LETTERS
LETTERS George Shultz part III I hate to correct the editors of two of my favorite magazines, but the undoubted physiognomic similarities between George Shultz and the Cowardly Lion were first...
...The dictionary says it means "having an abundance of goods...
...If you do not do this you may have to pay taxes on all your benefits...
...Much depends on your definition of "affluent...
...They indicate further that the Social Security Trust will remain fiscally secure into the twenty-first century...
...You are right to ask why I didn't expose any new alcoholics...
...You persistently dwell upon those retirees, who, by hard work and frugal self-denial, have managed to rise above the poverty level to a life of relative comfort...
...He has a well-thought-out energy policy—he was on the Kemeny (Three Mile Island) Commission—and clear environmental policies...
...Patience is one of the prime requisites for a teacher, and these courses really test that quality...
...I am aware of no solemn promise...
...The reason teachers resist evaluation systems is that the evaluations are conducted by school administrators who are generally too incompetent to accurately evaluate teaching and who cannot be trusted to treat teachers with fairness...
...JOHN L. BYRON Arlington, Virginia Charles Peters replies: Instead of resisting evaluation of any kind, teachers should encourage school boards to create tough but fair teams of evaluators that would include teachers and that would evaluate both administrators and teachers so we can get rid of the bad apples in both groups...
...Is Mr...
...The evaluation basis is methodology, not content or effectiveness...
...First, such offhand conclusions fail the journalist's responsibility to let the reader decide...
...The issue is, what happens over the ensuing quarter century to the 250 who were versus the 750 who weren't in that top quarter...
...DAN C. HELDMAN Manassas, Virginia Those who can't You say: "Public school administration in the United States is for the most part in the hands of a selfperpetuating group of overpaid, marginally competent bureaucrats who lack the courage, the drive, and the imagination to do what is needed to reform the institutions for which they are responsible" ["Tilting at Windmills," January...
...DOOLEY KIEFER Ithaca, New York In his article, Phillip Keisling misconstrues the purpose of education courses...
...The Washington Monthly has criticized the triple-dippers, golden parachutists, and every other group we know of that receives compensation that is either unneeded, undeserved, or both...
...You then advocate full taxation on Social Security benefits for the affluent elderly...
...Political...
...magnificently impressive...
...Fear of libel law keeps the discussion of drug use confined to a high level of hysteria defined by Nancy Reagan types and recent converts to sobriety...
...If they had to go into a nursing home it would cost at least $60,000 a year...
...Beefcake While Phillip Keisling appropriately chastises the press, in his foreword and by doing the job they failed to do [in covering the Democratic candidate's stands on the issues], he diminishes his work with the cavalier dismissal that Republican candidates have little of value to contribute to the debate ["Where's the Beef," January...
...Young is a contributing editor of Musician magazine...
...Isn't that a fine reward for a lifetime of work and saving...
...Alcoholism and libel As a journalist specializing in rock and roll musicians, I have encountered the problems described in your article on alcoholism and politicians ["Governing Under the Influence," Steven Waldman, January)!, although the stigma of addiction is traditionally less of a career crippler in music...
...Of course there is no content—they are designed that way deliberately...
...Is he aware that most of these people are now facing serious old age health problems requiring everincreasing expenditures...
...Right now, any couple under railroad retirement who has an income of over $32,000 pays taxes on all "tier two" benefits and up to half of their "tier one" benefits...
...The likeness was first demonstrated, irrefutably, by our own (and, come to think of it, your own) Tom Bethell, in the September 1985 issue of The American Spectator...
...In 1935 our income was $2,086.87, but we saved $295...
...In the same column, you also take another shot at teachers and their professional organizations for resisting "tougher teacher evaluations!' Connect the two...
...In common with the rest of the press, however, Mr...
...I was disappointed that you did not address the problem of libel...
...CHARLES M. YOUNG New York, New York Mr...
...For these and other reasons, it is easy to contemplate a survey covering 600 25-year Yale alumni-180 of the original top 250 and 420 of the other 750...
...Keisling asked no questions about one major topic: the environment—an issue apparently more important to the public than to the press...
...Nonetheless, Keisling's story is far and away the best piece of reporting I've seen on the 1988 campaign...
...are such a problem in Congress, why did you not expose a single new one...
...Only then will the next Wilbur Mills be written about honestly before he's found in the Tidal Basin...
...Third, smarter alumni may be more likely to respond to a survey...
...Does he understand that in so doing the federal government has broken a solemn promise that Social Security would not be taxed, either directly or indirectly...
...The truly professional teacher who cares enough about education to take on a school's ship-of-fools administration is especially vulnerable...
...That is a hopeful sign...
...I am also aware of the burden the expense of health care imposes on the elderly who are not welloff...
...Peters, we have enough trouble realizing when data is being "cooked" for ulterior motives without your implying manipulation where none exists...
...First, the smart students might live longer, in which case they would be over-represented in any survey of alumni a quarter century later...
...Steven Waldman replies: Writing about alcohol abuse is difficult but not impossible No reporter I talked to mentioned fear of libel as the reason they avoided writing about it...
...Please, Mr...
...Yale men don't cook data Your "Tilting at Windmills" column [January] contained an interesting item...
...HUGH CRAYNE North White Plains, New York Charles Peters replies: I am aware of the partial tax, but I want to take more from the affluent...
...By 1991, elderly out-of-pocket health care spending will grow to $2,633 a year and the prospect of nursing home care is frightening...
...Let's not give them another tool to backstab good teachers who place quality education ahead of making life easy for administrators...
...The result is that, of 600 alumni surveyed, 30 percent would truthfully reply they were in the top quarter...
...As I had already come to single out Bruce Babbitt for support, I was delighted with his score card (two times better than the others...
...That's why I want to help them by taking from the rich...
...You seek to impose upon the aged an additional burden by establishing needs testing...
...Second, smarter students may be more easily reached so many years after graduation...
...In addition to all his other strengths well illustrated in your article, Babbitt is the strongest environmentalist in the race...
...H.L...
...If they do not have an income of $60,000 a year, their estate will gradually diminish until they are on welfare and Medicaid...
...School administrators already do their best to bring good teachers to their knees with their pandering to popular extracurricular activities, their spineless failure to support teachers in dealings with parents, and their overriding emphasis on form over substance in all things educational...
...Do you also advocate taxing life insurance payments by the insurance companies based on the affluence of the insured...
...This is not proof that reporting about alcohol abuse is impossible or that Washington harbors no alcoholics (although I did not name new names, I did name names, quote witnesses, and cite statistics enough, I hope, to demonstrate there is a problem...
...Are they affluent...
...RICHARD LOTRECK Natick, Massachusetts Mean testing In "Tilting at Windmills" [January], you say "The truth is that most of the elderly are no longer deserving in the sense of being needy—they are better off than the rest of us...
...You have often derided the system of teacher certification in this country, saying that subject expertise and teacher commitment should weigh more than audits of college courses in teaching methodology and other "education" subjects...
...If Wilbur Mills truly believes that "no alcoholic should be shielded," let him work to decriminalize our drug laws and have alcoholism and addiction classified legally as non-libelous diseases...
...observers (including our President Ronald Reagan) maintain that the Social Security Trust was set up as a separate fund not to be comingled with the general fund...
...If the subject is in a state of denial, or just greedy, it is very easy to get sued even if you've personally seen the subject puking on his shoes...
...I suggest he rates an "A" there, too...
...My wife and I were married in the Depression and know what it is like to have no job, no unemployment benefits, and no welfare...
...Teachers know this, and that's why they think "tougher teacher evaluations" are bullshit...
...School administrators are the end-product of the cookie-cutter system of teacher education that you decry...
...Look at your own article: if alcoholic...
...Ever since Carol Burnett won her suit against The National Enquirer for their saying she was intoxicated at a party, lawyers routinely excise any reference to a person being drunk or addicted unless the reporter has the person confessing to it on tape...
...journalists seem more deterred by the difficulty of proving that alcohol consumption was affecting job, performance or by a belief that most drinking problems are simply not newsworthy...
...Instead of arguing whether we should be covering personalities or issues, it covers the issues...
...The increased coverage of whether Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan has a drinking problem shows that, as journalistic ground rules change, reporters will write about drinking more readily...
...I do not know any railroad men who are affluent...
...Tom Bethel...
...None exists...
...Such a statement shows a startling ignorance of the subject and this reflects on your publication...
...Peters aware that a number of senior citizens—approximately 10 percent of the elderly population—are now subjected to a means test in which they pay taxes on one-half of their Social Security benefits...
...Second, it taints the author—and by association the magazine— as being too partisan to be given much credence...
...Anyone who can complete 30 semester hours of education courses has all the patience required to teach anyone...
...Out of, say, 1,000 graduating Yalies, 250 constitute the top quarter...
...One can empathize with your concern for the federal budget...
...When we started paying into the railroad retirement fund we saw no footnote saying "Spend everything you make...
...LETTERS George Shultz part III I hate to correct the editors of two of my favorite magazines, but the undoubted physiognomic similarities between George Shultz and the Cowardly Lion were first exposed by neither The Washington Monthly nor by Spy, as Kurt Andersen maintained in your letters column [December...
...Fortunately, Gov...
...We should not expect an evaluation system developed and administered by bureaucrats to be better than the systems they run...
...However, you overlook the fact that a number of prominent D.C...
...We tried all our lives to prepare for old age...
...Babbitt (a geologist by training, an enthusiastic conservationist by avocation) understands environmental concerns and has a fine record in this regard...
...Poll after poll reveals that Americans want environmental protection and are willing to pay for it...
...KIRK Marquette, Michigan Charles Peters, you seem preoccupied with a plan to establish "needs testing" as the basis for taxation of full Social Security benefits...
...GEORGE LIPPER Macomb, Illinois Thanks to Phillip Keisling for pulling together in one article the substance (or lack thereof) of the Democratic presidential candidates' approaches to important issues...
...For shame, Mr...
...ANDREW FERGUSON Arlington, Virginia Mr...
...Instead, why not go after the triple-dippers who retire from civil service jobs after 20 years, take jobs in private industry, and thus qualify for Social Security benefits, and the "Golden Parachutists" who retire with bonanza bonuses...
...Ferguson is assistant managing editor of The American Spectator...
...wealthy...
...While commenting upon some educational test statistics which seemed unlikely, you were reminded of "a 25th anniversary survey of a Yale class in which one-third of its alumni said they ranked in the top quarter of the class . . .." First of all, the "top quarter" is based upon the whole class...
...is a former editor of The Washington Monthly...
...What do you think the criteria are for teacher evaluations...
...Peters, for shame...
...So, in effect, they are paying taxes on half or more of their benefits...
...My answer is that it was failure of my own reporting, not a fear of libel...
Vol. 20 • March 1988 • No. 2
