Category: Spring 2003 Newswire
Title IX: A Look at a Law Most New Hampshire Officials Support
By Daniel Remin
WASHINGTON — It’s a simple law
But 31 years after President Richard M. Nixon signed it into law, Title IX is mired in controversy.
Both supporters and detractors of the law agree it has succeeded in opening high school and college sports to women, who now join teams in numbers far greater than before.
However, college wrestling coaches and others charge that Title IX has had the reverse effect of discriminating against men by forcing many schools, including the University of New Hampshire, to cut men’s teams. They want the Bush administration to ease enforcement of the law.
In 1997, UNH cut men’s baseball, men’s lacrosse and men’s and women’s golf both in an effort to comply with Title IX and because of budget constraints, according to a UNH athletic administrator.
But the Wildcats’ athletic director, Marty Scarano, who has been at UNH since 2000, said he supports the law.
“I would not have agreed with any rash change that put more leniency in the teeth of Title IX,” he said. “I think Title IX’s been the right thing. I don’t think necessarily it’s been interpreted the right way.”
The debate centers around U.S. Department of Education guidelines for universities attempting to comply with the law and the questions over how it might be changed to make it more equitable.
The legislation prohibits discrimination in all educational programs and departments, but athletics is where Title IX has had the largest and most visible impact and caused the greatest controversy.
Perhaps at no other time since Title IX was enacted in 1972 has it received so much attention than in the past year.
Last year, following complaints by groups of national wrestling coaches, President Bush appointed a commission to review and examine the law. This past February, the Commission on Opportunity in Athletics submitted its findings to Education Secretary Rod Paige. Paige plans to study the report, called “Open to All: Title IX at Thirty,” and could make changes in how the department enforces the law based on the commission’s recommendations.
“The whole purpose of the commission was to look at ways to strengthen opportunities for some athletes and ensure that opportunities for some athletes aren’t being created or taken away at the expense of others,” said Susan Aspey, Education Department spokeswoman.
Nobody on either side disputes statistics that show the sizeable increase in women’s participation in high school and college sports during Title IX’s first three decades. During that time, female participation in sports shot up 847 percent in high school and 400 percent in college. Male participation also increased, although by smaller percentages.
According to the National Federation of State High School Associations, 3.6 million boys participated in high school athletics in 1971-1972, compared to 294,015 girls. Thirty years later, the group reports, 6.76 million boys and 2.8 million girls played high school sports.
In college, according to the National Collegiate Athletic Association, the participation numbers for men have increased from 170,384 in 1971-1972 to 208,866 last year. About 30,000 women played sports in college in 1971-1972, and in 2001-2002, that number increased five-fold to 150,916.
Donna Lopiano, executive director of the Women’s Sports Foundation, pointed out that male athletes still participate in sports in greater numbers and percentages than women. “It’s impossible to have discrimination against men when they’re over- represented, when they participate in sports far in excess of their presence in the student body,” Lopiano said.
According to Lopiano, male college athletes receive 58,000 more chances to play sports than women – based on current team rosters — and get $133 million more in athletic scholarships every year. Women make up 56 percent of the student body at universities but represent just 42 percent of the collegiate athletic population, Lopiano noted.
Jessica Gavora, who has written a book that says Title IX has been unfair to men, said she’s “sure there are isolated incidents” of discrimination against women in athletics.
“I know that what is a greater evil, however, today is that there is systematic discrimination against men under Title IX, and that is in clear violation of the letter and spirit of the law,” said Gavora, author of Tilting the Playing Field: Schools, Sports, Sex and Title IX and chief speechwriter for Attorney General John Ashcroft. “The way that the law is implemented today and the way that it is clearly understood to be enforced by colleges and universities is by creating a preference for women.”
The Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights administers Title IX. In 1979, the office gave schools three ways to demonstrate they were in compliance with the law.
Under the three-part test, schools can show that they are obeying the law by demonstrating that men and women participate in sports in numbers that are proportional to their representation in the student body; by giving evidence that they are continuing to improve opportunities for women, or by demonstrating that they are meeting the “interests and abilities” of the “underrepresented sex,” generally women.
Institutions have to meet the conditions of only one part of the test to show they are in compliance with the law. Yet partly because “proportionality” is the first prong of the test, it has become the focus of the most heated debate. This is also the case because in 1996, the civil rights office called the proportionality standard a “safe harbor,” meaning that if universities show compliance under that part of the test, the office assumes that the school is not discriminating on the basis of sex.
Those who argue for change say the proportionality test amounts to a quota.
“I think Title IX was passed as an anti-discrimination law,” Gavora said. “Today, it’s a preference law, and it needs to be once again an anti- discrimination law.”
Title IX advocates respond that the current system is fair.
“I think the issue here is sharing the sandbox,” Lopiano said. “Before Title IX, men got the sandbox and all the toys in the sandbox. Now, they have to share. Sometimes, I think the general attitude is that women can get to play with the toys, but only when the boys let them.”
The commission has recommended moving away from the strict proportionality test to allow a “reasonable variance” in the ratios. It also suggested providing “clear, consistent and understandable written guidelines” for the implementation of Title IX and abandoning the “safe harbor” aspect of the first part of the test.
Title IX advocates — including the Women’s Sports Foundation and the National Women’s Law Center, which has filed lawsuits on behalf of women athletes — criticized the commission for failing to address the issue of discrimination against women athletes. The commission also did not assess the impact of its recommendations, these groups said.
“From the very beginning of this commission, the way it was established, the mission it was provided, was not one that connected with the true purpose of Title IX, which is to address discrimination,” said Leslie Annexstein, senior counsel at the law center. “That’s a fundamental flaw with the commission.”
Two of the 15 commissioners – Julie Foudy, president of the Women’s Sports Foundation and captain of the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team, and former Olympic swimmer Donna de Varona — wrote a minority report that took issue with the commission’s recommendations.
Foudy and de Varona wrote that “many of the recommendations made by the majority would seriously weaken Title IX’s protections and substantially reduce the opportunities to which women and girls are entitled under current law….” They added that only one proposal dealt with the budget constraints that they said led to elimination of men’s teams.
“I think that they’re perpetuating an inequity, a situation in violation of their stated principles,” Gavora said, referring to the position of the Women’s Sports Foundation, Foudy and other Title IX advocates. “They are perpetuating a situation that is eventually going to come back and bite them in the ass because American people are fundamentally fair, and the more they know about the inequities, the injustices under Title IX that are being meted out for men, the less they like it.”
UNH’s Scarano said there are still subtle cases of discrimination against women, but he admits that certain men’s sports have also suffered as a result of the law.
“I don’t think anyone can be ignorant enough to say it’s not at the hands of Title IX,” he said.
The UNH women’s swimming and diving athletes receive scholarships while the males in that sport do not. “That’s a divisive issue, and it’s not necessarily a fair issue,” Scarano said.
The situation has helped the women’s swim team succeed while the men’s team struggles to attract top-notch swimmers.
“You can definitely see the impact that it has,” said Dan Brittan, a junior from Nashua and member of the UNH men’s swimming and diving team. “The women’s team is always at the top of the conference. They’ve got a whole lot of talent. Our men’s team is struggling to keep our roster around 10 guys, which is half the size of the women’s team. We’re doing this just because we like to.”
“I don’t think this is a thing necessarily with UNH, but I think the sport of swimming for men is in real big trouble because there aren’t scholarships anywhere,” said Josh Willman, the head coach of both the men’s and women’s swimming teams.
Other New Hampshire college administrators and coaches also said they support the law.
“I firmly believe in Title IX,” said Joseph “Chip” Polak, athletic director at Southern New Hampshire University for the past 27 years. “I just always believed that there should be not only equal opportunities but equal funding.”
Polak said the school complies with the proportionality test. He added that although the intent of the law is correct, the results are flawed because schools can’t afford to add enough women’s teams without eliminating some men’s sports.
Plymouth State College has complied with the law by demonstrating that it is making continual progress toward improving opportunities for women. In 1985, Plymouth State added a women’s swimming and diving team. Seven years ago, it added women’s volleyball. It soon will add another, undetermined, women’s sport.
The school prides itself on equality, according to men and women in the athletic department.
“Everybody’s pretty equal,” athletic director John P. Clark said. “The coaches and the staff and the students are feeling that things are pretty fair right now.”
Lauren Lavigne, head coach of women’s basketball, said “equality is at the forefront” at Plymouth State.
Lavigne attended Manchester West High School, where she played three sports. At Plymouth State, she played basketball and softball.
“So many people of my generation and below have kind of taken advantage of it,” Lavigne said, referring to Title IX and the opportunities it has created for women to play sports. She said that since Bush undertook a re-evaluation of the law, “it really made us aware of how far we’ve come and [helped us] to remember all the trailblazers of years past.”
Some women athletes said Title IX has allowed them to have many of the same opportunities that male athletes enjoy.
“Look at all the opportunities for girls to play,” said Michaela Leary, who is from Nashua and plays point guard on George Washington University’s women’s basketball team. “I’m going to college on a full scholarship. If it was 30 years ago, those opportunities wouldn’t be as great.
“I think having the legislation in place forced institutions, especially universities, to really provide the financial support to allow women to play sports,” said Liz Dancause, also from Nashua and a current member of GWU women’s basketball team. “Without that, we’d still be fighting for equal opportunity to play.”
Most members of New Hampshire’s congressional delegation said they favor Title IX and the opportunities it has afforded women but added that the law should not cost men their teams.
“I think what’s important is that the law be applied in a fair and equitable way that doesn’t force sports programs to be stripped away from universities,” Sen. John E. Sununu, R-N.H., said in an interview. “That’s been an issue with UNH. They’ve lost a number of teams over the years, and I don’t think anyone thinks that’s necessarily a good trend.”
New Hampshire’s freshman congressman, Jeb Bradley, R-N.H., said he supports Title IX, but with some caveats.
“I think it’s important that we create opportunities for women’s athletics and women athletes,” Bradley said in an interview. “It’s a shame when the law may make for some universities dropping some teams. That disturbs me. At the end of the day, I want to make sure that we’re encouraging all young athletes to be able to participate to the best of their ability.”
Some men’s sports, including wrestling and gymnastics, have suffered many cuts since 1972.
The National Wrestling Coaches Association and the College Sports Council have sued the Education Department to change its interpretation of Title IX.
“We want to go back to the original intent of Title IX,” said Jamie Moffatt the sports council’s executive director. “We feel now that the pendulum has flown way too far the other way, and that male sports are getting obliterated.”
“We do think it’s a good law,” Moffatt added. “It’s just been terribly, terribly enforced.”
The wrestling coaches group lists more than 380 universities that have discontinued wrestling programs.
“It’s clear through the last six or seven months when the Title IX commission hearings were being held, there’s overwhelming support for Title IX reform,” Michael Moyer, the group’s executive director, said in an interview. “We can only hope that the Department of Education will accept this very clear signal.”
Dick Aronson, executive director of the College Gymnastics Association, said that from 1970 to 1975, there were 234 men’s gymnastics teams; today, there are 20. He said Title IX is just part of the reason for the cuts. The other problem is money.
Others, however, said universities cite Title IX as an excuse to cut teams. They could just as easily reduce the amount of money they spend on big-ticket sports, such as football, according to Title IX’s proponents.
“People have chosen to prioritize in a certain way and are conveniently hiding behind Title IX as a reason for it,” said Peter Roby, director of the Center for the Study of Sport in Society at Northeastern University in Boston. Roby said he’d like to know why schools cut some men’s teams rather than “lessening the amount of scholarships that they provide to men’s football programs.”
Last year, the University of Vermont downgraded its men’s and women’s gymnastics teams from varsity to club status. Head coach Gary Bruening said his teams were cut so the school could meet Title IX requirements.
“Both men’s and women’s teams were cut, (a) result of gender equity compliance,” Bruening said. “It was all an attempt to equal out proportionality.”
But at the time of the downgrading, there were three times as many women on the teams as men.
Parents of former Catamounts gymnasts said the teams were cut for financial reasons.
“They’ve never mentioned Title IX,” said Edie Jones, a teacher from Bow whose daughter, Becky, competed on Vermont’s gymnastics team her freshman year. “It was disappointing because she was really looking forward to being able to compete as a team, not as just a club member.”
Becky decided to stay at Vermont, and after lettering her freshman year, she now competes on the gymnastics club team.
“I think it was based on financial decisions,” said Barbara Resnick of Columbia, Md., whose son, Elie Sollins, who was on the men’s gymnastics team. “After my son went through a great deal of angst over it, he did decide to stay on at the school. Part of the decision was based on the fact that he didn’t know what was going to happen somewhere else. He was really concerned about that.”
Paige has not said when he will announce his decision on enforcement of Title IX.
(Daniel Remin is an intern with the Boston University Washington News Service.)
Published in The Manchester Union Leader, in New Hampshire.
What’s the Big IDEA?
By Kim Forrest
WASHINGTON--When teachers, school administrators and parents talk about special education, they complain about excessive paperwork, gripe about under-qualified teachers and debate the pros and cons of the curriculum. But there's one subject on which there seems to be no debate.
Money.
Everyone involved with special education agrees there just isn't enough of it.
Most fingers point to the federal government. When Congress mandated local school districts provide special education nearly three decades ago, it agreed the federal government would pay 40 percent of the cost. It has never come close.
Washington's contribution to special education has increased in the last decade, but not nearly enough to meet Congress' commitment. Federal spending, which amounted to $1 billion to $2 billion in the 1980s and early 1990s, has reached a high point of nearly $9 billion annually in recent years. Still, that is a far cry from the money Congress said it hoped the federal government would pay when it agreed to help states pay for special education in 1975.
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which dictates how the federal government doles out special-education money to the states and eventually local school districts, is up for reauthorization this year.
New Hampshire is slated to receive nearly $36 million in federal special-education grants this year, up from slightly more than $10 million in 1996. But the state would receive much more - one estimate sets the rate at about $70 million -- if the spending target set by Congress 28 years ago were actually met.
But as members of Congress started to debate potential changes to the law this year, it became clear it wouldn't be easy to allocate more money for special education. .
WHAT'S THE IDEA?
When it was enacted in 1975, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act guaranteed a "free, appropriate public education" to students with disabilities and to help states meet their legal and financial obligations to those students.
Much of the debate with IDEA funding stems from the promise Congress made when IDEA was enacted: that it would provide the states with 40 percent of their special-education expenses. Currently, more than 6 million students nationwide are served by IDEA funds.
But almost three decades later, the federal government pays only 18 percent. That's almost triple the 7 percent Washington contributed in 1996, but still less than half of what Congress promised.
"We're far from what was promised in 1975," said Lynda Van Kuren, a spokeswoman for the Council for Exceptional Children, a special-education advocacy group in Arlington, Va. "I would say while we're grateful for the increases, we're very disappointed that the [federal government] has not done more to live up to its promise of the full funding."
Many efforts have been made in recent months to bring IDEA spending closer to the 40 percent target.
In March, New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg, a Republican, sponsored an amendment to the budget resolution for fiscal 2004 that would increase IDEA funds by $3.29 billion over the next six years. The amendment passed; if it becomes law, it would bring the total federal contribution to more than $11 billion next year and more than $13.5 billion in 2005. Though this would increase the federal share of special-education costs to only 26 percent, it would put the government on what Gregg called a "direct glide path" toward the promised 40 percent by 2009.
Gregg voted against an amendment offered by Sen. Mark Dayton (D-MN) to provide the full 40 percent by next year and pay for it by delaying President Bush's proposed tax cut. Dayton's amendment was rejected, and Gregg called it unrealistic and merely "put[ting] forward a show."
At least one large group agreed with Dayton that Bush's proposed tax cuts could eat up money that might otherwise go to special education.
"If we keep going willy-nilly towards these enormous tax cuts, there's not going to be enough money for anything," said Charlotte Fraas, director of legislation for the American Federation of Teachers.
New Hampshire Rep. Charles Bass, a Republican, has authored legislation in the House that would provide the promised 40 percent by 2010, with $70 million going to New Hampshire that year.
A LOCAL PERSPECTIVE
Local special-education directors in New Hampshire insist they need more federal money to adequately teach the more than 30,000 students - representing more than 14 percent of all public-school students in the state - in their programs.
"Why can't we fund these kids in need with federal money?" asked David Beauchamp, special-education director for school administrative unit 47, which serves Jaffrey and Rindge.
School administrative unit 29, which serves Keene and its surrounding towns, has about 905 students with special needs. Bruce Thielen, the unit's special-education director, said schooling for a special-education student normally costs twice as much as for a student without learning disabilities. On average, it costs about $12,000 a year to teach a special-education student, he said.
However, Tamara Drozin, special education director for the Conval school district, which serves Greater Peterborough's 474 special-education students, said that costs for some students with special needs could go as high as $200,000.
"Usually they have multiple disabilities that include severe mental retardation, sometimes vision or hearing problems," she said.
New Hampshire supplements the federal aid to help those students.
Under its catastrophic aid program, the state will reimburse a school district for 80 percent of a special-education student's costs that exceed 3.5 times the state average per student and all of the costs that exceed 10 times the state average, Drozin said.
Schools also receive money from Medicaid for some students, said Dick Cohen of New Hampshire's Disabilities Rights Center.
"Schools can pull down Medicaid money for things like speech, occupational therapy, evaluations, for a number of things, and they only have to come up with 50 percent of that cost," he said.
For the Conval district, federal funds pay for a preschool program, a school psychologist, a speech and language pathologist, an occupational therapist, a life-skills teacher and training for teachers and staff.
MORE STUDENTS WITH SPECIAL NEEDS
One reason the money falls short is that more students are being placed in special-education classes than in the past. There has been a steady increase over the past ten years, which Beauchamp said is "rocking the system."
The U.S. Department of Education reported that the number of students served by IDEA funds rose from 5,081,023 during the 1992-93 school year to 6,487,429 during the 2001-02 school year, an increase of nearly 28 percent.
Many experts say because of medical improvements, children who might have died years ago are living, but with special-education needs.
"We have medical advances that we did not have even five years ago, so students who would not be in our schools are not only surviving through elementary schools, but through our middle schools and our high schools," said Van Kuren, of the Council's for Exceptional Children. "That's a good thing, but that also takes more dollars and special services to educate these children."
Van Kuren added that with the rising poverty rate in America, more children are coming to school without the early exposure to language that children from higher-income households receive. Students from low-income families may be behind and classified as special-needs pupils.
Furthermore, Thielen said, more children are being classified as autistic than were in the past, which adds to the special-education rosters.
Cohen, of the Disabilities Rights Center, said some schools may "over-identify kids who could be served by the regular education system," adding that some schools under-identify children with special needs as well.
Drozin said more parents than in the past want their children to be classified as special-needs students so that they can receive extra help in school.
"I think for a long time there was a stigma attached to special education, where people did not want their children identified and receiving special-education services," she said. "And now I think it's come around to that's the way to get extra attention, extra help, individualized support for your child. [Parents] feel like their children are being left out if they're not identified and all the attention is going to the identified students."
Drozin added that about 15 percent of the students in her district are special-education students but that in some districts the number can be as high as 20 or 25 percent.
PARENTS AS ADVOCATES
Many experts say parents who know how to work the system often are able to get their child more services.
"Parents who are the most savvy often get more for their children, while parents with little access, parents who don't speak up, may not," the Cato Institute's Gryphon said.
Carole Armstrong, a Windham resident who is the secretary of the Autism Society of New Hampshire and the parent of three children with special needs, said that she has trained herself to advocate for her children.
"I went through the advocacy programs that they have…. It takes years to get that education," she said. A lot of kids, because the parents don't know how to advocate, don't get what they need."
Armstrong added that she has to be a strong advocate for her son, who is autistic and in seventh grade, because the aide who works with him "doesn't have the proper training" and is punishing him for behavior that is part of his disorder. During the 2001-02 school year, according to the U.S. Department of Education, 17 percent of teachers who worked with special-education students were not fully certified to do so.
"I'm practically in school with him every two weeks," Armstrong said. "But I'm in a position that I've been doing this for so long, I bring in the information that [the school] needs and give it to them. A lot of parents aren't in the same position."
Drozin said some students get more help not because they need it, but because their parents demand it.
"In many instances we go beyond equal access and we go beyond free, appropriate public education, and that bothers me, because I think sometimes it's whoever has the most resources, the strongest advocacy, the most skilled parents, who can advocate for more," she said.
AN IDEA FOR THE FUTURE
The Bush administration has proposed spending $9.5 billion on special education in the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. That's $1 billion more than it sought for the current fiscal year and $2 billion more than Congress appropriated last year.
In 2001, Bush established a Commission on Excellence in Special Education, which published its report last July. The commission said the current special-education law has too many requirements and too much paperwork. It said children are not properly identified for special-education programs and that districts are not held accountable for students' performance.
Gregg, who is chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which will vote on the IDEA reauthorization, said that the Bush administration has significantly increased special-education spending.
On the other side of the aisle, Jim Manley, a spokesman for Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA), the senior Democrat on the education committee, said the current administration has "failed to adequately fund the Individuals With Disabilities Act."
Manley said that Kennedy is working with Gregg and others to draft a bipartisan bill that would move toward that 40 percent federal-spending promise. Still, many are still doubtful about the program's future.
"I guess I have to say that I'm not too optimistic about the reauthorization," Drozin said. "What would help us in the schools would be a reduction of paperwork…and increased funding.... I don't know that either one of those things is going to happen any time soon."
Fraas, of the American Federation of Teachers, said those concerned about special education must look closely at what the government is doing.
"We can't just be Pollyanna-ish about the future of the funding and the way its going," she said.
Published in The Keene Sentinel, in New Hampshire.
High Stakes and Graduation – The MCAS Struggle
By Heidi Taylor
WASHINGTON—"Dad?" Nina Ward, a high school junior in Massachusetts recently asked her father, Larry. "So if I take the test now and pass it, do I still have to go to school?"
As Larry Ward knows, the real question is this: If his daughter fails the test next year, will she be allowed to graduate from high school and go on to college?
The exam in question is the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) test that high school seniors must pass before they can receive their diplomas.
This year, the first in which the test was linked to graduation, 6,000 students across the states stand to be denied diplomas. By law, the students cannot graduate even if they have fulfilled all local requirements for graduation.
In a debate that is being carried on nationally as well as in the Bay State, proponents of testing say that students must be tested to assure that they have the skills necessary for success after school.
Critics, including Ward, a coordinator for the Massachusetts Coalition for Authentic Reform in Education, counter that tying graduation to a single test does not raise educational standards or demonstrate a student's real knowledge.
The controversy over MCAS has been heating up the past few months as school committees in Newburyport and several other school districts voted to issue diplomas to students who have fulfilled local requirements, even if they fail the MCAS test.
Gloucester and other district school committees, though they have not gone that far, say they reserve the right to issue diplomas to deserving students if the state's Department of Education turns down students' appeals.
Several students from districts statewide filed a class-action lawsuit against the state in January that contends the graduation requirement is illegal. A state court refused to issue an injunction to block the testing requirement, and the case is scheduled to be heard in U.S. District Court in mid-May.
The 1993 Massachusetts Education Reform Act was passed years before President Bush signed the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. While they differ in many respects, both the state and federal laws share the goal of education reform and offer similar strategies to reach that goal.
The federal law mandates that all students be tested, that schools and teachers be held accountable for student progress, that teachers be better qualified than they were in the past and that parents be given the right to play bigger roles in their children's education.
The No Child Left Behind law requires that every state set clear and high standards for what students in each grade should know in the core academic subjects of reading, math and science. It further requires states to measure progress toward the standards by testing elementary and secondary school students in many grades.
If schools cannot demonstrate that their students are making headway, they will be required to pay for tutoring and to give parents the option to transfer their children to better-performing schools. Ultimately, schools could face state takeover if they show no improvement.
In Massachusetts, the MCAS tests were developed to raise academic standards. The law requires students to take the tests in grades 3 through 8 and grade 10. Most important, to graduate, seniors beginning this year must have received scores high enough to demonstrate their competence in both English and math.
While even detractors don't deny that testing is a legitimate way to measure student and school progress, the Bush administration and the Massachusetts Department of Education have kicked the importance of the tests up a notch by attaching stakes to the results. Along with many education experts, they say that attaching stakes, such as the graduation requirement, make the tests more significant to the students and the schools.
"Stakes associated with tests are what makes performance matter," said Paul Reville, a lecturer at Harvard University's Graduate School of Education and chairman of the Massachusetts Education Reform Review Commission. Now, he said, "it actually matters whether or not they learn."
But critics of standardized tests argue that the stakes attached to the test results unfairly punish students who have not been adequately prepared because, for example, their schools' curricula and textbooks don't match the test.
"Other indications, I think, ought to be included," said Rep. John Tierney, D-Salem. "There is more to being a graduate of high school than just taking a test."
In Newburyport, the school committee voted to issue diplomas to seniors who flunk the test, saying that graduation decisions should be made not at the state level by a standardized test but locally by teachers and administrators who know the students and can assess their knowledge more fairly.
"We feel it is the right thing to do," said Mary-Ann Clancy, a member of the Newburyport school committee. "As of now, we voted unanimously to issue a diploma," she said, adding that the committee is awaiting the outcome of the MCAS lawsuit.
The Gloucester school committee's policy is more ambiguous. Chairman Michael Faherty said eight Gloucester students who have met the local requirements and who would otherwise graduate may not receive diplomas because of their low MCAS scores.
"It is a sticky situation," Faherty said. "The policy which we adopted three weeks ago was to encourage the administration to file appeals to the state" on behalf of those students the administration feels deserve to graduate, Faherty said. He added that of the eight, several scored 218 on the math and English sections, just two points shy of the passing mark.
"We also reserve the right," Faherty said, "to award a diploma if we feel that is justified."
But Gloucester, he said, is clearly not in the same category as Newburyport because the Gloucester school committee has not voted to give diplomas to all students who have met local requirements. A student who, for example, missed 35 days of school, scored 200 on the MCAS test and took part in no other school activities probably doesn't deserve to graduate even if he or she met minimum local requirements, Faherty said.
"It's a different kettle of fish," he said, adding that the committee decided, "You can't have an iron-clad rule."
If it had such a rule, he asked, what incentive would students have to try hard on the test? Furthermore, he said, even if he may not agree with every aspect of the test, "nonetheless, it has been adopted as the standard."
State Department of Education officials said it would be illegal for any district to issue diplomas to students who fail the MCAS test, adding that the law is designed to help students who aren't meeting the state standard.
"These districts are essentially saying that they're going to break the law," Education Department spokeswoman Heidi Perlman said. Regardless of how school committee members feel about it, they must follow this law, "just like they have to stop for red lights."
During the summer, the department will check to ensure that all diplomas were given out legally, and the repercussions for districts that broke the law could be very harsh, Perlman said. Cases could be turned over to the attorney general, she said, adding that it's more likely districts would lose some state funding.
With states across the country facing major budget shortfalls, that is no toothless threat.
For now, the state and districts are waiting to see what happens with the MCAS lawsuit, set to be heard May 15 by U.S. District Judge Michael Ponsor. In state court, Judge Margot Botsford denied the motion for a preliminary injunction, holding that such an order would be detrimental to education reform.
Nadine Cohen, one of the attorneys representing the students, said the lawsuit charges that students are being denied due process because they were not taught all the material tested on the exam.
"It really puts a stigma on the students," Cohen said, noting that the eight students who are plaintiffs in the lawsuit have asked for anonymity. She added that because it is a class-action suit, the eight are really representing all students in the class of 2003.
Although standardized testing has a long history in this country -- it first was used by the U.S. Army for recruitment in World War I -- many now question whether too much weight is being placed on testing and not enough on learning.
State Rep. Frank Smizik, D-Brookline, who has opposed using the MCAS results as a graduation requirement, argues that students from poor families, minorities and those with difficult home lives often do worse on the tests and suffer greater adverse consequences if they fail than do students from affluent homes.
For example, 90 percent of all students in the class of 2003 have passed the MCAS test. That compares to only 75 percent of African-Americans, 70 percent of Latinos, 67 percent of those with limited English proficiency and 69 percent of those with disabilities.
Ward, of the Massachusetts Coalition for Authentic Reform in Education, said he recognizes that testing is necessary to gauge student progress in such things as reading and math, but insists that the MCAS test should be used as a diagnostic tool to help improve schools rather than as the high-stakes test it is now.
"It is just bizarre to require that students go through 13 years of school but then boil the outcome down to one test," he said, adding that the Department of Education has overstepped its mandate on this issue. He accused state officials of using the test "to flunk kids out of school."
But Perlman said that from the beginning, the plan was to attach stakes, based on certain criteria, to the test. Students are now "required to meet those standards to get a diploma," she added.
Without the tough requirements, high standards and stakes, supporters of the tests say, schools would be doing students a disservice by allowing them to pass through the educational system without the proper skills and knowledge needed for success later in life.
"I support the test because it's the best tool available to us for achieving the twin goals of equity and excellence" in education, Harvard's Reville said. "This reform is not about tests," which are only one instrument in the broader goal of education reform. "It is about high standards for all students."
Still, some teachers say the reform may not be producing higher teaching standards. A national survey of more than 4,000 teachers conducted by the National Board on Educational Testing and Public Policy (NBETPP), an independent monitoring system at Boston College, reported that a large majority felt "there is so much pressure for high scores on the state-mandated test that they have little time to teach anything not covered on the test."
A majority of the teachers also said that state-testing programs had "led them to teach in ways that contradict their ideas of sound instructional practices." And 40 percent responded that in high-stakes states like Massachusetts, their teaching was affected on a daily basis.
"Of course" teachers feel pressured to teach to the test, said Laura Barrett, a spokeswoman for the Massachusetts Teachers Association. "So much is determined by the results." But, she added, "most teachers try to resist this and do what is educationally sound."
The problem, Barrett said, is that the results matter so much. "A child's future should not be decided based on a single test." Nevertheless, she added, the MCAS tests can be used successfully as diagnostic tools to measure progress.
The nationwide survey of teachers also included interviews with 360 teachers and administrators in Kansas, Massachusetts and Michigan who, though critical of the tests, also noted some positive outcomes of tougher assessment systems. They said tough new standards have helped them to replace unneeded content with better material and to put a renewed emphasis on writing, critical thinking skills, discussion and explanation.
"Generally, the concern with high-stakes, no-passing-without-MCAS is that people will be denied advancement," Rep. Tierney said. He said such things as college enrollment and financial aid should not be out of reach for students who haven't passed the MCAS test. But he also said he recognized the importance of the tests to education reform.
"I intend to keep pushing forward with those issues," he said, adding that he would like state education commissioner David Driscoll to remain involved in helping students who fail the test with such things as financial aid options.
The department has said that it does have those students in mind. "It is imperative that they know we have not given up on them and do not intend do," Driscoll said in a March press release that laid out the department's plan for helping students who have not passed.
Students have the option of going through an appeals process for graduation, and if that is unsuccessful, they can take the test again in May and in August. And as long as they fulfill local requirements, they can participate in graduation ceremonies and receive certificates of attainment.
The department is also offering a host of other options, including summer work and learning programs -- which will allow students to get tutoring in the mornings and get paid to work in the afternoons -- career centers that will help students decide on their next steps and remedial community college courses that would allow students to study for the MCAS.
And, Perlman said, things could change depending on the outcome of the federal lawsuit.
Published in The Newburyport Daily News, The Gloucester Daily News, and The Salem News in Massachusetts.
Dangerous Global Warming Reality Makes Passing Comprehensive Pollution Control in Washington Ever a Critical Step
WASHINGTON—On a hot July day last summer, rangers in the White Mountain National Forest sounded an alarm. Air quality had dropped to a dangerous level, and for the first time ever rangers ordered strollers, hikers and mountaineers off the trails.
The White Mountains are a prime New Hampshire scenic attraction that receive more tourists each year than Yellowstone and Yosemite national parks combined. Although that July alert was the first to ever close the mountain trails due to air quality, the same thing happened several more times last summer.
This spring, maple syrup farmers suffered. A frustrated farmer told New England Cable News on April 15 that on a scale of one to ten, he rated his sap-producing season a "four."
A long, extremely cold winter was interspersed with days of significantly warmer temperatures, and it was all the farmer could do to salvage his sap in a "late" and "disappointing" harvest.
"The sap just didn't run," he said. "Without a good vacuum, the sap didn't run. It's that plain and simple."
The villain in both cases: global warming. Despite the argument by some that the effects of global warming are being exaggerated, scientists agree that the Earth is growing warmer. The questions today are just how serious the problem is, what causes it and what to do about it.
The answers-for New Hampshire and the nation-are both environmentally and politically contentious.
With as many different plans to solve the problem, it seems, as there are officials hatching them, lawmakers, environmentalists and concerned citizens have looked to the White House to lead the way.
President Bush has pulled back on many environmental initiatives backed by the Clinton administration and has replaced them with his own, more business-friendly proposals. The Bush White House, for example, rejected the Kyoto treaty, a 1997 United Nations agreement negotiated by the Clinton administration to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Instead, Bush has offered the Clear Skies Act of 2003, which the administration says would reduce air pollution from power plants.
But many environmental groups in New England and the rest of the nation have called the Clear Skies legislation a "half-baked" approach to the growing danger from global warming and have demanded a stronger plan of attack. Moreover, New Hampshire's two Republican senators have announced their opposition to the bill.
In January the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., released the latest findings from its round-the-clock climate tracking software: 2002 was the second-hottest year on record in the United States, and the rising temperatures are not occurring only when the sun is out.
Jan Pendlebury, the New Hampshire director of the National Environmental Trust, said in an interview that nighttime temperatures are rising three times faster than daytime ones. What's more, she said, the diurnal balance-colder nights than days-is being skewed, to the detriment of the state's fall foliage display.
"Foliage relies on very cold nights and very warm days," Pendlebury said. "If you don't have that balance, then the chemical reactions needed to change colors in the leaves will not occur."
Over the last century, according to the National Environmental Trust, the average surface temperature of the Earth has risen by a full degree Fahrenheit. And the federal government's National Assessment of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change, an annual report on climate change, flatly states that temperatures in the United States are rising, and that the average increase will be "much greater than one degree" over the next century. "These changes will, at a minimum, increase discomfort," the report adds.
Melting ice caps always have been one of the most visual symbols associated with global warming. But what of coastal flooding? What of some inland areas that become so hot that they turn into breeding grounds for tropical diseases? What if heightened temperatures mean no more skiing or hiking in New Hampshire-no fresh snow and air too deadly to breathe?
Entire ecosystems may be at risk. A recent article in the environmental science journal Nature suggested that radical temperature changes are enough to dramatically alter wildlife landscapes. If global warming is allowed to progress at its current rate, New England would gradually lose its classic fall foliage over the next few decades. Only plants tolerant of such high temperatures would flourish.
Global warming also dynamically increases air pollution, because warmer air traps pollutants closer to the Earth's surface and creates the kind of unhealthy breathing conditions experienced last summer in New Hampshire-while increasing ozone, the main ingredient in smog.
A recent New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services bulletin warned that the ozone season came earlier than usual to New Hampshire this year, with unusually warm weather and higher levels of air pollution than ever before.
"We have been tracking ozone levels in New Hampshire for over 20 years," DES acting commissioner Robert Monaco said in a statement. "April 15 is the earliest date that we have ever seen levels approaching unhealthy levels."
Global warming also is becoming as much an economic burden as an environmental one. A report from Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Climate Change contends that though the United States could "probably bear" the cost of fighting the effects of global warming, poorer nations could not. The report concludes that measures need to be taken to stave off a long-term environmental disaster and an international crisis.
If global warming intensifies, New Hampshire could watch jobs and industry disintegrate as fast as its shoreline. Who would be hired to operate ski lifts at Loon Mountain if there are patches of grass where there should be snow? How safe is tourism-New Hampshire's second-largest industry-if it is unsafe to breathe the air in the White Mountains?
The fishing industry also would suffer. Brook trout and other coldwater fish can reproduce only in certain temperatures. If the air and the water are too warm, they won't survive.
Global warming also melts glaciers, and raises the level of water in the ocean. That threatens drinking water.
"If the oceans rise," Pendlebury said, "the entire drinking-water supply of the seacoast region is threatened."
Insurance companies, which offer coverage for homes and businesses on the coast, acknowledge the global warming problem as a "very real threat." The international firm Munich Reinsurance published a report on its Web site in January estimating that by 2050, the countries of the world will collectively have to spend $300 billion a year to stave off damages to seacoasts and shorelines caused by global warming.
The Bush administration's Clear Skies proposal targets three of the most dangerous pollutants: emissions from electric power plants of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and mercury. But it includes no provisions for curbing a fourth pollution, carbon dioxide.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reports on its Web site that by 2018, Clear Skies would reduce sulfur dioxide emissions by 73 percent, nitrogen oxide emissions by 67 percent and mercury emissions by 69 percent from 2000 levels.
The proposal, the EPA said, also would "reduce nitrogen loads to the Chesapeake Bay and other waters along the East and Gulf coasts, help lakes, streams and forests recover from acid rain damage and reduce mercury in the environment."
Clear Skies, according to the administration, would provide the smoothest possible transition for power plants to meet emissions regulations without breaking the bank. The program employs a "cap and trade" system that would set specific limits on allowable levels of emissions while permitting polluters to purchase credits from other power plants that have met emissions-reduction requirements.
"This country should be very proud of the progress we have made in cleaning up our air," EPA administrator Christie Whitman testified to a Senate subcommittee April 8. "Clear Skies is the most important next step we can take to address all challenges and achieve a clean environment for all Americans."
But several lawmakers, environmentalists and advocacy groups have lambasted the Clear Skies legislation, saying the plan is fundamentally flawed because it ignores carbon dioxide, which many consider the most significant contributor to global warming. They also say that the bill's "loose" regulations - permitting power plants to trade credits -- would allow the nation's oldest and dirtiest power plants to remain dirty.
Both of New Hampshire's senators, Judd Gregg and John Sununu, have uncharacteristically broken with the GOP over Clear Skies. Gregg has pushed counter-legislation that would maintain the cap-and-trade approach while adding carbon dioxide to the regulatory plan.
Gregg's Clean Air Planning Act of 2003 builds upon a program already active in New Hampshire that requires reductions on pollutants. It also calls on the EPA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to provide specific and accurate local air-quality forecasts.
"Legislation that sets unrealistic limits on energy production or that fails to bring about noticeable change in air pollution is both ineffective and serves to only amplify the problem," Gregg said in a statement.
Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Jim Jeffords (I-Vt.) have proposed another bill, the Clean Power Act, which has more stringent regulations. Collins said Clear Skies does "too little" and "leaves too much to chance."
"Maine is tired of being at the end of the exhaust pipe," Collins said in a February press conference. She reiterated her opposition to Clear Skies in a recent interview, saying that ignoring carbon dioxide would be a "fatal error" and that any environmental plan that becomes law needs to be detailed and comprehensive.
"This [legislation] sends a powerful message to those who would pollute our air: your days are numbered," Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) said in a statement. Snowe backs the Collins-Jeffords plan, and she has said that while Clear Skies is a step in the right direction, it would not go far enough, especially in New England.
Environmentalists have lauded the alternatives to Bush's Clear Skies proposal.
"Holding our breath is not the solution to reducing carbon dioxide emissions, much to the chagrin of the Bush administration," Pendlebury said. "Study after government-funded study confirm the fact that climate change is occurring more swiftly than previously thought, with some of the worst impacts expected to affect the Northeast."
The Clear Skies initiative," she said, "promises to deliver anything but clear skies to New Hampshire. The name alone diminishes the intelligence of the American public."
Other environmental groups, such as the Sierra Club and the National Environmental Trust, have taken the EPA and administrator Whitman to task for supporting the Clear Skies plan.
In defense of the proposal, Robert Varney, a regional administrator for the EPA's New England office, wrote in an opinion piece in April 10 Foster's Daily Democrat that Clear Skies offered the best way to reduce the power plant emissions that contribute to global warming.
"No legislative proposal on the environment will please everyone," he wrote. "Some believe Clear Skies goes too far; others believe it does not go far enough. Honest debate, negotiation and compromise are part of the legislative process. At the same time, we must be careful to avoid gridlock in Congress."
Environmental issues remain hotly contested in Congress, and many lawmakers and experts on the topic say one hurdle is reminding the American public that global warming is real and growing worse every year.
"But there are actually a lot of good things happening," according to Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change in Washington. In a recent press conference in Wisconsin, she lauded bipartisan efforts in Congress and the initiatives taken by some states, including New Hampshire, to combat the negative effects of global warming.
Claussen said a "second industrial revolution" is needed, with 21st century technology used to create a climate-friendly energy and environmental future for the United States.
"The idea is to think ahead to where we need to be 50 years from now if we're going to meet the challenge of climate change, and then figure out decade by decade how to do it," she said. "The overwhelming consensus is that to be most effective, action against climate change has to begin right now."
The immediate action needed, environmentalists say, is for the administration to attack the problems of global warming and environmental pollution head on and for Congress to agree on a plan that is thorough, far-reaching and realistic.
"People come to [New Hampshire] because it's clean, they come because it's healthy, they come to enjoy the outdoors and because New Hampshire has such a diverse geography," Pendlebury said. "You can hike, you can fish, you can go to the beach, you can find yourself at a cultural, commercial epicenter like Portsmouth or Manchester. [Global warming] is a serious environmental threat that's coming from all sides. The time to act is now so we don't pay dearly later."
Published in Foster's Daily Democrat, in New Hampshire.
Educators in Maine Worry that Children Will Get Left Behind After All
WASHINGTON – The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001- President Bush's sweeping education reform initiative - was supposed to revolutionize the nation's education system by raising standards, testing more students and offering parents better options. But many Maine educators say pieces are missing, out of place or just plain wrong.
While educators in Waterville and Augusta - like many of their counterparts across the country - support the law's fundamental principles, they say the Bush administration hasn't provided enough money or flexibility to ensure its success.
"The expenses that we're incurring are extraordinary," said Jean Gulliver, the president of the Maine Board of Education. "And they're not being funded."
Principals and superintendents in Maine, which already used rigorous testing, say their students were thriving before the federal law took effect. The No Child Left Behind Act, they said, has too many tests, too many across-the-board requirements and too little money.
Some high-ranking Maine educators go so far as to suggest none of the state's schools will be able to meet the new federal standards. Waterville School Superintendent Eric Healy and Maine Education Association President Rob Walker said they were concerned the law was so unforgiving that it ultimately would label every Maine school as "failing."
SHOW US THE MONEY
Teachers, principals, superintendents and other education advocates in Maine say many of the new regulations are "unfunded mandates." In other words, they say, the federal government is telling schools what to do but not giving them the money to do it.
"I think the restrictions of the law were made by people who don't know one damn thing about education," said Barbara Jordan, curriculum coordinator of the Augusta School District. "They've never been in a classroom, they don't know what's going on - they make these laws and these regulations and then we have to implement them. And without the money to do so."
Schools need more money to help teachers meet new certification standards that require them to be "highly qualified," Jordan said. They also need financial help to set up database management systems that will monitor the yearly progress of each child who passes through a school's door, according to Gulliver. And there is a severe lack of money for special education, Healy added.
Officials at the U.S. Department of Education acknowledge they have heard many complaints about money from educators on the local and state levels. And spokeswoman Melinda Malico said the president has responded by significantly increasing what he has asked Congress to spend on education.
Malico said, for instance, that Bush requested $2.8 billion more for fiscal 2004, which starts Oct. 1, than he did for 2003. But Congress added exactly that amount to Bush's 2003 request. As a result, the president's proposal to spend $53.1 billion on discretionary education programs - those for which set dollar amounts are not mandated by law - is only $26 million more for 2004 than Congress appropriated for the current fiscal year.
Even in fiscal 2003 - the first full year after Bush signed the No Child Left Behind legislation into law - he requested a budget hike of only $400 million, an increase of less than 1 percent.
Bush's budget proposal for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1 would give Maine schools $417,474,428, an increase of $10.1 million from fiscal 2003.
A large portion of the education budget goes to Title I reading and math programs aimed at bolstering low-income and low-performing students.
Federal special-education money is distributed under the Individuals with Disabilities Act, which, like the No Child Left Behind Act, emphasizes accountability and assessment, said Education Department spokesman Jim Bradshaw.
When IDEA was first enacted in 1975, Congress told states and cities that the federal government would pay 40 percent of all special-education costs. The 2004 budget request is for 19 percent of the national average of per-pupil expenditures - less than half of what was promised.
But Bradshaw said 19 percent is a higher percentage than any other president has requested for special education.
The Education Department estimated that $45.9 million in special-education grants would go to Maine in 2004. According to the Maine Department of Education, state special education expenditures were more than $218 million in 2001 and were increasing by about eight percent a year.
These figures indicate that the federal government will be paying about 20 percent of Maine's special-education costs in 2004.
Educators say the process of getting the money is almost as frustrating as the lack of money itself. Grant applications for Title I funds can be 40 or 50 pages long, said Jordan, who fills them out for the Augusta school district. In addition, the grant applications have to show that districts are complying with stricter standards - making it harder, in some cases, for schools to get money.
When applying for professional development grants, for example, Jordan has to make sure that teachers fulfill certification requirements. One of the new federal standards requires middle-school teachers to be certified in specific subject areas. In Augusta, where middle-school teachers are certified as "team teachers" who don't have a specialty, this regulation may mean less money.
"It's a bureaucratic nightmare," Jordan said. "I want to concentrate on helping teachers teach better - I don't want to concentrate on this other stuff. But I don't really have a choice. I have to."
Educators are placing too much emphasis on money, said Frederick Hess, an education expert at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. If money isn't reaching the schools, he said, it is because it's being spent ineffectively by state governments or local school districts.
"The fact is, the change doesn't always cost more money," he said. "The change only costs more money if people are unwilling to let go of existing practices."
Maine's Department of Education was quick to counter that. State education officials make every effort to spend the money they are given "as judiciously and effectively as we can," said Jacqueline Soychack, the department's federal programs administrator.
TESTING: THE LIMITS
No Child Left Behind requires that every school in the nation administer yearly exams in grades 3 through 8. By the fall of 2004, every child's progress will be tracked in district-wide databases. Results will be given to state officials, who will report to the federal government. Schools and teachers with too many students who fail the tests will be given a year to bring more scores up.
Schools that consistently report low test scores will be required to give students extra help by providing tutors and after-school classes. Parents of students in "failing schools" will be given the option of transferring their children to better schools. The purpose, according to Malico, is to make sure "no children fall through the cracks."
Teachers need all the help they can get to make sure they achieve the goals laid out for them by No Child Left Behind, said Walker of the Maine Education Association. Walker said he is worried that creativity in the classroom will be lost if teachers begin "teaching toward a test."
Many educators expressed concerns that students will spend an inordinate amount of time preparing for the tests. "The testing is taking away from teaching time," Walker said.
"Just because we assess kids more doesn't mean they're going to learn more," said Waterville superintendent Healy.
"We're assessing kids out the ying-yang," added Augusta's Jordan.
They argue that in a state such as Maine - where students consistently score in the top levels on national reading, math and science tests - the assessment, accountability and certification standards are too rigid. Maine's Learning Results - the set of statewide standards designed in 1996 to ensure that students learn fundamental skills - is succeeding, Healy and others said.
Learning Results measures achievements by using state and local indicators. The state gives the Maine Educational Assessment tests in grades 4, 8 and 11, and uses scores from those tests to illustrate the strengths and weaknesses of schools and districts. Local schools are also encouraged to consider students' overall achievements in assessing their progress.
"Why would you want to destroy that?" Healy asked. He and many other Maine educators said they feared enforcement of No Child Left Behind would gradually weaken the standards and measures already set in place by Learning Results.
Maine's existing practice of using assessments to identify and target weak schools or curriculum areas is very similar to the one required by the No Child Left Behind Act, said Scott Phair, principal of Waterville High School. But though the programs are similar, Phair said, the methods of assessment differed.
Many educators said they considered the state's system more fair.
"Maine made a determination many years ago that when we wanted to test our kids we would use what we call multiple measures, which is simply a variety of ways to test children to determine what they actually know," he said. "With No Child Left Behind, the way it's being played out in most states really has to do with every student sitting for an annual test. And that test is not of multiple measures at all - it's one single measure."
But while Phair, along with many of his colleagues, sees potential problems in coordinating the state and national education plans, he doesn't think increased assessment will necessarily mean that kids will be learning less. Instead, assessments will help teachers pinpoint skills they need to improve, he said.
That is precisely the rationale behind the act, said the Education Department's Malico. "We don't see the negatives of teaching to a test as long as you're deciding what you want your kids to know and teaching them that content," she said.
Increased testing also will focus public attention on the actual successes - and failures - of the schools and of the students themselves, Malico said. It also will help schools identify and address the educational needs of students who are not making progress, she said.
To track each student's yearly progress, every school is expected to install the data-management system that state Board of Education President Gulliver said was an unfunded mandate. Jordan estimated such a system would cost the Augusta School District about $60,000.
MIXED HORIZONS
By Jan. 31, each state was required to submit a plan to the U.S. Department of Education outlining how it would meet the requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act. The Maine Department of Education submitted Learning Results, with slight changes to fit the federal regulations.
On Feb. 27, five federal officials traveled to Maine to review the plan with state education officials, Maine's Soychack said. The main objective, she said, was to coordinate the expectations of Learning Results and No Child Left Behind.
Malico said the Education Department has not yet approved Maine's plan - only five states have been approved so far. But Soychack said she is optimistic.
"When we take a position, we defend it and we document it," she said, referring to Maine's high showing on national exams. "Our record of success nationally in comparison to other states… is compelling."
While the state waits to hear about the plan, Maine's congressional delegation is also fighting for more funds and more flexibility. While there are varying degrees of support for the act itself, there is bipartisan agreement among Maine's members that the state should have more money and more autonomy.
"What we feared might happen has really happened," said Democratic Rep. Thomas Allen. "The [Education] Department's being inflexible - this is a one-size-fits-all federal policy being imposed on the state without adequate funding."
Allen estimated the shortfall at about $10 billion a year. Earlier this year, he proposed a budget amendment that would have cut $100 billion from Bush's proposed $726-billion tax cut, in return for full funding of the No Child Left Behind Act for 10 years. The amendment was defeated, but Allen, along with fellow Democratic Rep. Michael Michaud, are continuing to press for more money.
Republican Sen. Susan Collins, who served on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee in 2001, was one of four senators who rounded up votes for the bill when it reached the Senate floor.
"During this debate, she led the fight for full funding of special education - IDEA - over six years," Collins' press secretary Megan Sowards said in an e-mail. "And she pushed for increased funding for Title I money. Although these provisions were not included in the bill, she solidified support for them in the Senate on a bipartisan basis and continues to work toward these goals."
Collins and senior Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe are both members of the Main Street Republican Partnership, an organization of moderate Republicans. The group has said it is committed to the "protection and delivery of education reform as promised to both parents and children by Main Street moderates, the president and Congress."
Snowe and Collins applauded the increase in federal education funds but said there was still a way to go.
Snowe is concerned that the federal government has not provided states with enough money to comply with the law, said spokeswoman Elizabeth Wenk. She said Snowe is working to ensure the federal government fulfills its promise to pay for 40 percent of special-education programs.
Whether or not the state's plan gets approved, Healy said, his focus will remain on cultivating what he described as the best thing about the school district - the staff. The educators have "tremendous conversations," he said, and want to educate students in the best way possible.
"I'm putting my energy and my efforts where they can do good for the students," he said. "I find nothing in the No Child Left Behind Act that is going to better the education of the kids in Waterville."
Published in The Kennebec Journal and The Morning Sentinel, in Maine.
Fuel Cells Begin to Play Major Role in State, Country
By Bill Yelenak
WASHINGTON – As the war in Iraq continues to highlight the United States' dependence on foreign oil, many scientists are turning their attention to something discovered 164 years ago: fuel cells powered by hydrogen.
The potent cells already power a New York City police station and a skyscraper. They have been placed in buses. They have gone to the moon.
The cells, said U.S. Rep. John Larson (D-1), "hold the greatest potential and the greatest opportunity for us both to embrace the most abundant element in the universe in hydrogen and also to wean ourselves off of our near-addiction to petroleum."
Fuel cells produce electricity by creating a chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen. Cars powered by fuel cells would emit only water vapor.
United Technologies Corporation Fuel Cells, of South Windsor, the leading fuel cell manufacturer in the United States, makes the PC25 fuel cell power plant, which converts natural gas and other fuels into hydrogen before they enter the fuel cell, according to UTC spokesman Peter Dalpe.
Larson, who has proposed legislation that would step up research on fuel cells and hydrogen gas, said the United States produces far less oil than it uses. The U.S. Department of Energy reported that in 2001, the United States consumed 26 percent of the world's oil and produced only 9 percent.
President George W. Bush's proposal to drill for oil on protected land in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska wouldn't change that equation, said Larson, who opposes the Alaskan drilling.
Despite his support for drilling in ANWR, Bush also is pushing to increase research into fuel cells. Bush has proposed spending $720 million in new money over the next five years to conduct research on hydrogen fuel cells.
Although fuel cells were invented in 1839, they did not have a practical application until the Apollo space missions of the 1960s. It wasn't until the mid-1990s - after the Gulf War -- that the automotive industry really began looking into the technology.
TO THE MOON AND BACK
UTC, a power company, began working with fuel cells in the 1960s, when it figured out how to send them into space on the Apollo missions, according to Dalpe. He credited fuel cells with making possible the first moon landing in 1969, explaining that they helped power the Apollo XI spacecraft as it exited and re-entered the Earth's atmosphere.
"We started with the space missions, and the reason the space missions needed a fuel cell was they needed to provide electrical power on-board the spacecraft," Dalpe said. "You need to do that as you're going through the atmosphere and as you're coming back."
Dalpe said it would have been impossible to reach the moon at the time using batteries, the existing technology, because they are too large and heavy.
"We wouldn't have made it up to the moon without fuel cells," Dalpe said. "And of course, you're sending up hydrogen and oxygen with this thing, so hey - what better to run it off of?"
The Apollo missions, Dalpe said, were "where the fuel cell industry started."
DOWN TO EARTH
Despite the fuel cell's success in space, it wasn't until the 1990s that major advances were made.
Companies such as UTC and the Canadian-based Ballard Power Systems had researched the fuel cells and were ready to put them on fleet-based vehicles, such as buses, to eliminate those vehicles' reliance on gasoline.
SunLine Transit Agency, a California-based bus company, originally considered putting fuel cells on buses in 1992. But it discovered that with the immense size of the fuel cells, placing them in a stack on a vehicle would take up "36 seats of a 40-seat bus," according to Bill Clapper, the executive director of the SunLine Services Group, which operates the bus company.
However, in August 1992, the company turned instead to compressed natural gas, which, it concluded, was cost-effective and environmentally sound.
SunLine has continued to test the newer fuel-cell technology, Clapper said. For 13 months beginning in 2000, the company tested one fuel-cell powered bus for a private shuttle service. SunLine was able to use it on buses after fuel cell companies discovered advancements allowing fuel cell stacks to be as small as 1 foot wide and 3 feet long.
Each fuel cell is about the size of a license plate and with the current design for cars and buses, there are about 250 of them in a stack. That entire stack, Dalpe said, can fit under the back seat.
More recently, SunLine tested a hybrid bus, running off of a battery and a UTC fuel cell stack, on one of its regular routes. The six-month demonstration was halted when the bus needed routine maintenance. But, clearly, it was popular with riders.
"We started getting calls into our customer service line wanting to know when the fuel-cell bus was going to be back online because they liked its quietness," Clapper said.
Clapper said he thought the fuel cell stacks would become prevalent in buses, which operate in fleets, before they would in cars. People who drive cars would have more difficulty finding hydrogen stations to refuel, he explained.
While the bus was a short-term success, Clapper said the technology needed to be improved before it could be used all the time. One problem is each cell's duration, he said.
Clapper said SunLine runs each of its buses about 6,900 hours a year. Since the current life of a fuel cell is just 4,000 hours, each stack would have to be replaced nearly twice a year, he said.
"The reliability and the durability are the issues in the transportation mode," Clapper said. "It's much easier in a stationary mode for fuel cells, because you don't have the shake, rattle and roll environment that affects all the vehicles out there."
STAYING STILL, BUT MOVING FORWARD
Looming 48 stories over Times Square, the Conde Nast building boasts a stationary fuel cell. Fuel cells also are used to power several of New York City's wastewater treatment plants and a police station in Central Park.
Dalpe, the UTC spokesman, said it would have cost the city $1.3 million to rip up part of the park to install electrical equipment to power the police station. Instead, the police department bought one of UTC's PC25s - at the going rate of $900,000 - and now the entire station runs free of the city's power grid.
"If the lights go off in the city, they don't go off in this police station," Dalpe said. "Here you are, right in the middle of our largest city, this real application of a fuel cell."
At the Conde Nast building, two of UTC's units - which are the size of a small truck - add to the power flowing into the building from the city's electrical grid. They also produce a significant amount of heat.
The Connecticut Juvenile Training School, a correctional school for teens, has the largest fuel cell installation in the world.
If the entire town of Middletown goes dark during a power outage, the lights, video surveillance cameras and security stations of the training school will keep on working. Six 200-kilowatt fuel cells, which work along with the electric grid and other generators, provide the facility with 1.2-megawatts of power.
However, it will be trumped next year by a 1.4-megawatt system being placed in Long Island for telephone company Verizon. The seven 200-kilowatt fuel cells will work with each other to give power to a call-routing center that gives local phone service to approximately 40,000 customers. Verizon will use generators, batteries and the electrical grid to back up the fuel cells.
PC25s have also been used in high schools, including South Windsor High School. The school added a fuel cell to its existing power system, according to Al Mothersele, chairman of the applied technology department.
Mothersele said the device made sense because "it would provide power in the event of an emergency, like a blizzard or something like that."
He added that the school now uses about half of the electric power that it used before, significantly reducing its draw off the power grid.
The fuel-cell system has not been fully tested, since the school has not had a power outage since it was installed last October, Mothersele said. But it could provide an important safety net because the high school serves as a regional emergency shelter, he said.
"It's really a seamless technology," Mothersele said. "It's just out there doing its thing, and we reap the benefits."
DRIVING AROUND TOWN
The big new test for fuel cells will take place in cars.
The first fuel cell vehicle to be certified as a zero emissions vehicle (ZEV) by both the Environmental Protection Agency and the California Air Resources Board is the Honda FCX, powered by fuel cells produced by Ballard, based in British Columbia.
There is only one on the road. And behind the wheel is Brian Williams, Los Angeles' deputy mayor for transportation. Williams said the FCX is very much like a regular gasoline-powered car.
"Other than the fact that it is probably the most environmentally sound vehicle anyone is driving, there isn't a whole lot of difference," Williams said.
Other car companies are rushing to compete with Honda. Dalpe said UTC is working with BMW, Hyundai and Nissan to provide various forms of fuel-cell technology for their cars. He said BMW wants to install a hydrogen combustion engine to power its car and use a fuel cell to power the electrical instruments.
"They put a 5-kilowatt fuel cell in the trunk," Dalpe said. "All the gizmos of modern BMW Series 7 vehicles run off the fuel cell. You can have the engine off with everything on."
Nissan has developed the X-TRAIL, which uses both a fuel cell stack and a battery, and is licensing UTC's patent on the fuel cell technology.
WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS
Rep. Larson is optimistic that fuel cells soon will help the United States reduce its reliance on oil.
"I think that this is doable within a ten-year period," he said. "It will take Americans stepping up, but imagine the amount of money that will flow into Wall Street if all of a sudden municipalities and states are requesting of General Motors and others that they want vehicles that are powered by fuel cells."
Dalpe agreed, saying the technology could make cars powered by fuel cells available to buyers in seven to 12 years.
Andy Boyd, a spokesman for Honda, said the FCX is still in testing, and its ultimate price is uncertain.
"It's all new technology, it's all mass produced. Any time you're in that stage of technological development, cost has to be very high," Boyd said. "We're optimistic that, over time, those costs can come down."
While Dalpe and Larson were hopeful the fuel cell cars could be on the market in the next few years, others, such as Clapper of the SunLine bus company, said placing the cells into vehicles might not be a viable method of power for some time. He said there needed to be more improvements to make fuel cells a good economic choice for large fleets.
Christopher Phelps, an advocate for the Connecticut Public Interest Research Group (ConnPIRG), said there were other roadblocks. He said he is concerned about how hydrogen is refined. If it is obtained from fossil fuels, it would create pollution, Phelps said.
However, he said there were plenty of other ways to refine the world's most abundant gas than getting it from fossil fuels. Using solar or wind power to generate hydrogen, he said, would make fuel cells the most environmentally friendly way of powering cars or buildings.
Fuel cells will undergo years of testing before they become commonplace. But Los Angeles' Williams said he's eagerly awaiting the day the technology o reaches its full potential and believed hydrogen-powered cars would create a new way of life.
"There's been a huge investment by both private and governmental entities toward this new technology," Williams said. "I really do think this car is at the cusp of the revolution in our automotive industry and in our power industry right now."
"Personally, I intend to buy one once I can get one that's a little bigger for me and my family," he said. "I'd absolutely be in the front of the line, ready to purchase one."
Bill Yelenak, a Boston University student, works at the Boston University Washington News Service in Washington, D.C. His telephone number is 202-756-2860 ext: 114 and his email is byelenak@newbritainherald.com.
Published in The New Britain Herald, in Connecticut.
Autism Growing, But Causes Are In Dispute
By Scott Brooks
WASHINGTON - Jareb and Avery Lopez are identical twins. They are six years old, with dark hair and brown eyes. They also are autistic.
Their mother, Sherry Amaral, says her sons were not born that way.
Ms. Amaral, of New Bedford, said she believes the twins were poisoned during infancy, when doctors administered their required vaccine shots.
Those shots, she says, put her children on a crippling path, where language skills that they had started to develop suddenly vanished and everyday stresses caused them to vomit and shriek.
Ms. Amaral is one of many parents across the nation who blame vaccines, particularly those containing mercury, for a startling increase in autism among children. Though there is some disagreement, most scientific studies have not found a link between vaccines and autism.
Doctors have not, however, provided Ms. Amaral with an explanation for her sons' condition.
"I have a hard time understanding it," she said. "How can they develop normally, then all of a sudden start to regress?"
Since doctors diagnosed her sons almost three years ago, Ms. Amaral has waited for the day when someone would compensate her family. Until now, that has been impossible.
A federal program that compensates people who have been injured by vaccines has been closed to Ms. Amaral and her sons. To be eligible for compensation, the family would have had to file a claim with the program within three years of the boys' vaccinations. Ms. Amaral, who did not learn about allegations that vaccines might cause autism until years after her sons' diagnoses, was six months too late.
However, after a tortuous path through Congress, a bill that is now gaining momentum aims to make drastic changes to the program. The legislation would give Ms. Amaral a chance to file for compensation, but, advocates for autistic children warn, at a price.
The bill would protect some pharmaceutical companies from hundreds of lawsuits that have been filed against them nationwide. Parents no longer would be able to sue the companies, but instead would file for compensation from the federal government.
But the government wouldn't necessarily agree to pay the families. That would come down to whether parents such as Ms. Amaral can prove a link between vaccines and autism.
The bill's supporters - led by Senate Majority Leader and licensed surgeon Bill Frist of Tennessee - say no such link exists. Much of the medical community agrees.
At the center of the dispute is thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative that until recently was prevalent in several mandatory childhood vaccines. Ms. Amaral said her sons were exposed to an excessive dose of thimerosal when they received hepatitis-B vaccines and other shots.
Around the time the boys were celebrating their first birthday, they were inoculated against measles, mumps and rubella. Although that shot, which combines three vaccines into one, did not contain thimerosal, some parents suspect it can produce adverse reactions in certain kids.
Ms. Amaral said she can see the changes in her family's home videos. On tape, she said, the boys appear to be reaching all of the typical childhood milestones. They have a short list of words they can pronounce with total clarity: mama, papa, ball, cup. They can call out to their aunt in Portuguese, the language of Ms. Amaral's family. Today, they can't do any of those things.
Pediatricians were slow to recognize the severity of the boys' illnesses, Ms. Amaral said. When Jareb and Avery were diagnosed around age 3, she said, she started doing research but couldn't find a suitable explanation for what had happened.
One day, Ms. Amaral saw a magazine story on thimerosal. Suddenly, she said, it made sense.
An Autism Epidemic
In Massachusetts, the autism rate has shown a steady increase in the past two decades. In 2001, the state reported 92 cases of autism among teenagers born in 1985. That compares to 193 cases among children born in 1990 and a statewide high of 318 cases among children born just two years after that. National studies show a similar trend and, though estimates vary, most suggest that autism rates have jumped significantly in the last decade.
But scientists are unclear on just what caused the spike. Perhaps doctors have gotten better at diagnosing less severe cases, spotting them earlier and more often. Or maybe the criteria for positive diagnoses have expanded.
Fairhaven nurse Pam Ferro, whose 11-year-old son is autistic, insists vaccine poisoning is to blame.
Ms. Ferro, who directs an autism program at Hopewell Associates in Mattapoisett, said she has observed a distinct increase in autism rates in the SouthCoast. The autism treatment center, which she co-founded, recently held a conference in Fall River for families with autistic children. Without much advertising, she said, the event drew 150 parents.
Ms. Ferro said some areas of Massachusetts, such as the old industrial districts of Fall River, are especially toxic. If a child is genetically predisposed to getting sick, pollution can increase their chances of being diagnosed with autism, she said.
Fish, too -- a staple of the SouthCoast economy -- are known to contain mercury, and pregnant women are sometimes advised to avoid eating certain types.
"It's some genetics that play a role, but kids are getting a huge environmental insult," Ms. Ferro said.
But Ms. Ferro, like other parents, is still looking for research to back her claim that thimerosal is directly responsible for increased autism rates. The Institute of Medicine, a private medical research organization, looked into the matter two years ago and found only that it was "biologically plausible." The researchers concluded there was insufficient evidence to accept or reject the theory.
Leading advocates for autistic children tend to point to a recent study, led by Dr. Mark Geier, a Maryland geneticist, which reported a link between thimerosal and autism.
Many scientists, however, say the study was unconvincing. They charge that Dr. Geier has a conflict of interest because he has testified on behalf of plaintiffs in various vaccine injury cases.
Dr. Geier is resolute in assigning guilt to vaccine companies. In a recent interview, he said the autism cases make AIDS, as well as the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, "look like a joke," and called the issue "the greatest catastrophe in the history of the world."
Critics note that so-called mainstream medical journals have shunned the Geier study.
"Try to find it," challenged Dr. Karin Nelson, a neurologist at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Dr. Nelson is the co-author of a competing study released earlier this year that found no evidence of a link between thimerosal and autism.
Without much else to go on, many autism groups chide the federal government for being reluctant to fund new investigations. Some go so far as to say that the government, along with drug companies, is fearful of what researchers might find. If, in fact, a link is discovered, the costs to both could be extraordinary.
Cambridge businessman and autism activist Mark Blaxill, the father of an autistic 7-year-old, said he believes respectable scientists have been discouraged from pursuing the matter.
"If this is true, this is a massive blunder, and it calls into question the entire governance process of the childhood immunization program," he said. "It would mean hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of children have been harmed by government policy. This is not a comfortable theory."
Dr. Nelson, however, said it isn't like that. She said the government is interested in other areas of research, where federal dollars and personnel can be put to better use.
"It's a matter of priority," she said. "There's a lot of important research to do. I think this hasn't been thought sufficiently plausible to pursue."
Washington Weighs In
Talk in Washington about the controversy has centered on one question: How, if at all, are families to be compensated?
Claims against vaccine makers typically go through the federal Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, which Congress created in 1986 to absorb legal costs that might otherwise have sunk the industry.
But Congress failed to account for a loophole in the law, which allowed lawyers to file lawsuits against companies that manufacture the components of the vaccines but not the vaccines themselves. Thimerosal is one such component.
Lawsuits are also being filed against companies that make neither the vaccines nor the vaccine components. In the last few years, hundreds of lawsuits have been brought against Eli Lilly, a pharmaceutical company that, spokesman Ed Sagebiel said, has been out of the vaccine business for more than 25 years. The company was the first to use thimerosal in its vaccines, beginning in the 1930s.
Congressional Republicans - who received three-quarters of all pharmaceutical companies' campaign contributions over the past two years -- say the lawsuits are a serious threat to the manufacture of vaccines. If pharmaceutical companies are held liable for multimillion-dollar jury awards, they will stop making vaccines altogether, the Congress members contend.
At the end of the legislative session last fall, Republicans slipped vaccine industry protections into the high-profile Homeland Security bill.
By the time advocates for autistic children discovered the provision, it had passed Congress. President Bush signed the bill. But earlier this year, opponents succeeded in getting the measure removed, a quick turnaround that rarely happens on Capitol Hill.
The new legislation, sponsored by Sen. Frist, would steer families of autistic children away from the courts and into the federal compensation program. The government would decide whether and how to award parents for their children's injuries.
Unlike last year's measure, however, this one would open the program to Ms. Amaral and other parents who missed the deadline for bringing a case. The change could be crucial for Ms. Amaral, who worries that the cost of caring for her sons is more than her family will be able to handle.
There are the family's grocery bills, for one. Because her children's stomachs are particularly weak, everything Ms. Amaral buys has to be organic. She makes most of her meals from scratch.
There also are specially ordered supplements, as well as therapeutic devices, including a trampoline.
And, of course, there are medical bills. The boys have seen several allergists, and the family has gotten used to the constant need for new tests. Ms. Amaral said regular testing rarely proves accurate, so she takes the boys in regularly for specialized tests, which her health insurance does not cover.
There seems to be no end to the costs, she said. Ms. Amaral, who lives with her sons and boyfriend, works part time for the Nemasket Group, a Fairhaven nonprofit providing support to mentally challenged adults.
"Even if, let's say, a miracle happens -- they start talking, or however you define a miracle -- I envision they will need help for the rest of their lives," she said.
Ms. Amaral is not confident she will ever see compensation. Under the Frist bill, how much money, if any, parents receive would be up to the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. Without more research to back their claims, many parents are not holding their breath.
"We know we're going to get denied," said Laura Bono, a North Carolina autism activist and mother of an autistic teenager. "What are the chances of my child getting any sort of compensation? It's just very slim."
Vaccinations Continue
In 1999, government health officials recommended that thimerosal be reduced or eliminated in childhood vaccines. No recalls were ordered, but according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the industry agreed to federal recommendations. Today, the CDC reports, all recommended pediatric vaccines being manufactured for use in the United States contain no thimerosal or only trace amounts.
Ms. Bono said the industry should have pulled thimerosal from the market entirely, but she thinks she knows why that didn't happen. If makers stopped selling it, the autism rate would bottom out, a sure sign that thimerosal causes autism, she said.
"I can't prove it," she said. "It's just my belief."
Dr. Geier said thimerosal is still in half of all childhood vaccines on the market. He recommended that parents check the package insert for a vaccine's contents before allowing their children to be immunized. Ms. Ferro offered the same recommendation.
Proponents of the new vaccine bill, however, expressed concern that these warnings, and the autism groups' efforts to publicize their concerns about thimerosal, are creating a panic.
"I am deeply concerned that these unsubstantiated allegations are frightening parents and that some might not get their children immunized on time, which puts children at a much greater risk," said Dr. Louis Cooper, former president of the American Academy of Pediatrics. "That's what scares me.
"I know that today's kids are so much safer because of these vaccines, but they're only safer if they're used."
Autism groups, such as Ms. Ferro's Hopewell Associates, maintain that they are not anti-vaccine. But, Ms. Ferro said it should be the drug companies, not parents, who are responsible for ensuring that vaccines are safe.
"There's enough sick children out there to know that what we're doing right now is not the proper way to vaccinate kids," she said. "I agree if we don't fix the situation, we're probably going to see measles again. We're going to run into a bigger problem with lots of children not being vaccinated. However, until they agree to fix the problem and change the protocol, that's what we're facing."
Published in The New Bedford Standard Times, in Massachusetts.
Kerry Campaign Finds Support In SouthCoast
By Scott Brooks
WASHINGTON - SouthCoast business and political leaders have weighed in early in the presidential campaign cash war, donating almost entirely to home-state hopeful John Kerry.
The Kerry campaign raked in more than $20,000 from SouthCoast residents on its way to a second-place finish in the Democratic field's first-quarter fundraising race. His donors were mostly attorneys and local business executives and included several members of the board overseeing the city's Oceanarium project.
Sixteen residents of New Bedford and surrounding towns and cities gave to Sen. Kerry during the first three months of this year. Among the senator's eight Democratic opponents, only Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont, received any contributions from the SouthCoast, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission.
"Clearly, Kerry is the favorite-son candidate in Massachusetts," said former New Bedford city solicitor George Leontire, who donated $1,000 to the Kerry campaign. "He's the Massachusetts candidate. I'd find it surprising to see it any other way."
Mr. Leontire, who sits on the New Bedford Oceanarium's board of governors, said he gave to the senator before attending a Kerry fundraiser in Boston last month. He attended the fundraiser with New Bedford developer and Oceanarium board chairman William N. Whelan, whose real estate firm, Whelan Associates, hired Mr. Leontire last year.
Mr. Leontire said he supports the Kerry campaign because the senator has been "extremely attentive" to the area and particularly supportive of projects in New Bedford. He pointed to Sen. Kerry's efforts to obtain federal dollars for the reconstruction of Route 18, as well as his support of the fishing industry and schools.
The Oceanarium, he said, had no bearing on his donation. Directors of the Oceanarium are trying to secure $10 million in federal money for the project, which is estimated to cost $135 million. Plans to move ahead with the project hit a snag last month when the Bush administration rejected the board's application for $40 million worth of tax credits.
Mr. Leontire had harsh words for President Bush, who is pressuring Congress to pass a series of tax cuts, as well as for Gov. Mitt Romney, another anti-tax Republican.
"I'm really just upset with the direction of the country," Leontire said. "I'm so fed up between watching the president give away all the money on the federal level and Romney dismantling the economy on the state level. It's just a very sorry time."
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Chancellor Jean MacCormack, who gave $250 to Sen. Kerry, said the senator has long been an advocate for southeastern Massachusetts' interests. Sen. Kerry spends a good deal of time in the area, she said, and he's often willing to speak on campus.
"I think it's not surprising that people would look to him for some leadership and support," she said.
SouthCoast contributions were just a small part of the $1.8 million Sen. Kerry raised in the Bay State. Massachusetts contributed roughly one-quarter of the campaign's $7-million in receipts last quarter.
Outside of the home-state candidate, Mr. Dean drew the most financial support from Massachusetts, taking in nearly $250,000 in the first quarter. Mr. Dean, another New Englander, was head-and-shoulders above the remaining candidates, including Sen. Joe Lieberman, from neighboring Connecticut. Sen. Lieberman, the Democrats' vice presidential nominee in 2000, raised just $44,000 in Massachusetts.
Though none of the money came from the South Coast, Massachusetts residents contributed about $80,000 to Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri. Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, who led all Democratic candidates in fundraising during the first quarter, collected $40,000 in Massachusetts. Sen. Bob Graham of Florida took in $22,000.
Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio received $6,000 from just six Massachusetts donors. Former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois did not receive any contributions from the state. The Rev. Al Sharpton had not released fundraising totals Thursday.
Mr. Dean's SouthCoast support came from one couple: state Rep. Bill Straus, D-Fairhaven, and his wife, Kerry Shortle. The two contributed a total of $1,900 to Mr. Dean, whose brother lives in Massachusetts and is one of the couple's old friends.
"My decision to support Howard Dean is no knock on Kerry," Rep. Straus said. "It's just that I think I've got a better candidate to support. I do it as a positive statement."
In February, Rep. Straus toured the Statehouse with Mr. Dean and discussed his campaign with reporters and lawmakers in a building where Sen. Kerry, the former lieutenant governor, once worked.
Mr. Dean has held several events in Massachusetts since kicking off his campaign, and he has more fundraisers planned, Rep. Straus said.
The candidate has the strong backing of Steve Grossman, a Newton activist who ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2002 and headed the Democratic National Committee. Dean spokeswoman Dorie Clark said Mr. Grossman was key to Mr. Dean's fundraising success in Massachusetts.
Rep. Strauss said he does not expect any of the other Democratic candidates to steal Massachusetts from Sen. Kerry. Still, he said, there is room for Mr. Dean to build a base in the state between now and Massachusetts's March 2 presidential primary.
"You'd have to assume that John Kerry is the heavy favorite to win, but don't be surprised if Howard Dean is there picking up delegates, because people are responding to him," Rep. Straus said.
Clyde Barrow, director of the Center for Policy Analysis at UMass Dartmouth, said he expects Sen. Kerry to continue raising money across the Bay State. He said support for the senator should be particularly strong in the SouthCoast, which he said was predominately Democratic but less liberal than Mr. Dean.
"All things remaining the same, one would anticipate that Kerry would continue to carry the day in this part of the state, and probably in Massachusetts as a whole," Mr. Barrow said.
Published in The New Bedford Standard Times, in Massachusetts.
The Army National Guard
WASHINGTON-- For most of the six decades since World War II, men and women have joined the Army National Guard to pay for school, to learn specialty jobs and to serve their country close to home. With the exception of a few tumultuous events - such as the 1992 Los Angeles riots -- serving in the guard has been relatively safe.
It's not anymore.
In the past few years - in events that culminated with the war in Iraq - the picture has changed. Presidents have called upon members of the Army National Guard more frequently and in larger numbers for peacekeeping missions overseas, and most recently, for war. Being in the Guard nowadays means more than patrolling state airports and keeping rioters at bay.
The threat of danger and the threat of combat are increasing for the country's oldest division of civilian soldiers.
"This isn't your father's National Guard," said Maj. Thomas Maeder, commander of recruitment and retention for the Massachusetts National Guard. "It's not the safe branch of the military anymore."
Not only are members of the Army Guard fighting overseas, they also are on patrol against terrorism in the United States.
And they face a new challenge: How will these soldiers - who have regular jobs most of the year -- uphold their traditional role as a state militia at the same time they are defending the homeland and serving around the globe?
The Pentagon is exploring the question as part of a larger plan to restructure the military's active-duty and reserve forces. By as early as 2005, the soldiers of the Army Guard could find themselves in an entirely different militia with two branches. Some of them would go into a homeland security force and a large group would be trained primarily for mobilization as part of the regular Army.
"One proposal is to have Guard members specifically identified as easily federalized, or long-term federal, and to have others in that more traditional role," said Reginald Saville, spokesman for the National Guard Bureau in Washington. "But that's way down the road."
A modern-day militia
The Army Guard often is considered safer than other branches of the military because of its close ties to states. During peacetime, governors control the force and call on soldiers to help keep order following such emergencies as hurricanes and floods or to keep the peace at protests, such as the anti-war demonstrations held across the country in the past few months.
The Army Guard played a crucial role in the desegregation of schools in the South during the early 1960s, when two state governors - Mississippi's Ross Barnett and George Wallace of Alabama - and mobs of segregationists tried to keep black students from registering for classes at state universities. President John. F. Kennedy sent in the Army National Guard, and the governors backed down. The soldiers of Mississippi and Alabama helped win decisive battles in the civil-rights movement without stepping outside their states.
"You don't have to leave your community to serve your country," Maeder said. "That's the beauty of the National Guard; we're in 3,000 communities across the nation."
But lately, more Army Guard soldiers are saying goodbye to their families and friends and hello to a six-month tour of duty away from home. The recent war with Iraq constitutes the largest mobilization of Army Guard forces since World War II, with 79,198 of its 354,220 soldiers on federal active duty as of April 23.
Capt. Winfield Danielson, public affairs officer for the Massachusetts National Guard, said the large-scale federal mobilization has brought the Army Guard back in sync with its militia heritage. Some soldiers are serving overseas, while others are manning military bases across the country until the regular soldiers return. Some soldiers patrol state airports on homeland security missions, while others go about their lives as mechanics, engineers and salespeople, waiting to see if they will be summoned for duty.
"We've sort of returned to our roots," Danielson said.
While the Army Guard has participated in every major conflict since World War II, its federal responsibilities have increased during the past 12 years. In 1993, President Bill Clinton sent 65 Army Guard soldiers to Somalia to protect famine relief workers from clan violence. He sent thousands more to keep the peace in Bosnia, Kosovo and Haiti in the mid-to-late 90s.
In 1991, President George H.W. Bush mobilized 63,000 Army Guard soldiers to fight in the Persian Gulf War.
"We are a militia nation," said Maeder, who served five years as a marine before joining the Army National Guard in 1980. "We depend upon our citizenry to rise when called upon, and to do it in an orderly fashion."
In Massachusetts, about 20 percent of the Army Guard's 8,000 members are currently on federal active duty. Approximately 1,820 soldiers have been mobilized, Maeder said, and 850 have been sent overseas, mainly to Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait and Pakistan. Soldiers from the 747th Military Police Company, based in Southbridge, are currently stationed at an Afghan National Army training base in Kabul and at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan.
The risk is paramount. Spc. John T. Rivero, a 23-year-old member of the Army Guard from of Tampa, Fla., died on April 18 when his Humvee flipped over in Iraq.
"I don't think you can call any of it safe," Saville said. Members of Army Guard, he said, are not just "weekend warriors."
A new challenge
Because the Pentagon is leaning so heavily on the Army National Guard, military officers such as Maeder worry that state forces may not have enough soldiers to protect the homeland from terrorism. After Sept. 11, 2001, military police patrolled Boston's Logan International Airport Guard soldiers continue to guard facilities that could be potential targets of terrorism, such as nuclear power plants and reservoirs.
"It's a concern we've never had before," Maeder said. "In the past, we've had this cushion of people. There is a concern - it's not alarming - but we're aware of it."
In the meantime, Lt. Col. Bob Stone, spokesman for the reserve affairs office, said states should not be alarmed over the recent wave of Army Guard mobilizations.
"We've only tapped about 20 percent of the (country's) reserve pool," Stone said.
Danielson said the number of Bay State soldiers on federal active duty is not an immediate concern. If terrorists struck, Massachusetts would not be left to cope alone. Army Guard units from other states could help. In the event of a nuclear, biological or chemical weapons attack, the Army Guard also could draw upon its two regional civil support teams in Massachusetts and Maine to help police officers, firefighters and emergency medical technicians.
"We've got about 80 percent of our manpower still here, so we should be able to react to 99.9 percent of all emergencies," Danielson said.
The military has also stepped up homeland security training for its reserve force. Cpl. Stephen Lefebvre of Lawrence said his Army Guard unit, the 1st Battalion of the 102nd Field Artillery, based in Methuen, has received abundant training in homeland security the past two years.
"Training has gone a lot better," he said. "Everybody knows everybody else's job."
Lefebvre, 25, said the Army Guard takes training more seriously now than it did before terrorists attacked the United States.
"Sept. 11 was a real eye-opener for all of us," he said. "Since then, people have taken a lot of homeland security as well as foreign relationships very seriously. People have been more dedicated to what we do. It becomes more tangible. You realize the reasons why you do all of this training. You put a little more into it, you take a little more pride in your work."
One weekend a month, six months in Iraq
While military planners grapple to reshape the National Guard and Reserves for years to come, government officials such as Thomas F. Hall, the assistant secretary of defense for reserve affairs, must deal with another, more pressing, problem: recruitment and retention.
Many teenagers join the reserves, particularly the Army Guard, as a way to earn money to pay for college or to learn a specialty job, such as bridge building. The question now is whether the prospect of going to war will deter prospective volunteers or discourage soldiers from re-enlisting.
Maeder thinks not.
He said the war on terrorism has spurred patriotism among young people and has brought former soldiers back to the Guard's ranks. But Lefebvre said it's possible that the war may hurt enrollment.
"Sometimes people don't know what they're signing up for, or what to expect," he said. "But I want to believe the majority of people know they signed up for a reason."
Maeder said those who volunteer to serve their country know the risks. And for those who are unsure, he has one piece of advice: "If you don't want to go to war, you don't join the military."
"It exists for one reason, and one reason only," he said. "We tell kids that."
Before Lefebvre joined the Army Guard, he spent two years in the regular Army. He was stationed in South Korea for a year. He said he switched to the Army Guard so he could go to school. He recently graduated from the Northeastern Institute of Whole Health in Manchester, N.H., and is looking for a job in massage therapy.
While the full tuition subsidy was the main draw, Lefebvre said it was not the only reason he joined the Army Guard. He wanted to serve his country, and he liked the camaraderie the military provides. For Lefebvre, the one weekend of drill each month is a welcome escape.
"In the civilian world, it's pretty cutthroat, there's not a lot of teamwork," he said. At drill, "I'm with great guys. I go there, and it's a nice break from a regular 9-to-5 job.
"I like being able to accomplish things, getting out and actually doing things," he added. "It's knowing that what you do and what you could do for the country guarantees freedom, and knowing that you are a part of that. It's nice to actually see that kind of thing happen."
Maeder said the perks are attractive, but most people join the Army Guard because they want to serve their country. A recent survey of 17- to 19-year olds in the Massachusetts Army Guard showed that 55 percent of soldiers who enlisted in the past year did so to pay for college. According to Maeder, nearly 80 percent said they volunteered out of patriotism.
And the Massachusetts Army Guard roster is growing. At the end of March, enlistments had increased by about a third over the same month in 2002, he said.
But nationally, enlistments are down. Hall said the Army Guard has missed its recruiting quota for the past three months.
Pentagon recruiting statistics show that the Army Guard fell short of its monthly quota well before the United States dropped the first bomb on Iraq March 17. In the last three months of 2002, the military aimed to recruit 14,664 soldiers for the Army Guard. It missed the mark by 2,107. For that same period, recruitment was down for only one other military branch: the Army Reserves.
Military officials insist the Iraqi war has not caused the drop-off, though they offer no other explanation.
"There is certainly a concern on the part of the Army Guard," Hall said. "They have some challenges ahead. They don't see this as a direct reflection of Iraq or the last two years of our war on terrorism."
Hall noted that the military experienced a two or three-year drop in recruiting and retention after the Gulf War in 1991, but said that it picked up again after that.
"Are we going to see a little dip? We might," Hall said. "But it did come back after the Gulf War, and that is sort of the last model we have to look at."
Hall said Guard leaders told him that enrollment is improving and they expect to meet the quota by the end of the year.
"From what I have seen… they predict they'll be OK," Hall said. "Now, we'll have to see."
Published in The Lawrence Eagle Tribune, in Massachusetts.
Nitrogen, Ozone Levels Up for the Northeast
By Kim Forrest
WASHINGTON--As New Hampshire's ozone levels hit their highest mark for this early in the year in 20 years of readings, a new study showed that increased nitrogen pollution not only is raising the ozone readings but is damaging the state's forests and waterways as well.
On Tuesday, ozone levels were the highest they've been this early in the year during the two decades the state has been monitoring them, according to the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services. The previous earliest date that pollution approached what the state calls "unhealthy levels" was on April 29, 1984. Ozone is a by-product of nitrogen pollution and is accentuated by warm temperatures.
Throughout the state, the ozone levels came very close to exceeding the eight-hour health standard, with the highest levels in Laconia and high levels at the air-monitoring system at Pack Monadnock Mountain, said Jeff Underhill, a state air quality analyst. Last summer was an "unprecedented" ozone year for New Hampshire, with five consecutive days of harmful levels in August, he said.
"This episode is from pure out-of-state transport," Underhill said, pointing the finger at the large East Coast cities of New York, Philadelphia and Boston as well as at the Midwest and the West. Other New England states also experienced high ozone levels.
New Hampshire is one of 10 states challenging new federal regulations that state officials contend would exempt some industries, including coal-fired power plants, from Clean Air Act requirements to reduce emissions.
Underhill said the ozone levels "jump up and jump down." He said the monitoring system has detected levels that exceeded both the one-hour and the eight-hour ozone standards several times in one week. Although ozone levels are heightened by the presence of sunlight - he called ozone a "summertime pollutant" -- the levels will remain high at night if a great deal of pollution is coming from other regions of the country, Underhill said.
"That's often the case in New Hampshire," he said. "We're at the tail end of the exhaust pipe."
Emissions from automobiles and utility plants are the source of the harmful nitrogen pollution analyzed by the Hanover-based Hubbard Brook Research Foundation (HBRF) in a study released Tuesday.
According to Kathy Fallon Lambert, spokeswoman for HBRF, forests and waterways in the Northeast, such as the White Mountains and the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in New Hampshire, are experiencing increased nitrogen levels.
While forests need nitrogen to grow, too much of it can harm the soil, decrease tree growth and produce acidic runoff to water sources. As a result, 15 percent of New England's lakes have become acidic, killing fish and wildlife.
Nitrogen pollution also has contributed to the release of ground-level ozone, which harms plants. It also has exposed about 26 million people in the Northeast to high ozone levels.
According to the HBRF study, 39 percent of nitrogen emissions are from vehicles and 26 percent from utility plants.
Sewage also is causing more pollution, the study reported. It said that as much as 81 percent of the nitrogen pollution in watersheds comes from human sewage, or wastewater. That, in turn, reduces the level of oxygen in the water and kills fish. David Whitall, the study's co-author, said people are contributing to pollution simply by consuming meat and dairy products, which contain nitrogen. He said that while equipment is available to remove nitrogen from wastewater, most treatment plants do not have the technology.
"So a lot of this nitrogen is making it from your kitchen table into the streams and, eventually, the estuaries," Whitall said.
The study also said current public policy is not enough to control the damage.
"We know that the current regulation of the 1990 Clean Air Act is not adequate to bring about recovery from this problem," Lambert said. She added that some legislation in Congress, including a clean-air amendment sponsored by Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH), would reduce emissions.
New Hampshire Attorney General Peter Heed, who read the HBRF study, said it demonstrates that action must be taken to reduce pollution.
"We believe the nitrogen study provides the evidence that we really have to do something to decrease nitrogen emissions blowing into New Hampshire," he said in an interview. "These emissions really continue to hurt the New Hampshire environment. It's going to take decades to recover."
He added that while he recognizes that it might be expensive for power plants to install equipment to reduce emissions, failing to do so would have a negative economic impact on the Granite State.
"Certainly I understand economic arguments about the cost of making improvements to power plants, [but] they pale in comparison to the economic harm to New England states, namely New Hampshire," he said. "We're very dependent on tourism, for maple sugaring…our lakes and rivers are recreational."
Published in The Keene Sentinel, in New Hampshire.
