“The claim made by a national association of black social workers that interracial adoption is cultural genocide is out of step with the vast majority of African Americans and Whites,” says Garth Taylor of the Metro Chicago Information Center in a recent press release on a center survey. That six-county poll found 81 percent of blacks and 94 percent of whites favor interracial adoption. “Most people believe that new born babies should not be held accountable to standards of cultural homogeneity.”
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Another use for money in politics: bribe the voters. The state budget surplus has allowed the General Assembly to spend at least $180 million on what the state comptroller’s newsletter “Fiscal Focus” (July) delicately calls “member projects”–local expenditures used to reward loyal areas and sway swing districts. You may have trouble discerning the statewide significance of a new indoor ice rink for the Elmhurst YMCA, but Republican legislative leaders from Du Page County evidently didn’t. In addition, “the Chicago South Suburbs, considered a make-or-break battleground by both chambers, saw unprecedented member initiative spending with 150 projects totaling approximately $27 million. South Holland, Olympia Fields, South Chicago Heights, and Steger, among others, received grants for new police vehicles through the Department of Commerce and Community Affairs (DCCA). The region also received a bounty of funds for libraries, park districts, and anti-drug DARE programs.”
Would a voucher system favor private schools over public ones? According to F. King Alexander of the University of Illinois, in an article soon to appear in the Journal of Education Finance, it probably would. Private colleges and universities educate 25 percent of students, but they get 35 percent of federal grant funds, 46 percent of state grant funds, and 62 percent of federal loan funds. “If the experience in higher education is a valid indicator,” says Alexander, “then one can expect that voucher plans at lower educational levels will produce only marginal, if any, increases in choice for lower-income students while greatly increasing inequalities between public and private schools.”
