the growth rateof the state’s overall K-12 student popu-lation by a large margin.

Minnesota pioneered public school-choice measures, and now has the long-est experience with these initiatives. Likemany significant education changes, theprograms had their share of skeptics.Now, after more than 10 years, moststakeholders agreed the public schoolchoice options are generally beneficial.The full study can be found at: http://www.hhh.umn.edu/centers/school-change/.

The condition of education

The U.S. Department of Educationhas released a recent version of The Con-dition of Education report. Math perfor-mance for fourth-graders and eighth-graders rose steadily from 1990 to 2000.While the report indicates that educationis becoming increasingly more impor-tant, the overall picture is unnerving.

Startling is the fact that the achieve-ment gap between white and black stu-dents has increased since the late 1980s.

There is also some evidence that thequality of U.S. mathematics instructionmay lag behind that of other countries.Data from the Third International Math-ematics and Science Study show that thecontent of math taught to eighth-gradersin the U. S. was more likely to receive a“low” quality rating than lessons taughtto students in Germany and Japan.

In 1999, while U.S. eighth-gradersexceeded the international average of 38countries in math and science, they wereoutperformed by their peers in 14 othercountries, including those with the most-developed economies. As far as cost, theU.S. spent more on primary and second-ary education than any other advancedindustrialized nation in the world.

Despite high levels of teacher train-ing and certification, the academic skillsof college graduates who prepare to be-come teachers tend to be weaker thanthose of their peers. “Graduates who didnot prepare to teach but became teacherswere also more likely to have scored inthe top quartile (35 percent) than thosewho prepared to teach and became teach-ers (14 percent),” the report says.

Recent data also show that a decreas-ing proportion of parents report satisfac-tion with assigned public schools. In 1999,private schools had the highest percent-ages of children whose parents were verysatisfied with their children’s schools,teachers, standards, and discipline. CJ

Hundreds of N.C. schools might fail

State Board Feels the PressureOf Tougher Federal StandardsBy SHERRI JOYNERAssistant Editor

RALEIGH

The N.C. State Board of Education isplanning a wide range of changesfor next year. Among the most con-

tested issues is how to define “adequateyearly progress” at every school, a measurerequired under federal law, and how toincorporate it into the ABC model.

Beginning with the 2001-02 school year,if a Title I school fails to meet adequateyearly progress, the school will be deemedfailing. This year the state defined schoolsthat fail to meet the levels as follows:

• Schools classified as low-performing• Schools that don’t meet their growth

expectations, and have less than 60 percentof students at or above grade level

• Schools that meet their growth stan-dard, but have less than 50 percent of theirstudents at or above grade level

• Schools that don’t meet their growthstandard and only meet their performancestandard if a confidence interval is applied.

The current definition of adequateyearly progress will stay in place until thestate adopts a stricter federal definition inJanuary.

The present dilemma is the federal defi-nition, unlike the state definition, expectsall groups of students, including blacks,Hispanics, and those from low-income fami-lies, to pass grade-level material. This is aserious problem for most schools in thestate where minorities and low-income stu-dents struggle. Under the No Child LeftBehind Act, all categories of students mustpass end-of-grade tests. If one category ofstudents fail, the entire school fails.

According to projections from DPI, asmany as 73 percent of schools, or 777 Title Ischools, could fail the new federal stan-dards. This number has educators worried.State Supt. Mike Ward called the mattercomplicated at the June board meeting.

“To paint all schools with the samebroad brush is counterintuitive,” Ward said.

Ward also told board members thatthere was “latitude to make this (adequateyearly progress) a more workable model.”On May 7, Ward and five other state super-intendents met with President Bush anddescribed the “debilitating effect” adequateyearly progress goals could have on stateschool systems. State board members con-gratulated Ward in their June meeting for“advising” the president.

Not everyone at the board meeting waslooking for leniency. Associate Supt. Dr.Henry Johnson said the state needed toacknowledge the new expectations to evalu-ate and educate all children. “We need toaccept the reality and quit trying to figureout where we can bend,” Johnson said.

Bill McGrady, section chief for com-pensatory education, said educators look-ing for leniency may find it. The No ChildLeft Behind Act also includes language toprotect schools who make progress underthe term “safe-harboring.” The term trans-lates into safety for schools that make steadygains in growth but fail to have the ex-pected percentage of students at or abovegrade level. For example, if a school fails tohave a certain percentage of students atgrade level in a category, but reduces thenumber of at-risk students by at least 10percent , then the school is deemed passing.

McGrady said once the state adoptedthe federal definition for adequate yearlyprogress, the guidelines will be more de-manding. At the moment, it is estimated

that a school would need 70 to 75 percent ofall students scoring at or above grade levelin 2002-03 to pass the federal standards.

Incorporating AYP with the ABCs

One challenge education officials faceis how to incorporate adequate yearlyprogress with the current accountabilitysystem. Currently, members are describingadequate yearly progress as a componentto close the achievement gap and givingcertified teachers an additional bonus if theschool meets yearly progress goals.

Teachers’ bonuses will increase from$1,500 to $1,800 if the legislature approvesthe plan this month. About $600 would beawarded for meeting each goal, includingexpected growth, high growth, and ad-equate yearly progress. Teacher assistantswould receive $200 for each growth goalmet.

The increased bonuses will affect theamount of money distributed annually toteachers. Lou Fabrizio, director of Account-ability Services with DPI , estimated anadditional $3.9 million, on top of the $75.5million spent, would have been awarded toteachers, had it been in operation last year.The total amount, however, would remainfar below the amount allocated by the statebudget in previous years.

Three other plans were also mentionedas alternatives to combine adequate yearlyprogress goals with the ABCs. Option Onewas the simplest. In effect, the state wouldkeep its measurements of expected and highgrowth but disaggregate them, breakingthem down into student subcategories, tomeet federal regulations. State officials didnot find this a viable option, saying it “wouldadd another layer of complexity to ABCs.”

The state’s current plan, to add ad-equate yearly progress as a growth compo-nent, has several drawbacks. DPI officialssaid staff members could get bonuses evenif adequate yearly progress levels are notmet. A school could also receive recogni-tion, for example as a “school of distinction,without meeting adequate yearly progressgoals. But the plan won the approval ofmost board members because it retains thecurrent ABC program.

Schools on thin ice

Title I schools will have to demonstratesteady improvement for each child if theywant to remain in good standing in futureyears. If a school fails repeatedly, parentswill have the authority to transfer theirchildren to nonfailing schools in their dis-tricts. A school that fails three years in a rowwill also be required to offer tutoring orother services to low-income students.

In August, some parents will be able tomake this choice for the first time. The bill isretroactive, making the 17 schools classi-fied as low-performing in 2000-01 at-riskfor failing two years in a row. On the firstday of the new school year, many of theschools may have to offer public schoolchoice to their students and provide trans-portation.

Five North Carolina schools may alsohave to offer supplemental services to stu-dents if they did not meet growth expecta-tions in the last year. The schools are:Eastway Elementary and Maureen Joy Char-ter in Durham County, Rhyne Elementaryin Gaston County, Thomasboro Elemen-tary in Mecklenburg County, and WoodsonSchool of Challenge in Forsyth County. CJ

9July 2002C A R O L I N A

JOURNAL Education

C A R O L I N A

JOURNALCarolina Journal Weekly Report for Executives is your antidote to wa-tered down media coverage of state politics and policy. North Carolinahas hundreds of newspapers. But from those hundreds of papers, onlya handful of reporters are assigned to Raleigh. And how many of themdo you think write from a free-market frame of mind?

In Carolina Journal Weekly Report, you get unfiltered weekly cover-age of state government from experienced reporters who have actu-ally read the Federalist Papers. Our reporters attend committee meet-ings and interview lawmakers face-to-face, so you get the stories first-hand. To subscribe, email cjwr@johnlocke.org or call (919) 828-3876.

Weekly Reportfor Executives

By ANGIE VINEYARDGuest Contributor

CHARLOTTE

On any given week, the Children’sScholarship Fund of Charlotte re-ceives scores of emails and letters

from parents looking for ways to give theirchildren better educational choices. Manyexplain that their children are not perform-ing well academically, and hope that a schol-arship will open the door to a private schoolhaving smaller classrooms, more structure,or more specialized attention.

Lindalyn Kakadelis reads all of theseinquiries. As the executive director for CSFin Charlotte, she has seen how the chari-table organization has provided educationalscholarships to more than 40,000 childrennationwide and more than 500 children inCharlotte. As a former educator, Kakadelisis familiar with the link between a child’slearning environment and the child’s schoolperformance.

“Getting your child in the right envi-ronment for school can make all the differ-ence in the world,” she said.

Little did she know that for one littlegirl, the difference could be life and death.Twelve years ago, Odessa Gadsden learnedthat her 2-week-old daughter Deandrea hadsickle cell anemia. Her symptoms rangedfrom leg pain, chest pain, pneumonia, backpain and other complications.

Odessa helped her daughter cope withthe disease and gave her the best medicalattention possible. ButOdessa realized that asDeandrea’s stress levelincreased, her symptomsworsened. Whenever asickle cell episode oc-curred, Deandrea wouldbe rushed to a hospital,where she would some-times spend days gettingher symptoms under con-trol. Those episodes oc-curred frequently andbegan to take a toll on Deandrea.

“The doctor was saying to me that if shekept having a crisis every two weeks, everyweek, her life span would be shortened,”Odessa said.

Deandrea usually made A’s and B’swhen her disease was under control and B’sand C’s when it wasn’t. A naturally moti-vated student, she felt incredible pressureand stress to catch up with her other class-mates.

“We tried public school for a while andpublic school wasn’t working for us,”Odessa said.

Odessa said her daughter’s homeworkwas dropped off at the hospital with theimpression that it needed to be completed

quickly. This only increased Deandrea’sstress level, which worsened her symptoms.

Odessa began looking at other schoolswhen she heard about CSF on the radio. Shefilled out the application and sent it in. Shewas thrilled when she learned Deandreawould receive a scholarship and could starther fifth-grade year at a private school.Odessa chose Northside Christian Acad-emy. Once Deandrea started attending, her

symptoms tapered off.This month will markthree years that she hasn’thad a sickle cell episode.

Aware of how CSFhas helped hundreds ofchildren, Kakadelis is stillamazed that forDeandrea, the benefitswere life-changing.

“What we know isthat she was in the hospi-tal a lot, until she moved

to another school,” Kakadelis said. “Un-healthy stress takes a toll on your body. If achild is under a tremendous amount ofstress, that’s not healthy stress. I just neverthought it would be as drastic as being inthe hospital."

For Deandrea, who just completed theseventh grade, school is no longer nerveracking but a place of excitement and learn-ing.

“It’s really, really fun,” the 12-year-oldsaid. “I have the same PE teacher that I hadfrom the fifth grade. She knows a lot aboutme (and) what I can and can’t do. I can do alot of things that I couldn’t do before.”

“She’s a very loving, sweet person,”said Kay Patterson, Deandrea’s seventh-

Aware of how CSF hashelped hundreds ofchildren, Kakadelis isstill amazed that forDeandra, the benefitswere life-changing.

grade math teacher. “Every day she wouldcome up and give me a hug. She just triesher best to get along with people. If I were tohave to correct her, she takes that very well.She doesn’t get offended easily. She doesput other people ahead of herself.”

Patterson was unaware of Deandrea’sdisease until half way through the schoolyear when her mother mentioned it to theteacher. “It wasn’t something Deandreacomplained about,” Patterson said. “Shenever mentioned it to me or used it as an

excuse.”Todd Skinner, Deandrea’s seventh-

grade science teacher, didn’t know of hermedical condition and said she has blos-somed socially this year.

“With her, it was like watching kudzugrow in the middle of July,” he said. “She’san encourager. She is one of those that if youwere having a bad day, she was a realpositive force in that class.”

Deandrea aspires to be both a singerand a doctor one day. “When I go to distantcountries, I can carry a plane of medicineand clothes and food to the children whoneed it,” she said. For Kakadelis, Deandreais one more success story.

“This example shows us how vitallyimportant it is to find the right match for thechild,” she said. “While grades are impor-tant, they’re not the most important. Yourchild’s well-being is the most important.”

Kakadelis laments that many parentshave no choice but to send their children totraditional government schools.

“We need more K-12 scholarships,” shesaid. “We need more companies to thinkabout scholarships for lower grades if par-ents don’t have the option for tax credits orvouchers or something to allow for options.We need to help families.”

CSF has awarded more than 500 schol-arships in Charlotte. But for Kakadelis thatisn’t enough. “There’s still over 1,000 on thewaiting list,” she said.

For more about CSF or to learn how youcan sponsor a family, call (704) 373-2378 orvisit www.csf-charlotte.org CJ

School Innovation Spotlight

Choice Makes a Difference, Sometimes Between Life and Death

Children’s Scholarship Fund beneficiaries Deandrea and Odessa Gadsden

10 July 2002 C A R O L I N A

JOURNAL

Course of the Month

A summer-session course ap-propriately is this month’swinner. It is a perspectives-

satisfier from the University of NorthCarolina at Chapel Hill.

INTS 80: SOCIAL THEORY AND

CULTURAL DIVERSITY

Introduction to basic paradigms ofthinking about cultural difference (race,gender, nationality, religion, etc.) en-couraging students to examine howthose paradigms shape how we act, think,and imagine as members of diverse cul-tures.

This course came to CM’s atten-tion by way of a forwarded email.The text of the original message read:

Are you interested in finding outwho you are, and who are all these peoplethat you have to live with? The work ofthis class will train students in apply-ing social theory to daily life. We willpractice asking questions about place,race, gender, nation, religion, and classin order to understand who we are andwhat is going on.

The course as announced in theemail was named “InternationalStudies 80: Place, Race, Gender, Na-tion, Religion, and Class.”

What brave new learning this is!What a breakthrough in understand-ing of individuals! We are all thesums of our place, race, gender, na-tion, religion, and class parts! It allmakes sense now!

Of course, the ramifications ofthis new understanding of peopleare far-reaching. For an absurd ex-ample, can you imagine if that fa-mous scene in the movie “The Si-lence of the Lambs” was rewrittenaccording to its principles?

Original version:Hannibal Lecter: First prin-

ciples, Clarice. Read MarcusAurelius. Of each particular thingask: What is it in itself? What is itsnature? What does he do, this manyou seek?

Clarice Starling: He killswomen—

Hannibal Lecter: No! That is in-cidental. What is the first and prin-cipal thing he does, what need doeshe serve by killing?

New, enlightened version:Hannibal Lecter: First prin-

ciples, Clarice. Read “Marx, Us, andReading Us.” Of each particularthing ask: Where is its place? Whatis it racial, gender, national, and reli-gious nature? What is his class, thisman you seek?

Clarice Starling: He killswomen—

Hannibal Lecter: No! That is in-cidental. What about his place, race,gender, nationality, religion and classthat causes him to kill women? Andwhat of the women, Clarice? Whatare their places, races, nationalities,religions, and classes?

Clarice Starling: (calling out) Dr.Chilton! These are the run-of-the-mill lunatics! I specifically requestedthe homicidal maniacs, sir! CJ

Higher EducationMore sexuality classes, special housing arrangements

Report Urges Sweeping Changes to Fix‘LGBTQ Climate’ at UNC-Chapel HillBy JON SANDERSAssistant Editor

RALEIGH

UNC-Chapel Hill needs a great dealmore courses in “Sexuality Stud-ies,” special theme housing for gay

students, domestic-partner benefits for gayfaculty and a revision of dependent benefitsto include unadopted children in a domes-tic-partner arrangement, and the creationof a new campus office, complete with di-rectors, staff, and an advisory committee,to consolidate academic and support re-sources for gay students, faculty, and staff.

That’s according to just a few of the rec-ommendations contained within a recentlyreleased report to the provost on “growingacceptance amid lingering and perniciousdiscrimination” at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Entitled “The Report of the Provost’sPlanning Committee on LGBTQ Climate atthe University of North Carolina at ChapelHill,” it calls UNC-CH to uphold its “strongcommitment to the values of equality anddiversity [that] have been reflected tangi-bly in the University’s establishment anddevelopment of the Black Cultural Centerand the Women’s Center” with respect to“lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender andqueer-identified (LGBTQ) individuals.”

The report came about upon the requestof Robert N. Shelton, executive vice chan-cellor and provost. Each section in the re-port lists an individual charge from Sheltonas its genesis. Shelton charged the commit-tee to review and make suggestions forimprovement in the following areas: theuniversity’s field of sexuality studies, thecampus climate for LGBTQ members, ben-efits for LGBTQ staff and faculty, how theuniversity is meeting its service missionwith regard to sexual orientation and gen-der identity, fundraising strategies forLGBTQ interests, and administrative struc-

tures for developing, implementing, andevaluating policies and services for LGBTQmembers.

The report’s recommendations aremany, and Shelton has informed the com-mittee that some “would require legislativeapproval.” He also has explained that “thecurrent budget crises makes taking thesesteps more difficult.” The recommendationsinclude:

• Revising “existing courses to includematerial relevant to Sexuality Studies andto develop new courses in Sexuality Stud-ies,” and having deans “routinely write let-ters of thanks to faculty members offeringcourses in the area [of Sexuality Studies],to be put in their files”

• Establishing a “Program in SexualStudies under the auspices of the Office ofLGBTQ Life & Study”—which itself mustbe established, complete with standing ad-visory committee, director, programmingdirector, position for a “Center for HealthyStudent Behaviors,” LGBTQ developmentcoordinator, and four work-study students

• Increasing library purchase of “Sexu-ality Studies resources”

• “Encourag[ing] departments toevaluate courses in terms of their contentpertaining to issues of race, gender,ethnicity, religion, and sexual orientation ontheir course evaluation forms”

• Ensuring minority student “pre-ori-entation” includes “materials that addressthe specific needs and concerns of LGBTQstudents of color”

• Ensuring that university housing in-cludes “LGBTQ living options,” since hous-ing “does not allow live-in same-sex part-ners” (although “married heterosexualpartners” may live together provided theyhave “documentation of legal married sta-tus”), and since there are no “theme hous-ing” or other “housing options specific to

LGBTQ students and no way for incomingstudents to identify ‘friendly’ roommates”

• Screening all recruiters through Uni-versity Career Services and all internshipsdone through the university “to ensure thattheir policies are inclusive of all sexual ori-entations and gender identities”

• Inclusion of all same-sex “domesticpartners” in the university’s “spousal relo-cation initiatives” and health insurance cov-erage, and also “defin[ing] the children ofemployees and their domestic partners aseligible dependents under benefits pack-ages” (current policies require legal adop-tion by the employee if the employee is notthe child’s biological parent)

• Creating a confidential lending li-brary within the Office of LGBTQ Life &Study, to offer “books, movies, periodicals,and other media”

• Mandating LGBTQ sensitivity train-ing for “all professional and education stu-dents”

• Creating a position within the uni-versity for LGBTQ fund-raising and devel-oping donors for LGBTQ interests, includ-ing helping “LGBTQ seniors [senior citi-zens] to make bequests to LGBTQ-focusedorganizations and initiatives, [known as]‘compassionate estate planning’”

• Appointing more (“an adequate rep-resentation”) LGBTQ faculty to universitycommittees on diversity and equal oppor-tunity; and

• Having the university “provide as-sistance, expertise, and encouragement toother schools in the UNC system” in de-veloping similar programs on those cam-puses.

Shelton said his staff will work to “de-velop a budget for the next fiscal year, bear-ing in mind the very limited funds that maybe available.” The report is available onlineat www.unc.edu/provost. CJ

The Williamson committee was set up in 1996with a budget of more than $200,000, from abequest to UNC-CH by Dr. CharlesWilliamson. Its purpose was to encourage gayand lesbian studies on this campus within tra-ditional departments, most going for coursedevelopment grants of $4,000 given to facultyinterested in teaching such courses. Followingare the awards made by the committee so far:

1996• “The New Queer Cinema”• “Queer Justice: Rhetorics of Law and Dis-obedience in Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Life”• “Out Since Pop: The Queering ofPostmodern Art”• “Language and Power”• $1,600.00 to bring the lesbian filmmaker SuFriedrich to campus in conjunction with “NewQueer Cinema”• Course on the articulation of homosexualityin fiction in America, Britain, and the Com-monwealth countries since 1945• Feminist Theory and Literary Criticism En-glish 90b English 291 (“Studies in Recent Lit-erary and Cultural Theory”1997• “Queer Strategies and Art Practices”• “Human Sexuality and Sexual Identities”• “Southern Gay and Lesbian Writers in theTwentieth Century”• “Lesbians in History”

• “Politics of Sexuality”• A unit on gay men and lesbians in “Media andPopular Culture”• “The Arts of Love” and “Aestheticism” revised“in such a way as to deal substantially with top-ics relating to gay men and lesbians”• “Introduction to Gay and Lesbian Studies”1998• “Queer Strategies and Art Practices”• “Space, Place and Difference”• “Racial Representation and Sexual Difference”• “Black Nationalism”• “Electronics Information Sources”1999• Course deals with the question of how atti-tudes toward homosexuality embedded in thecultures of America, Russia, Japan, and Chinaaffect the way alternative economic systems areengineered and how systems affect homosexualstatus• “Subjectivity and Morality in the Urban Worldof Film Noir”• Gay and lesbian issues as they relate to com-munication on the Internet• “Reparative Work: Psychoanalysis, Creativityand the Queer Body”• “Gay, Lesbian, Bi-sexual, and Transsexual Lit-erature of the Ancient Regime• “Queer Latina/o Literature and Visual Art”• “Sex, Love, Marriage, and Intimacy: The Poli-tics and Privacy of Relationships”• To develop course materials that address

Internet issues related to gays and lesbiansfor “Introduction to Internet Issues and Con-cepts”• “Gay and Lesbian Culture in the HispanicWorld”2000• To develop course materials that addressgay and lesbian issues in “Mating and Mar-riage in American Culture” and “Studies inAmerican Memory”• To develop course materials that addressinternet issues related to gays and lesbiansfor “Seminar in Media Analysis: Critical Ap-proaches to Communication in the DigitalAge”• To reconfigure Anthropology 158 to in-clude discussions of queer archaeology.• “Topics in Gay and Lesbian Poetry and Fic-tion”• “Sexuality and the Law”• “Methods in Queer Analysis”• “Identity Undone: representing queernessin video”• “Latin American and Latino Theater in theMargins”• “Gay Men, Lesbians, and US Visual Cul-ture Since 1970”• To develop course materials that addressinternet issues related to gays and lesbiansin “The Global Impact of New Communica-tion Technologies”

Awards by the Williamson Committee to develop LGBTQ course material at UNC-CH since 1996

Source: “The Report of the Provost’s Planning Committee on LGBTQ Climate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill”

11July 2002C A R O L I N A

JOURNAL Higher Education

By MIKE S. ADAMSGuest Editorial

WILMINGTON

When a new Women’s Resource Center wasestablished at my university, UNC-Wilmington, I was concerned it would

serve as more of a resource for feminist professorsthan for female students. I also suspected the centerwould try to advance a “prochoice” agenda withlittle tolerance for the views of prolife advocates.

Those suspicions were confirmed during a re-cent visit to its web site. I noticed that the centerclaimed a dedication to education and advocacy ona variety of issues facing women of “all backgrounds,beliefs, and orientations.”It also claimed an interestin working with manycommunity-based organi-zations and in maintain-ing “clear lines of commu-nication” between stu-dents and “any organiza-tions involved.” Despiteall that, the site gives con-tact information for thepro-choice Planned Par-enthood, while Life Line,a prolife center, is conspicuously not mentioned.

I contacted the site’s manager with a simple re-quest for the center to add Life Line’s contact infor-mation near that of Planned Parenthood, and I wasdirected to Dr. Kathleen Berkeley. Berkeley hadpushed for the establishment of the Women’s Re-source Center and is in charge of the center until itsfirst official director assumes her duties in July. Af-ter a few days of deliberation and meeting with thedean, Berkeley denied my request, stating “the ad-dition of Life Line Pregnancy Center would dupli-cate information provided by Planned Parenthood.”

Of course, there is no “nonduplication require-ment” for groups posting information on the center’sweb site. For example, the site features two organi-zations offering rape crisis counseling — and no rea-sonable person could object to such duplication.Surely, if someone built a second domestic violenceshelter in town, the center wouldn’t deny a requestto list it for duplication. Not only is this supposednonduplication standard nonexistent and unwork-able, but it is also inapplicable to the case at hand.

The differences between Life Line and PlannedParenthood are far greater than their similarities. Thedecision to keep Life Line’s information away fromstudents is yet another silly episode revealing thedishonesty of the university’s so-called commitmentto diversity. It is no accident that the university li-brary has Planned Parenthood’s response to BernardNathanson’s Silent Scream and a book by Berkeleyreferring to the Silent Scream as “grisly sensational-ism”—but not Silent Scream itself. The universityappears to prefer students reading reviews offeredfrom one perspective than looking at the original —there’s a risk the students might come up with a dif-ferent opinion.

The problem with higher education today is notthat people are unaware that the diversity movementis dishonest. It’s that among those people with rea-sonable objections to the diversity agenda, there aretoo few willing to do something about it. Adminis-trators at public universities simply have no right totake money from taxpayers and use it to advancetheir own political causes while systematically sup-pressing the views of their opponents.

I hope everyone reading this article will dupli-cate my efforts to expand the marketplace of ideasat their local university. If your tax dollars are beingused to support a one-sided view on the issue ofabortion, respectfully ask for information on theother side to be included. If you are denied, take yourcase before the court of public opinion or, if neces-sary, a court of law. After all, the right to free speechis older than the “right to choose.” And censorshipis decidedly “antichoice.” CJ

Adams is a UNC-Wilmington associate professor.

UNCW FeministsAbort Free Speech

Supreme Court Considered Likely to ReviewMichigan’s Lawsuit on Racial PreferencesBy JON SANDERSAssistant Editor

RALEIGH

In a rare en banc hearing, the U.S. Court of Appeals forthe Sixth Circuit ruled, 5-4, in favor of theUniversity of Michigan Law School’s use of racial and

ethnic preferences in admissions decisions.Court observers think it is likely the decision, in Grutter

v. Bollinger, will be taken up for review by the SupremeCourt. A key factor in the decision would likely be a largedivision in the federal courts of appeals on the issue. TheSixth Circuit and the Ninth Circuit (con-cerning racial preferences at the Univer-sity of Washington Law School) havenow both ruled in favor of the “diversity”rational for using racial considerations inadmissions decisions, which the Fifth Cir-cuit, in Hopwood v. Texas, rejected. Further-more, the 11th Circuit was unique in itsruling against the University of Georgia’sracial points system of admissions thatthe use of racial considerations in admis-sions decisions must be “narrowly tai-lored” to Powell’s diversity rationale.

The Court has passed on, or not had a chance to re-view, previous cases involving racial preferences. In 2001it declined for a second time to review Hopwood (it haddeclined on it previously in 1996). Also in 2001, the courtdismissed without comment or dissent an appeal of theNinth Circuit’s decision favoring racial preferences atWashington. The University of Georgia declined to appealthe Ninth Circuit’s decision that same year. In 1998 the courtdeclined to review Farmer v. Nevada, concerning race-pref-erential hiring policies at the University of Nevada. In 1997a coalition of civil-rights groups finagled a last-minute

monetary settlement in the case of Piscataway v. Taxman,concerning race-preferential hiring policies at a New Jer-sey high school, which the court had selected for reviewupon the last day of its 1996-97 session.

That the court would grant a review of the Michigancase was considered likely regardless of the outcome ofthe Sixth Circuit’s en banc hearing. Nevertheless, a likeli-hood is not a certainty, in which case the circuit court’sruling would stand—and some features of how the SixthCircuit handled the ruling raised the red flag of partisanpolitics. All five judges ruling in favor of racial preferences

were Democrat appointees. All three Re-publican appointees dissented, joined byone Clinton appointee.

At present, the Sixth Circuit is onlyhalf its normal size, thanks to the Demo-crat-controlled Senate’s out-and-out re-fusal to confirm any nominees sent tothem from the Republican president,George W. Bush. There are eight vacan-cies on the court (one of the judges rul-ing in the Michigan case having taken“senior status” last December). Bush has

so far sent seven names to the Senate without one confir-mation.

The request for en banc hearing was made last May, asdissenting Judge Danny J. Boggs noted in a “ProceduralAppendix” that he filed “to record as an explanation ofthe manner in which this case came before the particulardecision-making body that now decided it.” There were11 active judges in the circuit then, and a conservativemajority. The request, however, failed for some reason tobe circulated to every judge. In fact, the request was notrevealed nor granted until after two conservative judgesretired, giving the circuit a liberal majority. CJ

White Professors Allege Racial DiscriminationIn Lawsuit Against Salisbury’s Livingstone College

By JON SANDERSAssistant Editor

RALEIGH

F ive white professors have filed a lawsuit againstLivingstone College in Salisbury. The professors al-lege that the private black college discriminated

against them, denying them tenure and promotions be-cause of their skin color.

The five are seeking damages totaling about $1 mil-lion. One of the plaintiffs, Arthur Steinberg, Ph.D., whowas terminated in May 2000, alleges that he regularly en-dured racist remarks from black colleagues and that hiscar was vandalized. The plaintiffs think they have a “smok-ing gun” in a black administrator’s 1994 reorganizationplan for the college, which they called a document to re-place white faculty who have powerful positions and chairsin college departments with black faculty. Handwrittenmarginalia on the document contain such instructions as“English — Bring in black Ph.D.,” “Build up Sciences andMath (Black),” and “Hire black chemist $48,000-$50,000”(a salary that greatly exceeds a white faculty member’ssalary, they say). College officials deny discriminatingagainst the professors.

The suit against Livingstone is not the first instance ofwhite faculty alleging discrimination against a historicallyblack college. There have been several such instances inthe recent past, in North Carolina as well as the nation:

• In February, a federal judge dismissed a suit againstDelaware State University brought by a white professor,Kathleen Carter, who said she had been denied tenure be-cause of her race. Carter said she had been called a “whitebitch” by one colleague, and others told her that throughher chairmanship of the education department, she wasusurping blacks’ rights to govern themselves. (DelawareState has settled two other discrimination lawsuits.)

• A jury deliberated only two and a half hours in Au-gust 2001 before ruling that Barber-Scotia College in Con-cord had fired a white professor because of his race. Thejury awarded David Miller, professor of sociology andcriminal justice, two years of back pay (including a 3 per-cent bonus but subtracting the wages he earned at JohnsonC. Smith University) and punitive damages. The collegehad argued that Miller was fired for changing grades, but

Miller had argued that grade-changing was a commonpractice and that he had not changed the grades himselfbut had gone through proper channels to request a change.

• Two tenured white professors forced to resign fromCheney University in Pennsylvania were awarded $2.2million by a federal jury in 1998. The two said they wereforced out after they opposed the appointment of facultymembers, minorities, that they thought were unqualified.

• In June 1997 the dean of the business school atGeorgia’s Albany State University, Walter Burgess, said ontelevision that he was filing a discrimination complaintagainst the school. The next day he was hospitalized witha concussion after being attacked on campus with a rock.It was the second instance in a month that Burgess hadbeen the target of rock-throwing; the first involved 40 stu-dents who jeered him with vulgarities and racial remarks.

• In January 1997 a federal appeals court upheld adamage award of $180,000 against Saint Augustine’s Col-lege in Raleigh for harassing an honors student who testi-fied on behalf of a white professor in a discrimination law-suit against the college. The college had urged the student,Leslie A. Ross, who had been subpoenaed, not to testifyon behalf of Allan D. Cooper, who received a damageaward of $745,000 against the college in 1993. Ross, whowas also senior-class president, did testify. Going into hersecond semester of her senior year, Ross held a 3.969 grade-point average, but over the next few weeks her GPA sud-denly fell to 2.2, she received five F’s and one B her finalsemester, she was impeached as class president, and shefailed to graduate.

• In May 1996 the University of North Carolina Boardof Governors ordered Elizabeth City State University toreinstate a white professor, Carol S. O’Dell, who had beenfired for accusing a former chancellor of the university,Jimmy R. Jenkins, of racism. O’Dell had called Jenkins’statement in a campus meeting, that “white faculty whodon’t like the way we do things here” should seek otheremployment, “the most blatantly racist remark I can imag-ine from someone who holds a leadership position intoday’s academic world.” Jenkins later apologized for theremark, and O’Dell took a job at Chowan College.

• In 1993, as stated above, a white professor success-fully sued Saint Augustine’s for discrimination. CJ

There were severalfeatures of how theSixth Circuit handledthe Michigan ruling thatraised the red flag ofpartisan politics.

Mike S. Adams

12July 2002

C A R O L I N A

JOURNALHigher Education

Rumored Bush Attack on Title IXFails to Materialize — For NowConservative Paper Stolen at Duke;

Petition to Say ‘Hi’ Signed at UNC-CH

Bats in the Belltower

S everal issues of the December2001 press run of New Sense, theconservative student publication

at Duke University, were stolen, theMarch 2002 issue reported.

Thefts of conservative newspapers,and campus newspapers in general, area problem nationwide. The problem isso widespread that the Student PressLaw Center has a special section on itsweb site, www.splc.org, devoted to it. Ac-cording to the SPLC, newspapers havebeen stolen at campuses in Maryland,Florida, Alabama, Oklahoma, Massa-chusetts, California, Texas, Maine, Ten-nessee, Oregon, New Jersey, NewMexico, Kansas, and Illinois.

In discussing the thefts, MartinGreen, New Sense president and pub-lisher, wrote:

Winston Churchill once said: ”Somepeople’s idea of free speech is that they arefree to say what they like, but if anyone saysanything back, that is an outrage.” Appar-ently, NEW SENSE—in the pursuit of itsmission to provide a balanced argument inpolitics on campus—has been so outrageousthat some within the Duke Community sawfit recently to remove, and to dispose of, anumber of copies of our December issue.

Who, you might ask, would do such athing?

A stupid coward and a cheat, of course.Who else? For only an imbecile would

steal a journal with which he could not ar-gue. Only a dastard would purloin a maga-zine with which he privately disagreed. Onlya fraud would—literally—steal others ‘ideas.(Consider this your caveat, you varlet.)

At least the students at New Senseweren’t threatened or assaulted, as theirpeers at other universities have been thisyear. Conservatives at the University ofCalifornia at Berkeley writing for TheCalifornia Patriot, which had an entirepress run stolen, were harassed and evenreceived death threats for publishing anexposé of a radical Hispanic group oncampus, the Movimiento EstudiantilChicano de Aztlan (MEChA), which in-cluded quoting the group’s literaturethat calls white people “gringos” andcalls for revolutionary liberation of the“bronze continent for bronze people.”

At Tufts University, conservativeswriting for the Primary Source (morethan 4,000 issues stolen) were harassedand charged with sexual harassment forrunning a cartoon. The editor, SamDangremond, was beaten to the groundby three hooded leftist students forpainting an American flag and patrioticmessages on the cannon on the campusquad (painting the cannon is a Tufts tra-dition).

A real friendly petition

According to Carolina Review, a con-servative student publication at UNC-Chapel Hill, a UNC-CH student re-ceived numerous signatures March 26on a “nonexistant petition.” The stu-dent, Robyn Gaylor, was sitting at atable near the Pit consuming a “JambaJuice” with a friend and, on what shecalled a “spur-of-the-moment, what-kind-of-goofy-thing-can-we-do-todaydecision” decided to write “HI” in largeletters in her notebook and flip it overthe table as a sign. Students began ap-proaching Gaylor to ask about hercause, and even offering to sign.

“They’d come and we’d say, ‘Doyou want to sign?’, and we’d give thema pen and they’d look a little bit con-fused, but they’d sign anyway,” Gaylorsaid. “Basically if you had a pen andasked them to sign their names on ablank piece of paper, they did it. We gotabout five or six signatures before theyasked what it was for, and then we saidwe were saying hi.”

Gaylor said she will repeat the ex-periment with an actual petition, onethat will be “something funny. Andwordy. And completely bogus.” Shesaid its purpose would be “to see justhow many people will sign when theyhave no idea what’s going on.”

Water: chemical agent of death

Similar to Gaylor’s idea for a boguspetition, a poll conducted in 1998 atNorth Carolina State University by stu-dents affiliated with Broadside maga-zine, the conservative student publica-tion on campus, found majorities in fa-vor of bans on water and Teflon coat-ing on cookware.

The Broadside poll referred to wateras “dihydrogen monoxide,” a “compo-nent of automobile exhaust,” and saidthat “if exposure in sufficient quantitiestakes place,” dihydrogen monoxidecould cause: “asphyxiation if inhaled,”“metals to oxidize and break down,”“accelerated decomposition of woodproducts,” and “electricity to conductto any surface that also contains elec-trical charge.” It then asked if students“believe that sources of DihydrogenMonoxide should be regulated orbanned?” Fifty-one percent of the re-spondents did.

The poll referred to Teflon as“polytetraflouroethylene” and said it“has been known to emit toxic fumeswhen exposed to extreme heat” and “isalso harmful when ingested or ab-sorbed through the skin” before askingif the respondents supported a ban.Sixty-eight percent did. CJ

By JON SANDERSAssistant Editor

RALEIGH

Just from reading the preamble to TitleIX of the Education Amendments of1972, one would not suspect it was also

a preamble to 30 years’ of controversy, fightsover interpretation, compliance tests, theelimination of scores of athletic teams, anda noxious slew of bureaucratic miasma:

“No person in the U.S. shall, on the basisof sex be excluded from participation in, or de-nied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimi-nation under any educational program or ac-tivity receiving federal aid.”

The legislation seems, as Watson wouldsay to Holmes after having his thoughtsread, absurdly simple. Yet it has been a re-curring feature in sports news, most re-cently in late May as yet another lawsuitover its interpretation reached the courts.Unlike previous lawsuits against Title IXenforcement, however, the main feature ofinterest in this one, filed Jan. 16 by the Na-tional Wrestling Coaches Association alongwith other coaches’ associations and wres-tling groups, was the alarm rung through-out feminist circles that the Bush adminis-tration might weaken the interpretation ofTitle IX.

“On the eve of the 30th anniversary ofTitle IX,” warned The National Women’sLaw Center, “when we should be celebrat-ing how far female athletes have come anddoing the work that remains to level theplaying field, the Bush Administration maybe poised to attack Title IX!”

Title IX is interpreted by the Office ofCivil Rights, the agency within the U.S.Department of Education. In 1979, the Edu-cation Department issued a policy interpre-tation that put forth a three-prong test forcompliance with Title IX. The test provedobscure, prompting legislators to call on theEducation Department to call for a more ex-plicit policy interpretation. The departmentresponded in 1996 with its report, “Clarifi-cation of Intercollegiate Athletics PolicyGuidance.” That report, however, itselflacked clarity.

Norma V. Cantu,then the assistant secre-tary for civil rights, ex-plained in the report that“institutions need tocomply only with anyone part of the three-parttest in order to providenondiscriminatory par-ticipation opportunitiesfor individuals of bothsexes.” The prongs used are these:

1) “substantial proportionality”—con-cerning participation rates and opportuni-ties of men and women at an institution;

2) “history and continuing practice”—an institution’s “good faith expansion” ofathletic opportunities;

3) “fully and effectively accommodat-ing interests and abilities of theunderrepresented sex”—seeing if there are“concrete and viable interests among theunderrepresented sex” that the instituteshould accommodate.

The wrestlers’ lawsuit challenges thatinterpretation and the first prong of the teston the basis that it actually establishes aquota based on gender, expressly prohib-ited by the actual legislation. It blames thatinterpretation on colleges’ cutting of men’sathletic opportunities—leveling the playingfield the way a lawn mower levels a yard.According to The New York Times of May 9,since the passage of Title IX “170 wrestlingprograms, 80 men’s tennis teams, 70 men’sgymnastics teams and 45 men’s track teams

have been eliminated, according to the Gen-eral Accounting Office.”

Nevertheless, the law center’s tocsin-rattler turned out to be premature, as theBush Justice Department actually defendedTitle IX in its motion. The department ar-gued that the plaintiff’s remedy of elimi-nating the three-prong test and replacing itwith new guidelines would not lead to therestoration of men’s collegiate teams or pre-vent future eliminations. The department

further argued that thesix-year statute of limita-tions for challenging theregulations had expired.It argued that the regula-tions were originallypublished in 1979,whereas the plaintiffsclaimed that the 1996“Clarification” repre-sented new regulation.

Despite the surprisefrom the Justice Department, the NationalWomen’s Law Center still warned of an im-pending attack from the Bush administra-tion. “It spoke volumes that in its responseto the lawsuit, the Administration made nodefense whatsoever, even in passing, of theathletics policies that are so important toyoung women in this country,” said MarciaD. Greenberger, NWLC copresident.Greenberber wondered “If this deafeningsilence foreshadows a planned attack onTitle IX athletics policies.”

Under the Clinton administration, thescope of Title IX expanded dramatically. TheEducation Department extended it to in-clude scholarships, salaries for coaches ofmen’s and women’s teams, and sexual ha-rassment (including, said the OCR in a 1997policy interpretation, dirty jokes, and sexualgraffiti).

President Clinton even broadened it toinclude classroom education, attempting toensure gender equity in every academicprogram receiving federal funds (whichnearly all do). CJ

OCR’s Three-Prong Test forTitle IX Compliance ‘Clarified’

“The Clarification confirms that institu-tions need to comply only with any one partof the three-part test in order to provide non-discriminatory participation opportunitiesfor individuals of both sexes. The first partof the test —substantial proportionality —focuses on the participation rates of menand women at an institution and affordsan institution a ‘safe harbor’ for establish-ing that it provides nondiscriminatory par-ticipation opportunities. An institutionthat does not provide substantially propor-tional participation opportunities for menand women may comply with Title IX bysatisfying either part two or part three ofthe test. The second part — history andcontinuing practice — is an examinationof an institution’s good faith expansion ofathletic opportunities through its responseto developing interests of theunderrepresented sex at that institution.The third part — fully and effectively ac-commodating interests and abilities of theunderrepresented sex — centers on the in-quiry of whether there are concrete and vi-able interests among the underrepresentedsex that should be accommodated by an in-stitution.”

— Norma V. Cantu, in “Clarification ofIntercollegiate Athletics Policy Guid-ance,” U.S. Dept. of Education, 1996

Since Title IX, 365men’s sports teamshave been eliminatedfrom college pro-grams, according tothe GAO.

13July 2002C A R O L I N A

JOURNAL Higher Education

By JON SANDERSAssistant Editor

RALEIGH

The University of North Carolina atChapel Hill has weathered heavycriticism of its Summer Reading

Program. The focus of the criticism is UNC-CH’s mandatory requirement that all in-coming new students read Approaching theQu’ran: The Early Revelations as part of stu-dent orientation. Among the concernsraised about the requirement, some morerelevant than others, there has been littlediscussion over the summer reading pro-gram and the idea of freshman orientation.

UNC-CH’s program is, as its website(www.unc.edu/srp) states, intended to givestudents a “common academic experiencewith [their] new peers.” As a previous es-say in this series explained, that commonacademic experience used to be the corecurriculum, which has largely vanishedfrom the academic scene. Freshmen at manyuniversities in the UNC system and nation-wide are given special focus in advising,required to take “First-Year Seminars,” andalso made to attend numerous other col-lege-orientation sessions.

As a freshman arriv-ing on campus and want-ing to get out and explorehis new situation mightwonder, why all the fuss?

One reason is the dif-ficulty of the first year ofcollege on some students.Freshmen drop out athigher rates than upper-classmen, have troubleavailing themselves of thearray of services for them given the bewil-dering assortment of campus services ingeneral, and may even have trouble adjust-ing to life in a campus setting away fromhome. Freshmen are typically not settledwith their chosen major, and changes inmajors are typical.

As Anne Matthews wrote in Bright Col-lege Years: Inside the American Campus Today,“To have any hope of surviving a first cam-pus fall, students need to learn thoroughly,then cling to, a handful of campus environ-ments. The classroom, where public perfor-mance is suddenly serious. The dorm cu-bicle, dull and bare, waiting for posters andpillows bought on a first credit card. Din-ing halls, where walking down the aislealone, balancing a tray, brings high schooluncertainties flooding back. Computer clus-

ters, airless underfluorescent light,packed with strang-ers who all seem toknow far more thanyou do.”

These problemscan be discouragingto the students, butthey also imposecosts on the universi-ties’ time, space, andother resources. Uni-versities have found it practical to direct re-sources to orienting freshmen to their newacademic setting. Freshmen orientation laysout the map of the university’s advisingsystem before the students, and it also in-troduces them to programs and counselorswho might help students who need it tostay afloat. It also allows students to meetand befriend peers who are facing the sameissues and concerns.

Orientation as thought reform

There’s another reason for orientation.It’s that freshmen are entering an entirely

different culture. Thecampus they are enteringhas its own politicalfaçade. It’s not by acci-dent that students in col-lege refer to the worldoutside as “the realworld.”

As Darîo Fernândez-Morera wrote in Ameri-can Academia and the Sur-vival of Marxist Ideas,

American higher education is “a socialistmicrostate.” American universities use ra-cial preferences for admissions (socialistcountries used class preferences), and stu-dents have socialized medical care, live inpublic housing, and are issued meal tick-ets. Orientation must prepare students forlife in a socialist microstate. But how?

“Within days of arrival on campus,‘new students’ (the euphemism of choicefor ‘freshmen’) learn the paramount role ofgender, race, ethnicity, class, and sexual ori-entation in determining their own and oth-ers’ identity,” reported Heather MacDonaldin The Wall Street Journal Sept. 29, 1992(“Welcome, Freshman! Oppressor or Op-pressed?”). MacDonald found two themesdominating freshman orientation pro-grams: “oppression and difference—fore-

A New Web Site Providing a State Perspectiveon 9/11 and the Current International Crisis

From the John Locke Foundation

Recent Articles and Columns Spotlighted on NCAtWar.com Include:

• Military historian Victor Davis Hanson argues that the Western way of war —and Western notions of freedom and civilization — are proving their worth.

• Moderate Muslim clerics preach peace in Durham and Greensboro while aformer Black Panther leader calls First Lady Laura Bush a murderer at Duke.

• North Carolina’s economy, hurt further by wartime deployments, awaits helpfrom Washington, where disagreements about tax cuts block a stimulus bill.

• Dr. Andrew Taylor, NCSU Political Scientist, on the likely impact of the waron North Carolina politics and the U.S. Senate race.

• As U.S. Marines from Camp Lejeune participate in military action nearKandahar, Seymour Johnson airmen prepare for deployment to the Mideast.

• Gov. William Yarborough, former head of Special Warfare Center at Ft. Bragg,distinguishes terrorism from legitimate armed resistance.

• Locke Foundation President John Hood argues that North Carolina short-livedanti-war movement unknowingly exposed its own fallacies.

For the latest news, analysis, and commentary on the war on terrorism,visit what National Review once named its “Cool Web Site of the Day”located at www.NorthCarolinaAtWar.com — or www.NCAtWar.com.

Issues in Higher Education: Freshman Orientation

Orientation Programs Can Help Students Cope — or Drive Them Apartshadowing the leit-motifs of the com-ing four years.”These programsamount to whatMacDonald called“ideological de-lousing” and “po-litical re-educa-tion.”

“A central goalof these programsis to uproot ‘inter-

nalized oppression,’ a crucial concept in thediversity education planning documents ofmost universities,” wrote Alan Charles Korsfor Reason magazine in March 2000(“Thought Reform 101”). Kors, likeFernândez-Morera, noted the socialist gen-esis of the programs. “Like the Leninists’notion of ‘false consciousness,’ from whichit ultimately is derived, it identifies a majorbarrier to progressive change the fact thatvictims of oppression have internalized thevery values and ways of thinking by whichsociety oppresses them.” Kors later ex-plained how “Mao’s China was subjectinguniversity students to ‘thought reform,’known also as ‘re-education,’ that was notcomplete until children had denounced thelives and political morals of their parentsand emerged as ‘progressive’ in a mannersatisfactory to their trainers.”

Wendy McElroy, writing for Fox NewsMay 9, 2001, also compared freshman ori-

entation to “Communist re-educationcamps.” She found several parallels: “Al-ternative ideologies must be suppressed”(orientation diversity training systemati-cally denigrates religion, conservatism, andother “alternative value systems”); “Truthrequires thought control” (training to elimi-nate language that serves to “perpetrateracism”); “Family ties must be weakened”(admitting racism and other “isms” in yourfamily); “The propagandists have noble in-tentions” (orientation seeks “to end racism,sexism, ageism, ableism, and heterosex-ism,” among others); and “The effect is toheighten anger and division among people”(subjecting white students to humiliationand ridicule for their racism, “brutaliz[ing]different classes into appropriate aware-ness” so that “people love each other with-out ‘isms’”).

Regardless of the means, does it work?“From the evidence, most students tune itout, just as most students at most times gen-erally have tuned out abuses of power anddiminutions of liberty,” Kors wrote. “Oneshould not take heart from that. Where stu-dents react, it is generally with an angerthat, ironically and sadly, exacerbates thebalkanization of our universities.”

“Students who have been taught fromday one to identify themselves and theirpeers with one or another oppressed oroppressing group,” MacDonald wrote, “arealready replicating those group divisions intheir intellectual and social lives.” CJ

Issues inHigher

Education

cartoon goes here

Students are taughtthe paramount role ofgender, race, ethnicity,class, and sexual ori-entation in determin-ing identities.

Town and Country Highway Innovations Tested Near Charlotte

14July 2002

C A R O L I N A

JOURNALLocal Government

By MICHAEL LOWREYAssociate Editor

CHARLOTTE

Two highway projects in the Char-lotte area are demonstrating pos-sible means to address some of the

state’s road problems. The widening of In-terstate 77 in Mecklenburg County just northof Charlotte is the first use of the design-build construction philosophy and HOVlanes in the state. The second project, aproposed toll road to speed access into por-tions of neighboring Gaston County, wouldallow the highway to be finished years ear-lier than if it had to wait for state funding.

The problem

North Carolina has no lack of highwayneeds. A 1998 audit noted that the state wasfacing a $2.1 billion shortfall for projects inits then current seven-year plan. Complet-ing all identified projects on the Departmentof Transportation’s books at the time wouldtake 26 years at 1998 funding levels.

The slow nature of the road construc-tion process often makes it difficult to trans-late additional dollars, should they sud-denly become available, into immediateresults.

The Highway Trust Fund is a case inpoint. The fund was created in 1989 to builda series of road projects, including outerbelts around seven cities, specified at thetime by the General Assembly. Despite hav-ing dedicated funding, the fund currently isprojected to have balances in the hundredsof millions of dollars throughout most ofthis decade. Many of the projects coveredby the Trust Fund are at stages, such asdesign, land acquisition, or environmentalpermitting, that take time and don’t requirethat much money.

Design-build

The I-77 widening project is notable asthe first use of design-build philosophy inNorth Carolina, in which roadwork beginseven as the design is being finalized. Bycombining the work, key road projects canbe completed years earlier.

Under a traditional road constructionprocess, several years are spent finalizing aroad’s design before the project is put up forbid. For a new road or major widening,actual construction would typically takeabout an additional two to three years tocomplete. Even after the awarding of a con-tract to physically build aroad, the state or munici-pality remains in chargethroughout the project.Cost over-runs are gener-ally paid for by the gov-ernment, not contractors.

Design-build oper-ates under a differentparadigm. The contract-ing government deter-mines the general scopeof a project. Engineering and constructionfirms then team up, spend their own timeand money to evaluate the project, andpresent proposals as to how best to designand built the project and at what cost.

Different teams can come to differentsolutions in response to a specific challenge.In the I-77 widening, HDR and Rea Con-struction won the contract in part becausethey were able to persuade the state thatreplacing a particular bridge was unneces-sary. By adopting slightly narrower shoul-ders, an existing bridge proved to be ad-equate, saving $3 million and cutting fivemonths off the construction time.

Design-build, HOV lanes, toll roads are coming to Mecklenburg, Gaston counties

Another difference isthat contractors arethe risk takers. If a jobproves tougher thanexpected, they couldtake a loss.

Detailed construction plans are com-pleted only after a project has begun. On theI-77 project, the contractor figured out howto safely get dump trucks on to and off theinterstate after work had began. Overall,construction time on the I-77 projection is31 months, with completion scheduled forDecember 2003.

Under a traditional approach, construc-tion might have begun in 2004 with workfinishing in 2007.

Another major difference with design-build is that the contractors are the risktakers, not the government. If they come inunder budget, they stand to make a larger-than-expected profit. If, however, the jobproves tougher than expected, they couldmake less money or even take a loss.

Design-build, engineers note, is notappropriate for all road projects. In particu-lar, projects that involve complex environ-mental permitting or land purchases areusually best handled through traditionalroad construction methods.

HOV lanes

A complement to building more roadsis to reduce the number of cars on the road,especially during rush hour. Rail transitlines are intended in part to do just this,though they are, even if successful, an ex-pensive option to build and operate.

An obvious way to reduce the numberof cars on the road is to get commuters to carpool. In the real world, few people choose to

share a ride to the office.The cost savings fromreduced gas usage andless wear and tear on ve-hicles typically aren’tgreat enough incentivesfor most people to makeup for the inconvenienceinvolved. If, however,those in car pools or onbuses could be guaran-teed faster, more predict-

able, commutes, more people might be will-ing to share rides.

From this realization comes the con-cept of the high-occupancy vehicle lane,which is a special lane reserved for vehiclescarrying at least a certain number of people.(The number varies by road; two or threepeople per vehicle are common minimumstandards.) The lighter usage of HOV lanestranslates to a faster commute. In Washing-ton D.C., traffic in HOV lanes averages 61mph during commute times, compared to29 mph on normal travel lanes.

The risk with HOV lanes is that theywill not win widespread public acceptance.

In practice, they have a mixed track record.In Houston, 80,000 vehicles a day use HOVlanes. In California, however, an analysisfor the state legislature noted that the lanesare under-used and haven’t changed driv-ers’ habits. Low usage even caused certainHOV lanes in New Jersey to be turned overto regular traffic.

The I-77 expansion in MecklenburgCounty marks the first use of HOV lanes inthe state. The Department of Transporta-tion estimates that 800 vehicles per hourwill use the lanes in 2005 during morningrush hour, compared to 1,800 vehicles perhour on the normal travel lanes. Currently,only 9.3 percent of vehicles on the roadcarry two or more people, a high portion fora road within car pool lanes.

The N.C. DOT is also considering theuse of HOV lanes on I-40 in the ResearchTriangle Park area.

The western portion of Raleigh’s OuterLoop will also have space reserved for fu-ture HOV lanes. While the lanes will not bebuilt when road construction starts in 2008,by widening the footprint of the road, it willbe much easier to add the lanes in the fu-ture. Preliminary studies suggest the re-gion might be able to support HOV lanes by2025.

Gaston County toll road

Not too far from I-77, Gaston Countyofficials and their legislators in Raleigh arefacing a very different challenge: how to geta road built that isn’t even on the state’shighway plans.

Local leaders, concerned about futurecongestion on the roads linking Charlotteand Gastonia, want to build a new limited-access highway to take some of the load.The road would run roughly from Char-lotte/Douglas International Airport, crossthe Gaston River, and run through south-ern Gaston County to U.S. 321. Even pre-suming the state decides to build it, thestate’s limited road budget will likely pushcompletion 15 to 20 years into the future.

The way around this is to make thehighway a toll road. North Carolina cur-rently has no toll roads, although approvalto build one recently came from the GeneralAssembly. In July this year, the legislaturepassed a bill creating a turnpike authority.The House originated the bill and passed itlast year, while the Senate approved it inJuly after considerable negotiation.

A compromise was reached in the Sen-ate, where leader Marc Basnight, opposedin general to toll roads, supported the bill tobuild a single such road as a “pilot project”during the short session. CJ

• The saga continues in theCity of Wilmington. Last month CJ

reported that Assistant City Man-ager Ted Voorhees interrupted acourt-mandated settlement hear-ing.

In response, Voorhees, and thecity, are now the defendants in acriminal contempt lawsuit filed byPaul Johnson and Kent Chatfield.

Voorhees has been hired bythe City of Durham, which has hadmany of the same problemsWilmington has had, such as themismanagement of governmentfunds. Voorhees was a city em-ployee when the Wilmington Fi-nance Housing and DevelopmentCorporation allegedly misusedfunds and engaged in other illegalactivities. The City of Durham atfirst told CJ that it would re-evalu-ate Voorhees’ employability if hebecame the subject of any lawsuit.Voorhees is now a defendant, andthe city of Durham, represented byPublic Relations Director Betty Th-ompson, has not responded toquestions about his future.

After leaving several messagesfor Thompson, CJ received a callfrom Durham City ManagerMarsha Conner. Conner said shehad no comment about the situa-tion other than to say thatWilmington City Attorney TomPollard told the City of Durhamthat Voorhees was in the clear.However, CJ told Conner that Pol-lard is one of many city officialsnamed in several lawsuits.

Durham is having many of thesame legal problems that Wil-mington experienced with its hous-ing authority.

In the meantime, theWilmington Finance Housing andDevelopment Corporation is stillunder FBI investigation, so no in-dictments against past or presentcity employees and elected offi-cials have been handed down.

• Score another win for plain-tiffs Kent Chatfield and PaulJohnson. In a hearing on June 6,Chatfield and Johnson took on fourlawyers and beat them.

Chatfield and Johnson filed alawsuit against the city ofWilmington for barring peoplefrom addressing the council dur-ing public meetings. In a disturb-ing development, the judgewanted to negotiate the lawsuit.Nevertheless, the city capitulatedto Chatfield’s claim that the citycannot bar citizens from address-ing the council in a public forum.

In response to Chatfield’s law-suit, the city changed its policy be-fore the court date. Therefore,when city officials agreed to thesettlement in court, they had al-ready revised their policy.

City Attorney Tom Pollardsaid the agreement was easy tosign because the city had alreadychanged its policy.

However, Chatfield, speakingon “The Rhonda Bellamy Show”on radio station WAAV, believedthat the city never would havechanged its policy if had not fileda lawsuit. Updates on all these ac-tivities may be found atwww.capefeargov.com. CJ

High-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes currently in use in Houston, Texas.

A case study in Pamlico County

Homeowners Associations: Unbridled Power

15July 2002C A R O L I N A

JOURNAL Local Government

Smart Growth FoesFail in Ore. Election

In an election held May 21, 58 percent of Port-land-area voters chose density over expansion ofthe region’s urban-growth boundaries. Oppo-

nents of smart growth used the initiative process toput a measure on the ballot to limit the power ofMetro, Portland’s regional planning authority, to im-pose density on local communities. But voters re-jected the measure.

Metro’s plan for Portland would quadruple traf-fic congestion, increase air pollution, and reduce ur-ban open space. It has already reduced the number offamilies who can afford single-family housing by half,imposed increased taxes, and reduced services inorder to subsidize Metro’s vision of apartments andrail transit. Metro has even said that its goal is to“replicate” Los Angeles’ congestion. Most Portland-area residents place congestion and affordable hous-ing high on their lists of problems. So why did theyvote for an agency and a plan to make those problemsworse? It appears that pro-ponents of the anti-densityballot measure failed to gettheir message across.

Oregon residents havebeen subjected to more thana quarter century of propa-ganda associating “land-useplanning” with “livability.”Most opposition to land-useplanning has come from ru-ral residents upset with thedown-zoning of their land. Seventy percent of Oregonvoters are urbanites who haven’t been sympathetic torural issues. In November 2000, Oregonians in Ac-tion, a lobby group representing rural property own-ers, placed several measures on the ballot but concen-trated all its energy on Measure 7, which wouldrequire governments to compensate property ownerswhose property values were reduced by regulationsince they purchased the property.

Measure 7 passed, apparently because many ur-banites could see the justice in compensating land-owners for lost property values. More than 56 percentof Portland voters opposed the measure, but Portlandsuburbs and most downstate counties supported it. Acourt eventually threw the measure out; it is nowbefore the Oregon Supreme Court. Still, emboldenedby the success of the compensation measure, Orego-nians in Action wrote a measure to take away Metro’spowers to increase densities.

Under Oregon law, Metro must provide enoughland for housing to accommodate an estimated 20years worth of growth. Metro met this requirement byordering the 24 cities and three counties in its jurisdic-tion to impose higher density zoning on existingneighborhoods. If Metro loses this authority, it willhave to accommodate growth by expanding the ur-ban-growth boundary. In response, Metro wrote itsown ballot measure that promised not to increase thedensity of selected single-family neighborhoods for13 years. If both measures passed, the one getting themost votes would prevail. The vote displays an ur-ban-suburban split and suggests voters were not con-fused. Metro’s supporters campaigned on a platformof “land-use planning means livability,” while theyportrayed “local control” as meaning “control byspeculators and developers.”

Metro opponents failed to convey that Metro wasreducing livability by increasing congestion, pollu-tion, and housing prices. Polls show that Portland-area residents both support the urban-growth bound-ary and oppose density.

The only view compatible with these two goals isno growth, and given a clear choice among no growth,smart growth, and free-market growth, it is probablethat a plurality of Portland-area voters would supportno growth. A campaign over smart growth vs. free-market growth, then, is really a battle for the no-growth voters. Such voters will respond positively tolivability issues but not to property rights or localcontrol issues. Other challenges to Metro’s authorityare also possible. CJ

O’Toole analyzes growth policy for the Thoreau Institute.

By ERIK ROOTAssistant Editor

NEW BERN

H omeowners associations are on the rise in theUnited States as well as in North Carolina. How-ever, what was once sold as an avenue for local

control and the protection of property rights has turnedinto another means to deny homeowners full enjoymentof their property.

The News & Observer of Raleigh reported recently ofone couple who is moving out of Cary because the asso-ciation in their neighborhood constantly harasses themabout their dogs, which are considered a “nuisance.”

And it gets worse.An 82-year-old widow in Houston lost her $150,000

home over an $814 bill. A constable showed up to her homein April 2001 with an eviction notice and a moving van.She lost her home because she failed to pay thehomeowners association dues. Some homeowners havecome under fire for flying the American flag on their prop-erty. A judge in Virginia ordered Richard and Eva Oultonto pay their association “damages” for the “visual nui-sance” of flying the American Flag.

Shu Bartholomew dedicates one hour every week ona local Virginia radio station discussing the far-reachingpower of homeowner associations. On her show, “On theCommons,” Bartholomew interviews people who have hadtheir homes taken by associations for frivolous reasons.It’s evident that homeowner associations have become justanother avenue for nosy people to assert their will overtheir neighbors in their community.

Happ gets the shaft

Such is the case for a mild-mannered man named RickHapp, who bought a large piece of land secluded at theend of a dirt road in Pamlico County. What he thoughtwas a 200-acre paradise turned out to be a nightmare. Theordeal has halted construction of his home, which is about$10,000 from completion.

Even if he can find the money to finish his home, how-ever, he still may lose it. Members of the local homeownersassociation have decided they do not like Happ and theyhave overwhelmed him with litigation that he is forced tocombat. If he loses the case, he will be responsible for athousands of dollars in attorney’s fees on behalf of the as-sociation and have to pay unspecified “damages.”

Happ bought his property from Weyerhaeuser in 1994through the Weyerhaeuser Real Estate Company. The prop-erty is not located in an area where people usually thinkhomeowners associations exist. It is nestled at the end of along dirt road and is the last lot in the area. The land abutsthe Neuse River. The property is rural—there are no pavedstreets, no city or county sewer, no landscaped yards, andthe area is heavily forested.

According to Weyerhaeuser Real Estate Company pub-lications, “The purpose of the Creek Pointe HomeownersAssociation is to provide a means by which the actual prop-erty owners participate in the development of the com-munity.” While this sounds good, the association has se-lectively applied the term “participation.” Some membersare allowed to participate, and others are not. Happ, for

Randall O’Toole

example, has been denied the minutes of the association’smeetings and members of the association have discour-aged his participation. The controversy began when Happinstalled a gate, actually a chain across his road, to his prop-erty. It appears that members of the association wantedunlimited access to Happ’s property. According to the law-suit filed by Happ’s hostile neighbors, they maintain “allof the Creek Pointe Homeowner’s are entitled to the useof the road.” In other words, they wanted to be able towalk on Happ’s property at any time, and walk any where.

However, according to the contract Happ signed withthe real estate company, he could “at his option…place alocked gate or other device or method to entirely close theroad into his property to all traffic beginning at the lot line.”Other maps of the property designate the road as “private.”

Unconstitutional authority?

Happ believes that the authority granted to such com-munity planning organizations is unconstitutional. PatrickHetrick, professor of law at Campbell University, wrote inthe Campbell Law Review that the power of the associationsstems from the North Carolina Planned Community Actcodified as “N.C. Gen. Stat. § 47F-1-103(23). That statutorysubsection defines it as meaning ‘real estate with respectto which any person, by virtue of that person’s ownershipof a lot, is expressly obligated by a declaration to pay realproperty taxes, insurance premiums, or other expenses tomaintain, improve, or benefit other lots or other real estatedescribed in the declaration.’”

According to many who have followed the history ofhomeowners associations, the minute regulation of every-thing on one’s property is beyond the scope of the originalintention of such associations. There are numerous ex-amples of non-adjudicated foreclosures on homes.

This fate could await Happ even though the CreekPointe Homeowners Association approved Happ’s gate onApril 29, 1994. Karl D. Blackley, of the Creek Point Archi-tectural Committee, wrote Happ stating such approval.However, apparently the association changed its mind. Theletter approving Happ’s gate appeared on WeyerhaeuserReal Estate letterhead. Blackley is no longer a member ofthe Creek Pointe HOA, nor is he employed at the real es-tate company, but it is clear that he and the associationbelieved Happ had the freedom to install the gate. Calls tocurrent Creek Pointe board member Robert Hollatschek(who also works at Weyerhaeuser) went unreturned.

“Wakeup call’ in North Carolina

Donie Vanitzian, a free-lance writer whose column“Common Interest Living” appears in the Los Angeles Times(she is also the author of a book called Villa Appalling!) saidthat “Happ’s case should be a big wakeup call” for NorthCarolinians. Homeowners associations have immensepower and “the litigation machine [they create] is out ofcontrol, targeting law-abiding citizens who have done noth-ing wrong,” she said. The case is now before the NorthCarolina Supreme Court, which is considering the narrowquestion of whether the Creeke Pointe Homeowners As-sociation has standing to bring the lawsuit. For more in-formation, go to www.propertyrightsnc.com. CJ

Rick Happ is locked in a bitter fight with the Creek Pointe Homeowners Association in Pamlico County.

Growth Foes Seek Federal Help

Local Innovation Bulletin Board Dr. Carl Mumpower, ConservativeAnd Asheville City Councilman

16 July 2002C A R O L I N A

JOURNALLocal Government

Ronald Utt of the Heritage Founda-tion reports that growth con-trol advocates are asking the fed-

eral government to help them imposetheir plans on localities. Counties and mu-nicipalities in North Carolina are debat-ing similar growth issues as those ad-dressed in the following report:

“Despite the insistence of America’sartistic elites and environmental activiststhat people abandon the suburbs in favorof denser living arrangements, mostAmericans continue to exhibit a decidedpreference for single-family, detached,suburban-style housing on lots largeenough to ensure some measure of pri-vacy and easy access to nature’s blessings.Efforts to force people into denselypacked town and cluster housing or mul-tifamily high-rise buildings consistentlyfail to attract public support. For the mostpart, many of those who choose to live indenser multifamily housing andtownhouses do so for reasons of limitedincome and often forgo these arrange-ments once more expansive options be-come affordable.

“Having failed toachieve their objectivesin most communities,environmentalists andurban planners haveturned to the federalgovernment for help toenact legislation that of-fers federal tax dollarsto encourage communi-ties to adopt their ‘smartgrowth’ plans. Typical of this effort is theCommunity Character Act, introduced inthe Senate as S. 975 and in the House ofRepresentatives as H.R. 1433. This legis-lation would provide $25 million of fed-eral tax dollars each year to states, com-munities, and tribal councils to use inimplementing land use planning schemesthat conform more closely to how envi-ronmentalists want American communi-ties to be arranged.

Is open space endangered?

“Among the factors driving environ-mentalists to discourage the traditionalpattern of suburban development is a be-lief that such growth consumes undevel-oped land at a pace that jeopardizes theavailability of open space, natural set-tings, wilderness, and farmland. Federaldata on land use reveal such concerns tobe misplaced; in fact, only 5.2 percent ofthe land in the continental United Statesmeets the government’s definition of ‘de-veloped.’ Nevertheless, so-called smartgrowth and new urbanist advocates areundeterred in their efforts to impose costlyand constraining limits on how individu-als may develop and use their privateproperty.

“Although there is no precise defini-tion for a ‘smart growth’ policy or whatexactly the ‘new urbanist’ strictures wouldentail, such policies generally seek to pre-serve land in its natural or agriculturalstate by encouraging people to live indenser, city-like communities that takeup smaller amounts of land per housingunit. Such communities would achieveother related smart growth goals, such asencouraging residents to rely more onwalking or public transit than on cars formobility. The policies also recommend acloser mix of commercial facilities andresidential units to foster easier access to

By ERIK ROOTAssociate Editor

ASHEVILLECJ: Why did you decide to run for office?

Carl Mumpower: I have not been a particu-larly connected political person. The driv-ing force for me was my appointment to theCivic Center Commission. I served as chairfor four years or so. I had such an unpleas-ant experience with the arrogance, lack ofbalance, and negative leadership that itfrustrated me enough that I thought Ishould consider it. It was just a concept inmy mind until someone approached me. Anumber of folks shared my concern andthey sort of talked me into it over a periodof time.

My decision was not without greattrepidation. I was apprehensive, not sure ifthis was something I reallywanted to do. I was real busyin my practice—I am a psy-chologist —and my plate wasfairly full.

Once I got into it andstarted bumping into some ofthe absurdities, I becamemore passionate about it thanI thought I would. I am reallyglad I ran.

There were 17 candi-dates. The two most conser-vative candidates (myself andJoe Dunn) were among the top three thatwon. It has been a better experience than Ithought it would. Better to the extent that Iencounter a lot more well-intended,thoughtful, community-minded people.

There are basically three groups to me:There are people who have community in-terests, special interests, and selfish inter-ests. Special interests are fine as long as theyare trying to facilitate and educate. Butsome people not only want educate and fa-cilitate, but control, and that is when it be-comes a selfish interest. We have a fair shareof those in Asheville, but we also have manywho value the community.

CJ: Let’s discuss your beginnings.

Mumpower: My father is from westernNorth Carolina—the Asheville area. Mymother is British, and I was born in Britain.I traveled around quite a bit with the fam-ily and finally settled here in Asheville inhigh school.

I joined the service the week I got outof high school in 1970 and volunteered forVietnam right after that. I was there from1971-1972. I was in the Air Force.

CJ: What type of collegiate schooling did youenter?

Mumpower: I am a psychologist. I went allover—Western Carolina, University ofGeorgia. I have two masters degrees and adoctorate. I am now a medical psycholo-gist in private practice.

I got a master’s degree in educationfrom Western and a master’s in clinical so-cial work from University of Georgia. Mydoctorate in clinical psychology came fromthe Union Institute in Cincinnati.

CJ: What are some of the major issues confront-ing Asheville?

Mumpower: One of the things that con-cerns me most is that as Asheville growswe maintain balance between the new andnontraditional and the traditional, histori-cal values and moras of our community.And that’s one of the concerns I have is that

“Efforts to force peopleinto densely packedtown and cluster hous-ing ... consistently failto attract public sup-port.”

we have to have balance.When people start talking about

Asheville being the San Francisco of theeast, that’s not OK, in my mind. Ashevillehas been built on some fairly traditionalconservative values and I do not think it isreasonable to throw those away as we stepforward into the future. We should encour-age a careful blending.

There are plenty of people represent-ing some of the new extremes. I am moreinterested in speaking for, what I call, thatmumbling majority who feel disenfran-chised.

CJ: What is the answer to keeping what you termthe mumbling majority from becoming so dis-enfranchised, they drop out of politics alto-gether?

Mumpower: That is why Ithink it is important thatthose of us speak to thatmumbling majority to honorthem once we get elected andnot get corrupted and surren-der to some of the tempta-tions that exist in elective of-fice—to please people, for ex-ample.

The pressures are defi-nitely there. Some of thepeople with very special in-terests are visible and articu-

late. When you listen to their presentations,it is easy to get seduced.

A bumper sticker I had said “Principlesnot Politics,” and I try to keep remindingmyself of that. I try to keep focused on thatand remember what I am trying to honorhere. Something I have noticed is that I amrewarded from within on that, but not re-warded much from without. I become a tar-get for a fair amount of criticism. I try tostick with it, though, and so far, so good.

Instead of focusing on things I disagreewith other council members—and there area lot of issues I do disagree—I am trying tofind things on the council that unite us andwork on those things. There is not a personon the council that I have not reached outto in trying to establish some initiative withthem to keep us working together in someway. An alternative to look at what is notworking is to look at what does work.Someone said once that unity is important;uniformity is less so. One of the ways tokeep that unity is to keep the lines of com-munication open and emphasize the thingswe have in common. It is easy for a councilto become polarized and divisive.

In terms of things coming at us is thestate budget crisis: Our city manager did agood job trying to hold the line. The Leagueof Municipalities recommended that thelocalities meet with their local delegationin Raleigh.

But we drafted our resolution beforethat and started planning our trip to meetour local delegation. I think we are aheadof the curve in that respect.

I feel very strongly that if the state isspending money, they should be respon-sible in raising their own revenue insteadof passing it on to us.

Based on our efforts, I think the peoplein western North Carolina know that thisis a state problem, not a local problem, andit is only ours because they are passing it tous.

If we just lose our local reimbursements,I think Asheville can avoid a tax increase. Ican’t think of any circumstance where Iwould support a tax increase that helps bailout state government at the expense of lo-cal citizens. CJ

jobs and shopping. In turn, these ar-rangements, combined with more sen-sitivity to aesthetic needs, are supposedto create a greater sense of ‘place’ amongresidents.

“While the adoption of land usestrategies that lead to greater densifica-tion, or more housing units (and resi-dents) per acre of land, would slow thealready glacier-like development of thenation’s unused land, very few Ameri-cans find crowded living arrangementsappealing. With few willing to embracethe environmentalist’s vision of moredensely packed urban communities,smart growth advocates now seek toimpose their vision on uncooperativehouseholds by limiting tenancy choiceswith policies that raise the cost of hous-ing options they oppose. Among thepopular cost-raising, growth-limitingmechanisms to control suburbanizationin this way are charging homebuyershigher building and impact fees and/ortaxes, adding more regulation and re-strictive zoning, and establishing growth

boundaries to denyland for building.

“Critics of thesecostly and coercivegrowth-managementschemes have beenaware of the problemssuch regulations cre-ate for potentialhomebuyers withmodest incomes, es-pecially minorities.

Such concerns have begun to influencethe smart growth debate in recent years.

“In 2001, for example, HeritageFoundation scholars expressed alarmabout the connection between high costsand diminished opportunity in a studytitled ‘Smart Growth, Housing Costs,and Homeownership.’ They concludedthat, ‘By raising home prices, such poli-cies force households of modest meansinto smaller units, or out of the commu-nity altogether.’ Largely, the burden isborne by entry-level homebuyers andother households with low to moderateincomes. And as more of these house-holds are forced into the rental marketas such policies become more common-place, the rate of homeownership willfall. ‘Those who are harmed by escalat-ing prices,’ noted the scholars, ‘are thosewho are not yet owners, and this groupconsists largely of those with householdincomes below the median, especiallyracial minorities.’

“The Administration is correct tooppose the Community Character Act,and Members of Congress who have notyet made up their minds on such legis-lation should carefully review this bill’spotentially adverse effects and the elit-ist land use schemes behind it. Ratherthan promote policies that limit oppor-tunity, the Administration and Congressshould confirm long-standing Ameri-can principles of free choice and marketsolutions, including the right of peopleto live and work how and where theylike. Federal leaders should reject cen-tralized planning by any level of gov-ernment, encourage diversity in neigh-borhood design, and foster decentral-ized decision-making on land use. CJ

Go to http://www.heritage.org/library/backgrounder/bg1556es.html to downloadthe full report.

Dr. Carl Mumpower

From Cherokee to Currituck

Boone Report Finally Gets Public Records From Housing Agency

17July 2002

C A R O L I N A

JOURNAL Local Government

Center for

LocalInnovation

New Ideas for Governing NorthCarolina’s Cities and Counties

200 W. Morgan St., Suite 200Raleigh, North Carolina 27601

Hon. Thomas StithDirector, Center for Local InnovationMember, Durham City Council

Can local governments deliver goodquality services without raising taxes?

North Carolinians looking for the answerto that question need look no further thanthe Center for Local Innovation,headed by Thomas Stith. Its mission is toidentify and promote efficient, effectivesolutions to problems in local governmentusing such tools as competition, newtechnologies, and activity-based costing.

To obtain more information about CLI,and subscribe to Prism, its weekly e-letter, call Erik Root at 919-828-3876.

By ERIK ROOTAssistant Editor

RALEIGH

The Boone Report (May/June 2002)has finally secured the records ofthe Statesville Housing Authority

after requesting for months that the agencyturn over its minutes. Despite the lethargicresponse, the development should be en-couraging news to those who seek publicrecords from government agencies that saythey do not have to comply with N.C. gen-eral statues. Such agencies, The Boone Reportsaid, are public bodies and must complywith the law.

Cafeteria privatization

The High Point Enterprise and the News& Record of Greensboro report that GuilfordCounty schools may privatize their schoolcafeterias. The move would save the schoolsystem more than $2.3 million. Under theplan, private companies would bid on thecontract to take over food services. SchoolSuperintendent Terry Grier said he thinksprivatization will offer more food choicesthat students wish to eat. Students nowrarely find their lunches appealing.

Copy privatization

Rocky Mount has decided to privatizeits copy services, according to the RockyMount Telegram. The estimated savings tothe city will be $52,000. Copy Pro won the

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contract. The business will also sort thecity’s mail and process utility bills.

Onslow County privatization

The Onslow County Board of Commis-sioners is looking into dissolving the Tour-ism Development Committee, reports theDaily News of Jacksonville. The TDC is seek-ing to have the decision overturned. TheTDC argues that the commissioners vio-lated TDC bylaws. According to the by-laws, the commissioners must give the TDC30 days written notice before taking anyaction.

Chairman Delma Collins said “numberone, the commissioners created the (tour-ism) board, and the commissioners can takethe board away.” County Attorney RogerMoore said there was a misunderstandingof what the commissioners did. They didnot amend the TDC’s bylaws, they termi-nated them.

Charlotte takes public for ride

As Charlotte plans an expensive light-rail line that is heavy on cost — $348 millionat the low end — the chief economist ofWachovia, John Silva, has questioned theproject, reports the Business Journal.

Silva thinks the money would be betterspent completing Interstate 485. “Is thissomething that is going to make money orbe a tourist convenience that is heavily sub-sidized? If it is the latter, then you have to go

to the taxpayers and tell [them] what it’sgoing to cost to operate,” Silva said. Silvaalso said that it’s time the Charlotte AreaTransit System shares more details aboutlight-rail costs.

The Charlotte Observer has reported thatthe Charlotte system would cost at least $1billion and possibly more than the highestestimates that have been made public. Cit-ies where public transportation becomes apossibility have dense central business dis-tricts, Silva said. While Charlotte has a cen-tral business district, it does not have thedensity of Manhattan, N.Y., for example.

Pointing out the little amount of think-ing transit proponents have put into theproject, Silva said, “I look at Charlotte andI don’t see it. We’re making a commitmentwithout having numbers.”

Former City Councilman Don Reidagreed. Light rail “makes a nice postcardand looks good on Charlotte Chamber bro-chures. [But] the concept is flawed that youhave a fixed rail system to carry people[downtown] when they want to go some-where else,” Reid said. On the other hand, abus system would take people whereverthey wanted to go. Even though few peoplewould use a bus system, it would be betterthan a fixed system that nobody rides.

What budget crisis?

At the same time that local govern-ments are decrying Gov. Mike Easley’s de-cision to withhold millions of dollars in

revenue reimbursements, cities are engag-ing in new and unnecessary spending pro-grams.

Raleigh is one such city. According toThe News & Observer of Raleigh, the city willundertake a $248,000 program to institute astreet tree project.

Mayor Charles Meeker said trees arecentral to the legacy of Raleigh: “Trees are akey part of Raleigh’s heritage and [they] aregreat assets to our city.” Despite evidencethat the United States enjoys more trees onits surface than at any other time in history,Raleigh joins Cary in an effort to plant moretrees at public expense. Some city officialswant to hire full and part-time employeesto manage the program.

Not sober about ABC

North Carolina is considering privatiz-ing liquor sales, but the reaction has causedmost local governments to oppose such aplan, The Gaston Gazette opines. The reason?State-controlled liquor sales generate a lotof revenue for local governments. Much ofthe revenue goes to law enforcement.

The editors at the Gaston paper wrote,“It is a little more than disappointing to seethe debate framed this way. The point ofprivatization should be determiningwhether a government service or programbelongs in the hands of free enterprise basedon what’s best for the taxpayer. It’s not anissue of which level of bureaucracy gets themost control.” CJ

Book Review

‘Reassessing the Presidency’: Van Buren No. 1?From the Liberty Library

Book Review

‘Doctored Evidence’ Exposes a Sick Government

• Edited by John V. Denson: Reassessing thePresidency, Ludwig von Mises Institute,2001, 791pp.

By GEORGE C. LEEFContributing Editor

RALEIGH

Imagine that there is an equivalent ofthe Academy Awards for politicians.We have just gotten to the big moment.

“And the Oscar for Greatest President goesto…um…Martin Van Buren?”

Almost no one ever thinks of MartinVan Buren at all, much less as the greatestAmerican president, but in this magnificenttreasure trove of historical iconoclasm, youwill find Professor Jeffrey Rogers Hummel’sessay “Martin Van Buren: The AmericanGladstone,” wherein he contends that thepresident who least betrayed the philoso-phy of the Founders was indeed “The RedFox of Kinderhook.”

John Denson’s achievement here is tobring together 23 essays dealing with somepresidents individually, and with the sub-ject of presidential power generally. Theperspective of all the writers is classicallyliberal, and that makes for a complete in-version of the usual historical view of thepresidency. Most historians have a statistbias that makes them prone to regard as“great” presidents who expanded thepower of the federal government. The writ-ers Denson has assembled, to the contrary,analyze presidents by their fidelity to theConstitution. If you want to arm yourselfto engage in intellectual combat with peoplewho adhere to the conventional notions ofpresidential history, this book is an abso-lute must.

There is so much in this hefty volumethat it isn’t possible to do more than men-tion a few personal favorites, although notone of the essays is a disappointment.

Presidents and activism

The book’s first essay, by the well-known team of economists Richard Vedderand Lowell Gallaway, “Rating PresidentialPerformance,” asks whether it might be thecase that presidents are inclined toward“activism” (which is to say, aggrandizementof federal and especially executive power)because that is what is apt to build one’shistorical legacy. They write, “If presiden-

tial scholars on balance have a bias towardactivism, we would hypothesize that therewould be a positive relationship betweenthe growth of the relative size of govern-ment during a presidency and the reputa-tion of that president with the presidentialscholars.”

The authors proceed to compare therankings of presidents given by several ofthose scholars, invariably according “great-ness” to presidents who expanded federalpower enormously, with their own ranking,which gives high marks for holding down(better still, decreasing) the federal budget.Vedder and Gallaway regard as our bestpresidents the likes of Andrew Johnson andWarren Harding, who downsized war-bloated federal behemoths.

H. Arthur Scott Trask takes a fresh lookat Thomas Jefferson. Certainly Jefferson wasnot one of the great aggrandizers, but nei-ther did he adhere strictly to the principlesof the Founding. He was elected with thepromise of a new “revolution” that wouldundo the Federalist excesses. Trask con-cludes, however, that “Jefferson’s failure toinstitutionalize his revolution‚ was due tohis misplaced faith in the good sense of thepeople. He simply could not believe thatthey would ever discard the federal Con-stitution and its restraints on power for theallure of an energetic state that could ac-

complish great things. He was wrong.”

Wilson and Truman

Richard Gamble’s essay “WoodrowWilson’s Revolution Within the Form” pro-vides the reader with a remarkably clear-eyed view of our mawkish president fromPrinceton. He quotes Wilson’s first inaugu-ral address: “There has been a change ofgovernment,” Wilson intoned. Henceforth,the U.S. government would be “put at theservice of humanity.” This disastrous shiftfrom more or less minding our own busi-ness and letting individual Americans de-cide whether they wanted to do anythingto help “humanity” to the busybody statewe now have was Wilson’s doing. Gamble’sanalysis is razor-sharp. “Wilson was agnostic revolutionary at the most elemen-tal level in that he wished to repeal the pastby waging war against the institutions ofthe past…”

Harry Truman’s star has been in theascendancy in recent decades, with somehistorians putting him in the “near-great”category. Ralph Raico devastates that no-tion with his essay, “Harry S. Truman: Ad-vancing the Revolution.” Far from theplain-spoken man of common sense thatmodern admirers paint, Truman was a de-voted statist disciple of Roosevelt who washeld back from many outrageous attacks onAmerican freedom only because Congressbalked at them.

For example, when railroad workerswent on strike in 1946, Truman wanted torespond by drafting them into the army. Hisattorney general told him that the existingDraft Act didn’t give him that power, so abill was hastily drafted and passed theHouse overwhelmingly. Fortunately, theSenate had the sense to reject the bill. An-other shining example of the Truman mindat work is his proposal for a governmenttakeover of the meat-packing industrywhen, owing to the continuation of wartimeprice controls, the nation faced a meat short-age. Raico writes, “ever the cheap dema-gogue, (Truman) pilloried the meat indus-try as responsible for the shortage.” Theidea of nationalizing the meat industry wasdropped only because it was seen as “im-practicable.”

Those are but a few tasty morsels. Buythis fabulous book for the entire feast. CJ

•� Princeton University profes-sor Bernard Lewis has written WhatWent Wrong? Western Impact andMiddle Eastern Response, a portrait ofthe Middle Eastern culture in turmoil.Lewis looks at the eclipse of theMiddle East in the last three centu-ries, saying that for many centuries,the world of Islam was in the fore-front of human achievement. Chris-tian Europe, a remote land beyond itsnorthwestern frontier, was seen as anouter darkness of barbarism fromwhich there was nothing to learn orto fear. And then everything changed,as the previously despised West wonvictory after victory, first in the battle-field and the marketplace, then in al-most every aspect of public and evenprivate life. More on this Oxford Uni-versity Press title at www.oup-usa.org.

• Zoya’s Story: An AfghanWoman’s Struggle for Freedom, is ayoung woman’s account of her clan-destine war of resistance against theTaliban and religious fanaticism atthe risk of her own life. Only 23, Zoyahas witnessed and endured moretragedy and terror than most peopledo in a lifetime. She grew up duringthe wars that ravaged Afghanistanand was robbed of her mother andfather when they were murdered byMuslim fundamentalists, and thenfled Kabul with her grandmother.She joined the Revolutionary Asso-ciation of the Women of Afghanistan,which challenged the edicts of theTaliban, and made dangerous jour-neys back to her homeland to help thewomen oppressed by its evil system.Published by William Morrow &Company, information is atwww.harpercollins.com.

• In Heaven on Earth: The Rise andFall of Socialism, the American Enter-prise Institute’s Joshua Muravchik(himself a former socialist) traces itsdoctrine through sketches of thethinkers and leaders who developedthe theory, led it to power, and pre-sided over its collapse. We see suchdreamers and doers as GracchusBabeuf, Robert Owen, FriedrichEngels, Benito Mussolini, ClementAttlee, Julius Nyerere, and MikhailGorbachev, Deng Xiaoping, and TonyBlair, who became socialism’s inad-vertent undertakers. Muravchik tellsa story filled with character and eventwhile at the same time giving us anepic chronicle of a movement thattried to turn the world upside down— and for a time succeeded. Avail-able at www.encounterbooks.com.

• Why do American students’reading and writing test scores con-tinue to decline? Why does theachievement gap continue to growbetween minority and other stu-dents? Poor teacher training, largeclass size, small budgets, and othersuch answers have been proposed forthese vexing questions. But SandraStotsky, author of Losing Our Lan-guage: How Multiculturalism Under-mines Our Children's Ability to Read,Write and Reason, argues that it is theincorporation of a multiculturalagenda into basal readers, the pri-mary tool for teaching reading in el-ementary schools, that has stuntedchildren’s ability to read. Also pub-lished by Encounter Books. CJ

• Michael Biehl: Doctored Evidence, BridgeWorks Publishing, 2002, 273pp., $23.95

By GEORGE C. LEEFContributing Editor

RALEIGH

D octored Evidence is a very goodfirst novel by Michael Biehl, a law-yer who specializes in health care

law and who in his quarter century in thatfield has seen some ugly medical and legalpractice. Novelists usually write aboutthings they know and Biehl’s book lifts upa rock to allow light to shine on hiddendoings by doctors and lawyers. How thecritters do squirm when exposed!

Unethical practices by professionals—such as ordering treatment that will do thepatient no good, but puts more money inthe pocket of the doctor ordering it—is noth-ing new. That muck has been raked manytimes before. Doctored Evidence, however, isnot an exercise in doctor and lawyer bash-

ing. The book’s subtle point is that it isgovernment interference with the opera-tion of the market for medical services thatmakes all the fraud possible. The villains inprint are avaricious doctors and hospitaladministrators, but the villains between thelines are people who ply their trade in theU.S. Capitol.

The chief financial officer of a strug-gling Chicago-area hospital goes in for sur-gery. At the beginning of the operation, acatheter breaks up in his bloodstream, send-ing plastic fragments coursing throughouthis body. Within hours, he’s dead. An acci-dent? Almost immediately, the hospital’slegal counsel, Karen Hayes, begins an in-vestigation. When the analysis of the plasticfragments comes back, it is clear that thecatheter had been overheated to ensure thatit would fail and kill the patient. Who hadthe motive, the means, and the opportu-nity? The book works well as a whodunit,with several episodes that will have your

pulse quickening as the villains try to pre-vent the investigation from succeeding.

But there are lots of whodunit thrillersthat don’t really have any point. DoctoredEvidence makes a number of excellent pub-lic policy points. The most important ofthem is that patients suffer, both financiallyand medically, because we have moved sofar away from a free market in health careand into a system dominated by govern-ment regulations and payments. Doctors,for example, find it fairly easy to makevastly inflated incomes by billing Medicareand Medicaid for procedures that were un-necessary or never even performed. Biehldoesn’t have any character come right outand say, “Massive billing fraud is so easybecause, as Milton Friedman often says,‘No one spends other people’s money ascarefully as he spends his own,’” but theperceptive reader will get the message.

Doctored Evidence is fun reading, butinstructive, too. CJ

18 July 2002 C A R O L I N A

JOURNALLearning Curve

19July 2002

C A R O L I N A

JOURNAL Learning Curve

Book Review

A Nation of Cowards: Guns and Americans Unfit for Revolution

Book Review

Love & Economics: Learning to Respect the Role of the Family• Jennifer Roback Morse: Love & Economics:Why the Laissez-Faire Family Doesn’t Work,Spence Publishing Company, 2001, 273pages, $27.95.

By RYAN H. SAGERGuest Contributor

WASHINGTON, D.C.

In Love & Economics, Jennifer RobackMorse explores territory where manylibertarians fear to tread: the impor-

tance of the family to civil society. Libertar-ians have spent so much time making thecase for the autonomy of the individual, inher view, that they have become reticent toconsider the importance of strong, and evenrestrictive, family bonds. Autonomy is notjust a libertarian fetish, though, Morse says.Many on the left have also been tempted bythe desire to shirk the responsibilities ofhearth and home. Both, however, fail toappreciate the essential role of the family inshaping individuals and binding society.

To open the book, Morse singles outwhat she calls the new problem that has noname. She dubs it the “laissez-faire family.”In this family, the members take the liber-tarian approach to economics and govern-ment to its logical extreme in their personallives, considering themselves bound to theirspouses and families only insomuch as theyhave consented to be bound. Such an ar-rangement is untenable, in Morse’s view,because human relationships are too com-plex to be conceived of as contracts; andbecause it devalues one of the most basichuman values, namely love.

Economists usually are not comfort-able with amorphous and embarrassing-to-

discuss concepts such as love, but Morse,who taught economics for 15 years at Yaleand George Mason universities, makes acompelling case for the important connec-tion between love and economics.

Economy based on trust

As economists know, trust is arguablythe central factor in establishing a workingeconomy. Trust, however, is not an inher-ent human quality, and is not earnedthrough the marketplace. Instead, Morseargues, it is incubated within the family.

Parents must give their children love, notseeking anything in return, to begin thecycle of trust and reciprocity.

The question of how parents achievethis leads to perhaps the most insightfuldiscussion in the book as Morse applieseconomics to the realm of parenting, draw-ing heavily on her own experience as amother of two children. Building on Hayek’sconcept of tacit knowledge—the innumer-able and unspoken reasons behind people’seconomic actions—Morse goes into greatdetail showing the plethora of ways in whichparents, especially mothers, often unknow-ingly contribute to their children’s develop-ment through seemingly meaningless andrandom actions. From the simplest rockingof a newborn (which stimulates the ner-vous system and helps with sensory inte-gration), to the more complex game of peek-a-boo (which builds the basic concept oftrust and reciprocity), parents continuallyshape their children in ways that can scarcelybe imitated by people or institutions out-side of the family.

Unfortunately, in Morse’s view, it is tojust such people and institutions that manyon the left and the right wish to hand thecare of their children. For those on the leftthe ideal alternative to parental care is state-run, or at least state-supported, day care.Those on the right favor market-based daycare. No alternative, however, can matchthe care of a dedicated parent as far asMorse is concerned. State-run day care,where it has been tried, such as in many ofthe former Soviet bloc countries, operateswith all the warmth and humanity of apuppy mill. And even the most highly paid

au pair cannot help but fall short—unableto form the permanent bonds a child needs.

Marriage like a partnership

Later in the book, Morse turns her at-tention to the common conceit of analogiz-ing marriage to a contract between a hus-band and a wife. In a quite thorough andilluminating section, she demonstrates thatmarriage is closer to the legal definition of apartnership than a contract. Whereas in acontract very specific exchanges are laidout ahead of time, in a partnership resourcesare joined and control of the enterprise isshared, allowing for far more flexibility. Amarriage cannot be a contract, she argues,because of the inherent complexity of hu-man relationships, which need the flexibil-ity of committed partnerships to survive.Bonds between parents and children, andbetween other blood relations, rise evenabove the level of partnerships.

Despite a somewhat garbled discus-sion at the end of the book of whether thedecision to love is reasonable—a sectionthat attempts to answer such intractablequestions as “what is love?” (perhaps bestleft to noneconomists)—Morse makes acompelling case for libertarians and othersto pay more respect to the role of the family.While many commentators have made thecase for strong families, Morse’s economicapproach is a novel and thought-provokingaddition to a long-running debate. CJ

Ryan H. Sager is a freelance writer based inWashington, D.C.

• Jeff Snyder: A Nation of Cowards: Essayson the Ethics of Gun Control, Accurate Press,2001, 170pp., $24.95

By DAVE KOPELGuest Contributor

RALEIGH

While there are many books on em-pirical, sociological, historical,legal, or political aspects of gun

policy, A Nation of Cowards is the first full-length book focused on philosophical ques-tions.

The first, and best essay in the bookbears the same name as the book. Originallypublished in 1993, Snyder’s essay chal-lenges the notion that reliance on govern-ment employees for protection is morallysuperior to protecting oneself. Indeed,Snyder suggested that a failure to protectoneself is immoral.

The rest of the book consists of reprintsfrom Snyder ’s column for AmericanHandgunner magazine, plus some otherwritings. This means that there is consider-able repetition of themes from one chapterto the next. It also means that Snyder rarelygets much more sophisticated than in thefirst chapter. We see the same issues exam-ined from various angles, but the perspec-tives never lead to greater depth.

“Helpless” feminists

Even so, Snyder makes many excellentpoints, persuasively expressed. Looking atthe National Organization of Women’s op-position to female gun ownership, he ob-serves that “feminine helplessness is accept-able as part of feminist dogma” as long as

women rely on the state, rather than an in-dividual male for protection.

Snyder also addresses the argumentthat women should not use guns for de-fense against predators because defensivegun use is not always successful: “such ar-guments rest on the craven suggestion thatyou ought not to fight back unless you arefirst guaranteed perfect, risk-free protec-tion.” He likens eschewing guns becausearmed defense is not always successful tonot wearing seat belts.

Much of the gun control debate inAmerica revolves around social science andarguments for utility. Snyder raises twoobjections to such arguments: First, groups

like Handgun Control shouldn’t force oth-ers to live according to HCI’s theory of util-ity and effective protection. Second, utilityis irrelevant because it doesn’t matter howmany people misuse guns compared tohow many people use them properly; todeny even one person the right to carry agun because everyone else misuses guns isa violation of his natural rights.

Another of Snyder’s targets is “instru-mentalism"—ascribing moral qualities tofirearms, rather than to the intention of theperson with the firearm. This leads to hisbroader point that the gun issue is funda-mentally about character, and that refusingto assume the responsibility of owning agun to defend one’s family is an abdicationof the responsibility necessary be the citi-zen of a republic. This abdication, he argues,is an admission that the individual is notfit to govern himself, but instead must becared for and controlled by government.

Certainly there is often a correlationbetween unwillingness to defend oneselfand support for the nanny state. But in thisargument, Snyder lacks nuance and respectfor the variety of the human condition.

Americans unfit to revolt

In his final chapter, “Revolution,”Snyder considers whether revolution couldbe justified today. He answers in the nega-tive. First, American character today is morelike that of the revolutionary French thanlike that of America’s Founding generation.Americans today are dependent on govern-ment and afraid of responsibility, and there-fore unfit to make a new government.

Second, Snyder points to John Locke’s

observation that a revolution cannot suc-ceed unless much of society agrees thatradical change is necessary, and there is nosuch widespread belief in modern America.Snyder urges that “We must study again”the founding documents, and “considerwhat principles and institutional structuresmight best secure liberty,” including ques-tioning where the Founders—or we—mayhave failed.

Readers who want to study the Found-ing documents and the right to arms shouldpurchase The Origin of the Second Amend-ment: A Documentary History of the Bill ofRights. The book has a new edition in hard-back this year, but the 1995 paperback edi-tion is nearly as good.

Starting with the Constitutional Con-vention in the summer of 1787, and continu-ing through 1792, the book reprints the textof relevant sections (broadly defined) ofevery legislative proceeding, newspaperarticle, correspondence, and every otherdocument related to the Second Amend-ment and the right to arms.

Besides 750 pages of original docu-ments, the book offers an appendix of thefull text of state constitution Bills of Rightsfrom the Founding Era. Another appendixshows which states recognized certainrights or demanded their recognition in thefederal constitution; the right to arms wasnearly ubiquitous, and much more oftenrecognized or demanded than the rights ofassembly or petition.

When the Fifth Circuit recently upheldthe individual right to arms, the court citedYoung’s book scores of times, demonstrat-ing its status as a leading source of originalconstitutional documents. CJ

Jennifer Roback Morse

R edistricting is a good example of how partisanshipand factional division can pull proper politicaldiscourse into a miasma of bickering and recrimi-

nation. It is also illustrative of far deeper divisions withinour polity and culture that do not bode well for the futureand confirm many fears enunciated by America’s Found-ing Fathers.

After Johnston Superior Court Judge Knox Jenkinsthrew out a legislative redistricting plan tilted, not surpris-ingly, in the Democrats’ favor, the liberal intelligensiathrew a fit. Whatever the judicial implications of the Jenkinsruling upholding the challenge to the legislature’s plan infavor of his own design, the political echoes are likely to besevere. We have already seen the stirrings of vengefulangst among Senate leaders in the budget they proposedJune 12.

In that proposal Democratic leaders want to cut thebudgets and staffing for the state Supreme Court and forJenkins’s Superior Court resident judgeship. As The News& Observer of Raleigh reported, even the “director of theAdministrative Office of the Courts called the proposedcuts surprising and shocking.” Other than petty and vin-dictive partisanship, what possible reason could there befor these cuts? Isn’t the judiciary, along with the pursuit ofcrime control and public safety, complementary to thestate’s most vital duty? Perhaps continued funding for theGlobal TransPark is more important.

Herein is the point: It doesn’t matter what party en-gages in petty political moves. Both major parties shareenough guilt to go around. What matters is that the biggergovernment gets and the further its hand reaches into ourlives by seizing our income and exercising egregious power,the more bitter the partisan differences get. When membersof one party have controlled the reins for so long and seesthem slipping loose they get desperate. Democrats seemdesperate right now, and for good reason. But neithershould Republicans be smug about the possible results.Few elections have a truly preordained outcome and, let’sface it, the GOP retains more than its share of power-hungry incompetence. Yet this issue is more serious thanthe health of any political party.

As James Madison wrote in the Federalist Papers, fac-tionalism and partisanship can lead to dire consequencessuch that “the public good is disregarded in the conflicts ofrival parties; and their measures are too often decided, notaccording to the rules of justice, and the rights of the minorparty; but by the superior force of an interested and over-bearing majority.”

This is an abscess that is growing in both our state andnational politics. Just as liberals grasp desperately for ahook upon which to hoist their enemies, with little regardto truth or principle, so do conservatives too often surren-der their own doctrine for the chance to acquire and retainpower at the expense of higher goals. Whether it’s frus-trated Republicans aching to make a Bill Clinton bleed, or

Editorials

FANATIC FACTIONSPartisanship is poisoning democracy

20 July 2002 C A R O L I N A

JOURNALOpinion

There are times whenpartisanship can offera balm to the tempestof debate and otherswhen it rends the po-litical process.

ELECTION ENDGAMELegislature in high-risk gamble

unslaked Democrats groping to wound a popular wartimepresident, the current environment is made so incendiaryby what seems to be an equally divided electorate.

Close balances of power tend to increase the level ofconflict within a fractious political system. As our Found-ing Fathers warned repeatedly, such partisanship is in-flamed further by the expansion and reach of governmentpower as each faction grasps to control the spigot of dispen-sation. A relevant, distressing side-effect is that such dis-agreement, often vicious, even more of-ten petty, disillusions the very citizenspublic leaders should wish to draw intothe process. Their alienation increasesthe power of the activists on the marginwho seek only to concentrate power, eventhrough nefarious means, as they growever more fearful of losing their domain.This is where we are today both nation-ally and in North Carolina. It is a frustrat-ing, albeit unsurprising, development.

In politics, it usually takes a crisis toprovide the impetus to break this sort of conundrum. Itmay be that the War on Terror will have such an impact inthis fall’s elections. It may also be that what people finallydo in the voting booth will depend on much more. Thereare too many elements that mold such decisions to explorehere, but it is also true that current political dynamicssuggest that this cage of partisan divisiveness will berattled very soon. And attacking a popular president inwartime could hurt the “out” party down the ticket. But thefurther down the ticket one goes, the more voters are likelyto switch from conceptual or ideological decisions to amore personal approach. So no matter how much those incontrol might bleat, those out of the loop should be carefulwhat they wish for.

Another indicator may be recent European elections,though held under parliamentary procedures and thus noteasily comparable, where the Left has been consistentlyand fairly decisively losing to the Right. Again, the com-parison is imprecise but not dissimilar to the early 1980swith the rise of Reagan, Thatcher, and Kohl.

But while we hesitate to call it a crisis yet, we have aserious situation in North Carolina exemplified by both thebudget and redistricting fights. There are times when seri-ous partisanship offers a balm to the tempest of politicaldebate. And there are times when it rends the politicalprocess. That time is now.

A s we enter the sultry days of summer, on the cuspof the dog days of August, we witness again theprofusely hot breath of professional politicians in

the North Carolina General Assembly who are no longerour originally conceived citizen legislators. As far back as1801, in debate over the federal Judiciary Act of 1789, mem-bers of the legislature were deeply concerned about an “at-titude of aristocratic superiority.” Today, they have adopted

that same attitude in Raleigh that their predecessors fearedwas being forced upon them from the federal government.With North Carolina’s traditional inhibitions regardingroyalist pretense, this should be surprising. We now havea legislature that seems forever present and takes too longto do very little other than gouge taxpayers for per-diempayments and bad legislation. A dab of recent history, orcurrent debate, makes one wonder why these people evenget a paycheck. Even more, it may make some North Caro-

linians hopeful that the politicians willpay a severe price at the polls this fall.

It is no secret that legislative infight-ing pitting Democrat against Democratand Republican against Democrat has aconstraining effect upon deliberations inthe legislature. With Democrats clearlydivided on redistricting and Republicansunited against the Democrats’ gerryman-dering, it is no surprise that the majorityin each house passed redistricting legis-lation that was thrown out by two duly

elected courts. Now, the Democrats may not like the factthat the N.C. Supreme Court is dominated by Republicansor that Superior Court Judge Knox Jenkins is an indepen-dent. But so long as judges are cleanly elected there is littlereason to make charges of partisanship. That’s the way thesystem is set up.

On the budget, things get perhaps less problematic,but are more easily defined. We face a $1.5 billion budgetgap that constitutionally must be closed. Gov. Mike Easleyis counting on $250 million from a lottery that doesn’t ex-ist to help close that hole. Will legislators pass it on theirown, or will they pass the hat to voters to make the deci-sion in a referendum? Article II, Section 23 of the state con-stitution stipulates that revenue-raising measures must beapproved by legislators.

All arguments against a state lottery aside, it is clearthat the legislature has direct responsibility to either passor reject the measure should it reach the floor. If it gets thatfar, a doubtful proposition, it is not clear it would pass un-less the politicians can use a referendum as an escape hatchfor refusing to do what they are paid to do.

If they had the courage to vote the issue up or downwithout a referendum and passed it into law, they wouldensure that North Carolina state government would be inthe business of selling distilled spirits and running a gam-bling operation. Add a branch for prostitution and you have— the Mob. Individual liberty is one thing. A state-spon-sored monopoly over the sale of vice subverts our free-dom and the integrity of our political system.

Then there is the acquiescence of the legislature in thegovernor’s seizure of funds designated for municipalitiesto cover a budget deficit that is largely the result of state-level mismanagement and malfeasance. As we have notedpreviously, much of this deficit may in fact be laid at thedoorstop of once-Attorney General Easley. So now he hastaken over $209 million from local governments, is takingseveral more hundreds of millions from hurricane reliefand tobacco settlement funds and raising taxes both to helpwith the deficit and pay for university and communitycollege funds that we were told all along would not leadto higher taxes—which they have. Sometimes, indeed,chickens do come home to roost.

Basically, the legislature’s performance since the lastelection has been a kaleidoscope of excuses looking for anescape hatch. Taxes and spending rise continually. As wehave observed repeatedly, North Carolina’s total taxes ex-ceed those of nearly every other state in the Southeast. Wehave surpassed Massachusetts in taxes. The Locke Foun-dation has offered an alternative budget that would pro-vide for deficit elimination and cut taxes by $530 million.

So whether one is talking of redistricting, of the lot-tery, or the budget this has been a dismal year for NorthCarolina taxpayers. And state legislators, led by a haplessand out-of-touch governor, have failed to execute their mostimportant duties. Regarding a decision on the one sourceof revenue the governor most wants, many wish to pass itoff to voters to do something otherwise found objection-able—deciding on a lottery.

This is more than just a shell game. This is a betrayalof the public trust. We are told there will be no new taxes.Then we get them. The upper echelons of our judicial es-tablishment have been attacked and in some great mea-sure censured by the General Assembly’s Democratic lead-ership budget proposal, and redistricting is a partisan messnow stained also by judicial activism. And we remain farfrom having a viable budget.

One is reminded of the exclamation by Bulwer Lyttonin 1859, “Democracy is like the grave—it perpetually cries,‘give, give’ and, like the grave, it never returns what it hasonce taken.” Not a bad description of North Carolina’scurrent political leadership.

There are times when the onset of economic dis-tress requires us to revisit prior plans. This iscertainly the case with respect to the issuance of

previously approved bond issues for higher education inNorth Carolina. As a recent report from the Pope Centerfor Higher Education observed, while the University ofNorth Carolina system has begun design or constructionon only about half of the needed repair and renovationprojects, two-thirds of the new building projects are eitheralready under construction or being designed.

Once again we see misrepresentation vindicated as apolitical tool while politicians are either certain of thepublic’s gullibility or depend upon its short memory. In1999 and 2000 the higher-education bonds were marketedunder terms that allegedly proved the need for billions ofdollars in new borrowing by the state. Predicted enroll-ment increases, cited as one justification, are not keepingpace with projections used to justify the new indebtedness,or the potential for more debt that has already been autho-rized.

So to begin with, voters were deliberately misled bothas to the purpose of the bonds and whether financing themwould mean higher taxes. It follows then that a contract ofsorts has been violated between the governors and thegoverned. The agreement should therefore be revisited.Until this matter is addressed appropriately it only makessense to put a moratorium on the bond issues.

With North Carolina facing a $1.5 billion deficit thenon-issuance of the higher education bonds slated for 2003would save taxpayers $62 million in principal and interestin the current fiscal year, $60.5 million in the next, and asthe Pope Center’s George Leef wrote, “not immediatelyissuing the 2004 bonds would save $63 million in that year.”

As we write, it may be that politicians in Raleigh willhave already crafted their “solution” to the state’s budgetproblems by depending upon $136 million in delinquenttax revenue collections to which Revenue Secretary NorrisTolson refuses to commit. He will affirm only $60 millionin such collections. But more disturbing trends are at work.

As the universities blather on about a lack of funds,we have them already subverting the intended purpose ofthe bonds. North Carolina State University seeks to builda $65 million hotel, golf course, and conference center, fi-nanced by another $80 million in taxable bonds. This is ata time that the university has proposed closing its D.H.Hill Library on Saturdays, laying off 27 library staff mem-bers, including security guards, and terminating 750 jour-nal subscriptions. After a decade of rebuilding the library’sand university’s reputation, they would rather harm thoseefforts and build a conference and high-end hotel estab-lishment? This is unconscionable.

A moratorium on the bond issues authorized by vot-ers in 2000 would not mean job layoffs in itself, and byreducing the budget deficit would reduce the state’s needto make layoffs of current employees. Repairs and renova-tion, the maintenance of library and research facilities seemto us far more important — not to mention that these werepromised priorities back in 1990 — than the revamping ofnoneducational accoutrements such as UNC-Chapel Hill’sMemorial Hall.

In the face of an out-of-control state deficit and obvi-ous dishonesty about and misuse of bond issues alreadyapproved and now being diverted for purposes other thaneducation, it is clear a moratorium on the higher-educa-tion bond issues is in order. To do less would be to short-change our university system and sustain duplicitous poli-tics. In other words, to do less would simply sustain thestatus quo. And that’s for the birds.

21July 2002C A R O L I N A

JOURNAL Opinion

Easley’s $10,400 Lottery Duty

John Hood

SHACKLE BONDS Put higher education bonds on hold

DMV MESS MOVEEasley seeks transfer that may help

So, after decades of gross negligence and corruptionwithin the North Carolina Division of Motor Vehicles we finally witness some attempt to regain

control of what has largely become a dumping ground forpolitical hacks, partisan climbers, and those with a ten-dency toward corruption. Gov. Mike Easley has made alaudable move to deal with one of our state’s most corruptand incompetent agencies.

By proposing to merge the DMV’s Enforcement Divi-sion with the Department of Crime Control and PublicSafety, Easley estimates the state’s taxpayers will save atleast $4 million a year, a welcome albeit small dollop ofsavings in a time of massive deficits. It also makes sensebecause, after all, the DMV Enforcement Division’s respon-sibilities should be under the purview of Crime Controland Public Safety.

But after decades of corruption and malfeasance onecan only wonder why it took so long to make this happen.Much of the reason has to do with public pressure andexposure as has been so admirably demonstrated by theAsheville Citizen-Times. The newspaper’s work in expos-ing, as they have noted, “ticket-fixing, bribe-taking, on-the-job politicking, and selective enforcement of trucking laws”is both admirable and valuable.

What remains objectionable is that Easley has onlyaddressed one-half of the problem. With his emphasis onthe financial aspects of his proposed merger, he has barelymentioned the egregious corruption within the DMV. Asthe Citizen-Times has observed, he continues to fail in ad-dressing the current investigations by a federal grand jury

and other regulatory agencies. While one might make thecase that the chief executive shouldn’t interfere in on-go-ing investigations, this by no means implies he can’t ad-dress the issue. It’s not as though corruption at the DMVor, for that matter, the Department of Transportation hasbeen a big secret. Indeed, it has been widely publicized fordecades. But, as the proverbial saying goes, each time thereis trouble, they simply rearrange the chairs on the Titanicand one political hack after another takes the helm. Otherloyalists are recruited as stewards. And the people lose asthe ship bounces from iceberg to iceberg.

At least for now, and for once, we might see someprogress in cleaning up this mess. But between the licens-ing of illegal aliens, the ticket-fixing, the bribery, the parti-san politics, and lax regulation, there are many holes to filland many miles to go.

So we offer praise to Easley for going half of a mile tosolving this contemptible mess. And we are ever hopefulthat he will finish the job by responding forcefully to cred-ible charges of criminality and corruption in the DMV. Atthe appropriate time, with the appropriate mechanisms inplace, he should clean house top to bottom. CJ

Gov. Mike Easley has talked a lot in the pastcouple of years about the signature programof his administration: a state-run lottery. He

has promised hundreds of millions of dollars in an-nual revenues, dedicated to new education programs(well, except for this year, when his budget uses lot-tery revenues to cover the budget deficit).

There’s one question, however, that Easley has yetto answer: How much will our governor commit tospend playing the lottery himself?

You see, Easley and other lottery proponents claimthat a state-run game would be a painless,even enjoyable way of generating new rev-enue. They assure us that it wouldn’t takeadvantage of the poor, the elderly, or com-pulsive gamblers.

OK, let’s do some math. According tothe governor’s 2002-03 budget, he expectssix months worth of lottery play wouldgenerate $250 million in state revenues. Be-cause the state’s take is about a third of thetotal, the administration is projecting an-nual gross revenues of about $1.5 billion.

I should say right off the bat that this annual salesnumber is suspect. It does not comport with the per-formance of lotteries in most states in our region, nordoes it reflect the recent experience of South Carolina.

On that point, if a new North Carolina lottery du-plicated the sales trend that our neighbor to the southhas experienced so far this year, gross sales wouldcome in at $1.2 billion — and this ignores the fact thatNorth Carolina would not have the level of cross-bor-der sales that South Carolina currently experiences. Ifwe followed the average trend for Southern states withlotteries, the gross sales would be even smaller, com-ing in at around $1 billion, only two-thirds of Easley’srosy projection.

Projecting lottery sales per household

Nevertheless, let’s take Easley’s assertion at facevalue and continue the analysis.

There are approximately 3.1 million householdsin North Carolina. Only some of these will spend anysignificant dollars playing a North Carolina state lot-tery. A good 35 to 40 percent will probably never play,as they are opposed to the lottery in the first place.Others support the lottery because they expect othersto buy lots of tickets, thus reducing the need for taxincreases.

Let’s be generous and say that half of the state’shouseholds will play the game on a regular basis. Thatmeans that, on average, these households will have tospend about $957 a year, or about 2.4 percent of themedian household income of $39,184.

By the way, this estimate implies that some indus-tries in North Carolina will experience lower revenuesas households shift a substantial percentage of theirdisposable income to playing the lottery. Among othereffects, this means some countervailing revenue lossesas players forego the purchase of taxable goods — an

issue that Easley apparently doesn’t address in hisbudget, thus generating yet another multi-million-dollar hole in it.

What should the rich do?

If the lottery is not to be a steeply regressive wayof getting state revenue, then wealthier North Caro-linians will have to play a lot more than poorer NorthCarolinians. According to the Internal Revenue Ser-vice, households with more than $100,000 in adjusted

gross income earn about 28 percent of in-come in the state. In order for them to “con-tribute” a proportional amount to state pro-grams through the proposed lottery, theywould have to buy $425 million worth oflottery tickets — or about $5,200 per house-hold.

Does that seem silly to you? It should.No one could possibly argue with astraight face that North Carolina’s moreaffluent families will shell out $100 a week

buying lottery tickets.High-income families won’t do it out of some

warped sense of state patriotism, or out of ignorance.Most people earning more than $100,000 are doingso because they have invested their time and moneyin getting a good education, because they work hard,because they are productive and creative membersof society. They are unlikely to consider the odds ofwinning lottery jackpots to be significant enough tojustify squandering their money on the game.

Many invest their disposable income in financialmarkets, even in the midst of current gyrations onWall Street, because they know that thrift and patienceare the tickets to financial success, not lucky bolts outof the blue.

In short, they are not the target demographic forstate lotteries, as the available data in other statesclearly show. Lotteries make their money dispropor-tionately from the poor, from the poorly educated,and from problem gamblers who really do run upthousands of dollars in debts in a vain attempt tostrike it rich.

Maybe North Carolina’s lottery will, shall we say,beat the odds. Maybe in our state the movers andshakers will step up and do their fair share by flush-ing $100 a week down a proverbial rat hole.

Gov. Mike Easley can set a good example, bypledging today not just to play the average amountplaying his lottery but by doubling it. Will the gover-nor of our state commit to buying $10,400 of lotterytickets a year — for the children?

You never know. He might even win. CJ

Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation, publisherof Carolina Journal, and the author of Investor Politics:The New Force That Will Transform American Busi-ness, Government, and Politics in the 21st Century,published by Templeton Foundation Press.

22 July 2002C A R O L I N A

JOURNALOpinion

Editorial Briefs

Memorial Day: Where Were the Flags?

Let’s be clear, the goalof the terrorists is todestroy the Americanway of life and to un-dermine democracyaround the world.

By MARC ROTTERMANContributing Editor��

RALEIGH

I had my column almost written and ready to submitfor this edition—but then Memorial Day 2002 ar-rived, and I had to stop and change direction. What

occurred to me was that on Memorial weekend I saw vir-tually no flags.�

That seemed odd, particularly in light of the situationthis nation finds itself in today. We all felt a burst of patrio-tism and sense of outrage after the September 11th attacks.Many Americans who did not own a flag could not buyone at the stores as supplies were depleted.

Now, just nine months after the slaughter of more than3,200 people in the worst terrorism attack ever to take placeon American soil, the flags that wereprominently visible are now few and farbetween.� I ask myself this: “Where arethe flags now?”

Was patriotism just a fad?�Cynically I wonder, “Was it just a

fad?” Are we so self-centered as a nationthat we could have already forgotten?�Since it did not hit us here in Raleigh, arewe so removed from what happened inNew York and Washington that we have become compla-cent?�

In the last 10 days we’ve had numerous warnings aboutthe clear and present danger of terrorism from alerts atour airports, ports, and nuclear facilities.�

The war on terrorism is still ongoing…the danger isstill present…and troubling new problems loom ahead, thepossibility of suicide bombers in this country, the use ofsuitcase nuclear devises…the list of heinous scenariosgrows almost daily.

We still have troops in Afghanistan and it is clear thatthey will not be home in the foreseeable future.

There are new revelations of memos and warningsabout events before the September 11th attacks.�

Clearly, the agencies that guard our national securitybefore Sept. 11 had become too bureaucratic and too cen-tralized. We now know that the INS dropped the ball, andthe jury is still out on what the FBI knew and did about theso-called 20th hijacker.

Time is not on our side, and Monday-morningquarterbacking by pundits and ambitious politicians, inmy view, is not healthy. Also, I do not believe an indepen-dent commission is the answer. We have intelligence over-sight committees that are well on their way to looking intothe inadequacies of our national security apparatus.

However, there are things we can do immediately.� Firstand foremost we should scrap the INS as it is presentlyconstituted and rebuild that agency from the ground up.�We should also tighten our borders and consider a mili-tary presence on both the borders of Canada and Mexico.�It goes without saying that we should be much stricterabout who we let in this country.�The debate needs to starton whether we should restrict any and all access to theUnited States from nations that support or that have tiesto countries that sponsor terrorism.�This is not, in my opin-ion, racial profiling.�This, in the view of many, is commonsense.�After all, 15 of the 19 terrorists were from SaudiArabia. It has been widely reported that many Saudis con-tinue to raise money for organizations that sponsorterrorism.�Let’s be clear, the goal of the terrorists is to de-

stroy the American way of life and toundermine democracy around theworld.�We need to adjust to these newrealities.�

The first role of government is todefend and protect its people.�Civil lib-ertarians will cry foul about domesticintelligence gathering. We must bemindful of the constitution. However,we are at war, and those who wouldharm us are not likely citizens of thisgreat country. We are in unchartered

waters and the times dictate extraordinary measures. Wecan no longer afford to be politically correct.

Definition of a hero

Maybe Specialist Matthew L. Hinck (U.S. Army’s 101stAirborne) said it best: “The next generation deserves togrow up with peace in their lives like we did… Being here(in Kandahar) is the best thing I can do for my country”(Parade Magazine, 5/26/02).

That is why I was dismayed when I saw so few flagsflying Memorial Day.�Flying the flag, in my mind, shows arenewed determination to protect democracy, express anappreciation for our country and all it symbolizes, and re-minds us of the value of every life.�We also have a newdefinition of what it means to be a real hero.

“Where are the flags? Maybe the flags are on our heartsor lapels.�Let’s hope that’s the case.�Maybe that’s wherethey have to be for each of us to have the personal resolvewe will need as we face the threat of terrorism in the yearsto come. CJ

Marc Rotterman is a senior fellow at the John Locke Foundationand treasurer of the American Conservative Union.

Immigration rate highest since 1850s

The United States is accepting immigrants ata faster rate than at any time since the 1850s,according to 2000 census data. Supporters ofstricter limits on immigration say the figuresindicate the challenge of integrating tens of mil-lions of newcomers into American society, chal-lenges that will only grow if current policiesremain in place.

Immigration supporters say that the 1990sprove the success of American immigration poli-cies, and because the country attracts immigrantsat all levels immigration helps the United Statesmaintain its economic, political, and cultural edge.

Nearly 52 percent of immigrants came fromLatin American countries, and they were less-skilled than previous waves of immigrants fromEurope and Asia.

The 31.3 million foreign-born U.S. residentscounted in the 2000 census amounted to 11.3million more than were tallied in 1990. Theycomprise 11.1 percent of the U.S. population—orone in every nine residents.

In addition to the 51.7 percent of immigrantsliving in the United States in 2000 who came fromLatin America, 26.4 percent were Asiatics, 15.8percent came from Europe, 2.8 percent were fromAfrica, and 2.7 percent came from Canada.

The overall percentage of foreign-born whohave become citizens—40.3 percent—is about thesame as previous immigrants.

Released inmates fail to reform

Justice Department statistics show that 67percent of inmates released from state prisons in1994 were rearrested for at least one new, seriouscrime within three years, five percentage pointshigher than among prisoners released in 1983.

The recidivism rate for motor-vehicle theftwas 79 percent, 77 percent for possessing stolenproperty, 75 percent for larceny, 74 percent forburglary, and 70 percent for those using, possess-ing or trafficking in illegal weapons.

Forty-one percent of those rearrested hadbeen imprisoned for homicide, 46 percent forrape, and 51 percent for driving under the influ-ence of drugs or alcohol. But only about onepercent of the released prisoners who served timefor murder were rearrested for murder—and twopercent of rapists were reincarcerated within threeyears for another rape.

Men were more likely than women to berearrested, blacks more likely than whites, andnon-Hispanics more likely than Hispanics to beimprisoned.

Addiction to government grows

A new study by William Beach of the Heri-tage Foundation documents Americans’ grow-ing reliance on government. While the rate ofincrease has slowed in recent years, the level ofdependency is still climbing and may be on theverge of another rapid expansion.

The study measures federal spending from1962 to 2002 in five areas where similar private orcommunity-based services also exist: housing aid,health and welfare support, retirement, post-sec-ondary education and agricultural services.

Dependency has grown by 117 percent since1962 and 38 percent in the last two decades. It hasgrown 9 percent since George W. Bush took of-fice.

The government now spends five times asmuch on retirement programs, eight times asmuch on education and nine times as much onhealth and welfare as it did in 1962, after inflation.Nearly 27 million people depended on the federalgovernment in 1962, while 70.6 million do today— a 162 percent rise, or three times the rate of thepopulation growth.

While the rate of growth has slowed recently,it continues. The study estimates it will grow 50percent over the next 20 years, absent policychanges. CJ

23July 2002

C A R O L I N A

JOURNAL Opinion

Are Our Textile and Apparel Industries Doomed?

UNC-CH Makes Smart Move to Eliminate Early Decision

By MICHAEL L. WALDENContributing Editor

RALEIGH

More than 100,000 jobs in North Carolina’s textileand apparel industries have been cut in just thepast decade. This is a truly sobering statistic.

And it is likely to get worse as the latest projections from theU.S. Department of Labor predict more textile and appareljob losses in the coming decade.

So are the textile and apparel industries doomed inNorth Carolina? Based on a recent study from the NationalBureau of Economic Research, the answer is “maybe not”!

A tale of two different industries

The NBER study looks at the textile and apparel indus-tries from a national perspective, so we can’t be certain thetrends exactly fit North Carolina. But the study certainlyconfirms the job losses. Nationally, 160,000 textile jobs and400,000 apparel jobs have been lost since 1990.

Yet different reasons appear to be behind the job changesin textiles and apparel, in part because the two industriesdo different things. Generally speaking, the textile indus-try takes raw materials and turns them into fabric. Theapparel industry takes the fabric and turns it into finalproducts such as clothing, drapes, and carpet.

A major reason for the decrease in employment in thetextile industry has been significant investment in technol-ogy and the resulting increase in labor productivity. Theaverage capital stock per employee in the textile industryincreased by more than 25 percent in the 1980s and early1990s, and output per worker rose by more than 50 percent.Consequently, fewer workers have been needed to pro-duce the same amount of textile products. These changesare similar to what has occurred in agriculture in the pastfive decades.

Interestingly, U.S. textile exports since 1972 have actu-ally increased faster than textile imports into our country.U.S. textile exports increased by 374 percent compared to a168 percent increase in U.S. textile imports. And textileproduction in North Carolina was greater in 1999 than 20years earlier.

Apparel industry moved abroad

The story is different for the apparel industry. The cutand sew tasks have not been as amenable to technologicalinnovation. In fact, the capital stock per employee in ap-parel actually fell in a recent 20-year period. As a result, joblosses in apparel have been more due to employment

moving to low labor-cost countries. This is reflected in theincreased gap between apparel imports and exports. From1972 to 1997, the gap between U.S. apparel imports andexports grew by 830 percent.

But the news isn’t all bad from the NBER study. Thestudy revealed an interesting and important fact. Whilemany factories have been closed and jobs cut, new factorieshave opened and new jobs have been created at the sametime. During the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s, almost one-fourth of the textile plants and about one-half of the apparelplants in existence were plants that had opened within thepast five years. Two textile and apparel jobs were createdfor every three jobs lost.

The net result is still significant job losses in textiles andapparel. But the fact that new plants have opened and newjobs have been created suggests the textile and apparelindustries are changing rather than dying. Further analysisin the study shows smaller, less-efficient plants are beingclosed and larger, more-efficient plants are being opened.

The future

So the future of the domestic textile and apparel indus-tries may not be as bleak as thought by many. The evidencesuggests the industries are changing in the wake of newcompetitors and new markets.

The future is for leaner, more-productive industriesthat employ fewer workers and focus on higher-valuedproducts.

The textiles and apparel industries will continue to bean employer in North Carolina, but more so of skilled,technical workers operating in an increasingly high-techenvironment. CJ

Michael L. Walden is a William Neal Reynolds distinguishedprofessor in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Eco-nomics at North Carolina State University and an adjunctscholar with the Locke Foundation.

By MICHAEL LOWREYAssociate Editor

CHARLOTTE

S chools are out for the summer, and thousands ofrising high school seniors are trying to figure outwhich colleges are right for them. Along with where

to apply, increasingly they face questions of when and howto apply. The growing popularity of “early decision” haschanged the entire college selection process, though not ina manner that is necessarily good for allthose seeking to get into top-notchschools. UNC-Chapel Hill has just de-cided to end its early-decision option, abold move that carries some cost. None-theless, the university should be praisedfor its decision.

Early decision is a form of consider-ation traditionally available at most top-tier universities and colleges. In recentyears, early-decision programs have alsoappeared at many average schools. Earlydecision is intended to allow top students who are certainof where they want to go to college to apply early and getto the heart of the matter—whether they get in. Potentialstudents apply to an earlier deadline, typically in earlyNovember, and agree to both apply to only that one schooland attend if accepted. (Nonbinding early-considerationoptions are called “early action.”) The colleges, in return,agree to make a much faster decision on applications. Forany high school senior and their parents, early decisionoffers one obvious advantage—they will know early on

whether the student got into the one school of their choice.For applicants who have a good understanding of the

admissions process and money, early decision also allowsa means to game the system, to use a college’s admissionsgoals for their own advantage.

Top schools accept a low percentage of applicants buthave a high percentage of those they accept. The latter iscalled the “yield rate.” Both the acceptance rate and theyield rate are closely watched by colleges and are among

the criteria used by U.S. News to rateschools. Of course, both are things thatcolleges have some influence over. Send-ing more admissions counselors out, forexample, can generate extra applications,and, in turn, a lower acceptance if aschool doesn’t change the size of itsincoming class. The yield rate is heavilydependent on the number of studentswho are accepted through early deci-sion. In theory, all those acceptedthrough early decision should enroll. By

comparison, the yield, even at top schools, for those ac-cepted through the regular application process may beonly about 30 percent.

An astute applicant who isn’t likely to get financial aiduses the system to his advantage by applying through earlyadmission even if he is only an average candidate for theschool he wants to attend. Colleges are looking to admitthrough early admissions; it makes them look good. Atmany top schools, 40 percent or more of an incoming classis selected through early decision. A recent Harvard study,

however, notes that on average those accepted throughearly decision had lower SAT scores and moderately weakeracademic background than students admitted through theregular application process.

While early decision can be a useful process for certaincollege applicants, it is not an option for all college-boundhigh school seniors. The problem, obviously, is the require-ment that those using early decision apply to only oneschool.

Those who are not sure which school is right for themby November of their senior year in high school—or thosewho are interested in seeing which college might offer ascholarship or the best financial aid package—can’t makeeffective use of early decision. As a result, early decision inpractice often favors the offspring of the well-to-do withknowledge of the admissions process over those of morehumble backgrounds or with less familiarity with thesystem.

There are other serious criticisms of early decision. Itcan make the senior year in high school virtually irrelevant.There are also cases of students applying through earlydecision and then realizing they aren’t sure that they actu-ally wish to attend the school they had committed to.

Despite the criticism of early decision, it still takes lead-ership to address the issue. This is especially true whenone’s self-interest, in the form of U.S. News ranking, mightbe adversely effected by one’s action. For this, UNC-ChapelHill should be praised.

The move to eliminate early decision has already fur-ther enlivened debate and, hopefully, will help move us toa better college admissions process. CJ

A worker churns out fabric on a machine at a textile plant in Alabama.

While early decisioncan be a useful pro-cess for certain col-lege applicants, it’s notan option for all col-lege-bound seniors.

Parting Shot C A R O L I N A

JOURNAL24July 2002

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By ESTE’ WILLIAMSCapital Fashion Correspondent

RALEIGH

F resh off his successful promotion of adorning Capi-tol statues in Carolina Hurricanes game jerseys, Gov.Mike Easley has his eyes set on another sports cam-

paign. Easley’s newly formed sports promotion commis-sion, Broaden Interest and Knowledge of Intramural Na-tional Invitations (BIKINI), spokesman Kermit Forg an-nounced a new campaign to highlight the recent successesof the Weismueller Middle School swim team. The school’sintrepid swimmers finished in second place during the re-cent National Jamboree swimming event held in Raleigh.

“This astonishing grand achievement called for a spe-cial celebration to highlight the successes of our swimmingteam,” Forg said. Several statues at the Capitol weredressed in swim gear to commemorate the event, follow-ing the dressing of the statues of George Washington, An-drew Jackson and others in hockey jerseys during theStanley Cup series.

“By decorating these statues with Weismueller MiddleSchool swimsuits, we show that their accomplishmentsequal that of those we honor with memorials,” Forg said.

Teachers Helping Organize National Get-togethers(THONG), who helped organize the event, agreed. “Wehope for many more THONG-BIKINI-sponsored events inthe future. To draw more attention and support to THONG-BIKINI activity is the sole purpose for our organization,”Holly Haltertop, spokeswoman for THONG and a teacherat Weismueller Middle School, said.

“Advertising successes such as those of the swimmingcompetition will help with the industrial development ofNorth Carolina,” said Bobby Bubblehead of the IndustrialDevelopment Commission. “We are authorizing a $400,000study of how to promote economic development by sen-sationalizing sport events.”

Tommy Anatomy, the coach of a high school swim teamwho was visiting the Capitol, agreed: “If I owned a com-pany, I would relocate to a state that was dressing upGeorge Washington in a bathing suit in a heartbeat.”

Members of Easley’s staff said the Capitol groundscould provide the raw material that could feed NorthCarolina’s economic engine. Gubernatorial aide DoogieCrockett pointed to the hundreds of squirrels that residein the trees. “I’m sure all Baby Boomers have fond memo-ries of their coonskin caps from the 1950s,” he said. “Well,squirrel skin makes wonderful swim gear. Just think of theimpact these squirrels could have on the state’s economy.”

Not wanting to be outdone, Raleigh Mayor CharlesMeeker came up with a proposal of his own. “Not onlywill I dress up the statue of Sir Walter Raleigh in swimgear,” he said, “but also to commemorate the outstandingachievement of the students of Weismueller Middle SchoolI will conduct all city council meetings dressed only in athong for the remainder of the month.”

However, after the next meeting, the remaining coun-cil members were able to persuade the mayor to revert tomore traditional clothing. “His thong was a distractionthroughout the meeting,” Councilman Kiernan Shanahansaid.

Although the promotional efforts of Easley and Meekerwere received positively by most of the population, therewere a few dissenting voices.

“This is a disgrace to Washington,” Joe Stiff said.“Dressing him up in a bikini denigrates his contribution tothe founding of our nation. Washington would have neverworn a bikini.”

But Walter Luney, history professor and resident Wash-ington scholar at North Carolina State University, disagrees.

“Washington was an avid swimmer. If he would havehad access to a bikini, there is every reason to believe hewould have worn it when crossing the Delaware.” CJ

Easley Makes a Splash With Sports PromotionsGovernor follows Hurricanes campaign with celebration for Weismueller swim team; squirrels next?

The statue of Charles McIver sports a snappy swimsuit.