WASHINGTON — Thursday’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling on school vouchers is only the beginning of a broader legal and political debate, according to both opponents and advocates of vouchers.

"This case was not about whether there should be vouchers, but whether there could be vouchers," said Judith French, the former Ohio attorney general who successfully argued before the Supreme Court that Cleveland’s school choice program for low-income students passed constitutional muster.

French participated in one of two panel discussions Friday hosted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

"I believe this decision allows us to experiment with vouchers," French said. "But that’s what it is — an experiment, not a mandate."

In the case, Zelman vs. Simmons-Harris, justices voted 5-4 that Cleveland’s program does not violate the First Amendment’s establishment clause by allowing parents to choose to send their children to private religious schools.

Of the 4,400 low-income Cleveland students receiving vouchers of up to $2,250, 96 percent attend religious schools.

Though the Supreme Court’s decision may settle federal law, state courts could still come down harder on voucher programs, said Elliot Mincberg, co-counsel for voucher opponents in Cleveland and general counsel to People for the American Way, which also opposes vouchers.

"By no means is this the end of the legal road," he said. "The fight with regard to school vouchers has only just begun."

Some states are more restrictive than others on the use of using public funds for religious purposes, said Mark Chopko, general counsel for the pro-vouchers U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. He said 17 states are restrictive, 16 are permissive and 17 are uncertain.

"So you have about a third going in each direction," Chopko said. "This decision does not impact states directly. The ruling sets a constitutional floor, not a ceiling."

The political debate will likely center on whether vouchers take funds from public schools and how to hold private schools accountable to the public. Public schools receive $347 billion at all levels of government.

"This decision is more about the future of the public schools than about the future of the establishment clause," said Marc Egan, director of the Voucher Strategy Center at the National School Boards Association, which opposes school choice.

"With vouchers, there’s no accountability to the public," Egan said. "Vouchers just hand over tax money, no questions asked."

Voucher proponents argue parental choice is what keeps private schools on their toes.

"There is no single test that will determine if a school is successful, just as there’s no single model for a successful education," said William F. Davis, deputy secretary for schools at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. "To say we’re not accountable is ridiculous. We’re accountable to parents every day."

One pro-voucher activist echoed the point.

"The measure of success is not only determined by test scores," said Virginia Walden-Ford, executive director of D.C. Parents for School Choice Inc. "We also want to know that kids are safe, that they’ll graduate and that people in the schools care about them."

Walden-Ford, who is black, sent one of her children to a private school after he repeatedly got into trouble in public school. He graduated from high school with honors and is now in the U.S. Marines. Walden-Ford said she wants other parents, especially low-income blacks in Washington, to have that choice.

"We can’t sit around and wait and sacrifice our kids," she said. "How long can we wait?"

Mincberg rejected that logic.

"Anyone who thinks that vouchers really serve parents is just buying into right-wing propaganda," he said. "Vouchers don’t deal with the real issues the public schools face, like inadequate funding."

The National School Boards Association’s Egan said, "Most public schools in this country are doing just fine. Some are in trouble, but most are just fine."

The political implications of school vouchers are also an open question, according to E.J. Dionne, co-chair of the Pew Forum and a columnist at the Washington Post.

"It will be interesting to see how wide and deep the support for vouchers is in the black community," Dionne said. "If the Republicans can pick up even 10 percent [more] black voters on the voucher issue, that’s a huge plus for them."

Ninety percent of blacks voted for Democrat Al Gore in 2000, with only 9 percent voting for President Bush.
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© 2002, McClatchy/Tribune Information Services

WASHINGTON — Sixteen tons of steel taken from the ruins of the World Trade Center towers sat idly on the back of a flatbed truck Tuesday, held in place by industrial strength cording.

On Sept. 11, the once straight, solid beams eventually gave way to the stress from the collapsing towers. The only menace the twisted metal beams now posed was as a painful reminder of what happened that day.

The steel is traveling across the country as part of a tour to promote "Freedom’s Flame," a proposed memorial to the 71 law enforcement workers who died in the collapse of the twin towers in New York.

The World Trade Center steel was on display across the street from the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Park during a brief midday ceremony in which organizers placed a wreath next to the inscribed names of the officers who died that day.

The organizers, from Southern California, hope to build a memorial in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., that incorporates the steel and later construct a duplicate memorial to be donated to New York City. They estimate construction of the two memorials will take three years and cost $9 million.

"We could have just taken this metal and shipped it on a train back to California, but that’s not the point," said Chuck Williams, director of the project. "The purpose of Freedom’s Flame is to remind people to never, never, never, never forget. We have too much forgetting in this country."

People nationwide saw the terrorist attacks unfold on their television screens, Williams said, "but when they actually see that twisted steel, they understand the power of what the terrorists did on American soil to the people in those buildings."

The design proposed by architect William Lecky, who was involved in the creation of the Vietnam Veterans and Korean War Veterans memorials, has 30 7-foot figures ascending and descending a staircase that wraps around a giant stainless steel flame.

Survivors would be shown rushing down the stairs and leaving the scene, while police officers and firefighters rush up the stairs to help others.

The flame and the base would form a sundial charting each tragic event of Sept. 11, from the time the first plane hit to the time the second tower fell. The time of each event would be carved into the base of the memorial.

The stainless steel used to build the memorial would be cast in gray to mimic the ash and smoke that covered Ground Zero. The steel beams currently touring the county would be used in the memorial’s inner structure.

The memorials would also include a fragment of limestone from the Pentagon and "something from Shanksville," Lecky said, referring to Shanksville, Pa., the crash site of the fourth hijacked plane.

Tuesday was the second day of the 11-day cross-country tour that will wind up in Southern California on Independence Day. A charter bus trailing the flatbed truck carried a message in 5-foot-tall white letters on its sides.

The sign read, "Let’s Roll," words said by Todd Beamer of Cranbury, N.J., who with other passengers challenged the hijackers of the airplane that went down near Shanksville. The nation has embraced those words as an expression of determination.
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© 2002, McClatchy/Tribune Information Services

WASHINGTON — Tiger Woods may have held off Phil Mickelson and Sergio Garcia at Bethpage Black, but he’s no match for Britney Spears.

Woods finished second to the 20-year-old dance-pop sensation in Forbes magazine’s annual ranking of the 100 most powerful celebrities. Twenty-four other athletes made the list, but Michael Jordan is Woods’ only company in the top 10, coming in at No. 9.

Woods also was ranked second last year, finishing behind actor Tom Cruise. Jordan dropped three spots from his No. 6 ranking in 2001.

The rankings are based on earnings, Web hits, press mentions, major magazine cover stories, and TV and radio appearances over the last 12 months. Predictably, money is the biggest factor in the financial magazine’s rankings, but it’s not decisive.

"The power ranking underscores more than just the amount of money a celebrity earns, but the extent to which they capture the public imagination," said Forbes Senior Editor Brett Pulley.

Even though Woods earned $70 million compared to Spears’ paltry $39.2 million, Spears won out by drawing 617,000 more Web hits and gracing seven more magazine covers.

While Woods was edged out in the last round, Pulley sees him topping the list for years to come.

"The amazing thing about Tiger Woods is that he got $62 million this year, but only nine or 10 million of that money came from golf," Pulley said. "At this rate, he’s on track to earn a billion dollars by the time he’s 35."

In addition to a mega-deal with Nike, Woods also locked up endorsement deals with Disney and the Upper Deck trading card company.

"I can’t imagine him going anywhere for a while," Pulley said.

The same may not be said for His Airness, who barely snuck into the top 10 after heading the list in 1999. While Forbes ranks Woods fourth in money earnings, Jordan is listed 28th and he probably would have finished even lower in the overall rankings if not for all the attention garnered by his return to the NBA with the Washington Wizards, Pulley said.

The next highest athlete on the list is Formula One driver Michael Schumacher, who netted $67 million from a two-year deal with Ferrari. Schumacher was at the center of controversy recently when Ferrari ordered another of its drivers to let Schumacher win a race.

Three-time NBA champs Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant come in at Nos. 30 and 31, while Mike Tyson fell from 11th last year to 35th this year. He earned $23 million but most of it went to pay off debts, according to press reports.

Lennox Lewis is ranked three spots behind Tyson in the Forbes power rankings, but he showed his power when he knocked out Tyson on June 8.

Baseball stars Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, Sammy Sosa, Manny Ramirez and Ken Griffey Jr. also made the list, and four other NBA players are included — Kevin Garnett, Grant Hill, Scottie Pippen and Alonzo Mourning.

Four of the five tennis players on the list are women, which says something about the lack of star power on the men’s tour right now. Venus Williams and Martina Hingis ranked 60 and 64, respectively.

Cover girl Anna Kournikova finished at No. 67 on the Forbes list — three spots ahead of Jennifer Capriati and five in front of Serena Williams — despite being ranked only 55th in the world by the Women’s Tennis Association.

Kournikova has never won a singles title, but makes up for her mediocre play with plenty of endorsements. Capriati has won three Grand Slam tournaments and Serena Williams has won two, but Kournikova had more than twice as many Web hits as the two combined.

Andre Agassi was the only male tennis player on the list at No. 53. Particularly glaring is the absence of any NFL stars on the list. St. Louis Rams quarterback Kurt Warner has won two MVPs in three years but is nowhere to be seen in the Forbes power rankings.

Another quarterback, Peyton Manning of the Indianapolis Colts was ranked No. 60 last year, thanks to an $8.4 million signing bonus.

"Peyton Manning is the NFL’s top endorser," Pulley said, "but in general football players are more anonymous when they’re on the playing field. It probably does take a little bit more" for football players to get good endorsement deals.

Other sports figures on the list are: No. 56 Jeff Gordon, NASCAR driver; No. 65 Arnold Palmer, golfer; and No. 74 Jacques Villeneuve, Formula One driver.

The Forbes Celebrity 100 issue hits the newsstands Monday. The magazine bases its earnings estimates on confidential sources with knowledge of celebrity finances.
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© 2002, McClatchy/Tribune Information Services

For KRTeens

When Napster finally bit the bullet and filed for bankruptcy last June, teen music lovers scrambled for alternatives to the once-popular music-swapping service. Many have turned to Audiogalaxy.com (http://www.audiogalaxy.com).

Unlike Napster, which ran afoul of the record industry and the law for allowing its users to trade copyright-protected music, Audiogalaxy.com makes an effort to block copyright-protected songs.

The site gives 25 megabytes of free server space to new artists who don’t mind giving away their music for free as they struggle to make a name for themselves. In addition to their tunes, you can read profiles and concert reviews of many of the acts, submitted by Audiogalaxy users.

The site is organized by category, so you can find out about site-recommended artists in genres ranging from rock to hip-hop to electronica.

However, the main reason people visit Audiogalaxy.com is to make use of its extensive search engine. Although many music files are blocked because they violate copyright law, many others sneak through.

If you’re a music fan, you’ll love the selection offered by Audiogalaxy. But hurry! You might want to log on before the record industry finds a way to shut this site down too.
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© 2002, McClatchy/Tribune Information Services

WASHINGTON — Sen. Edward M. Kennedy attacked Republican Medicare prescription drug proposals Tuesday, charging they were not generous enough to meet seniors’ drug needs.

The president’s proposal "doesn’t even pass the laugh test," Kennedy said. As for the House Republican plan unveiled Monday, the Massachusetts Democrat said "it doesn’t work in terms of substance and in terms of the delivery mechanism, it fails."

The remarks were made after a speech in which Kennedy proposed 12 programs intended to further his longtime goal of universal health coverage.

"The only thing worse than not passing a Medicare prescription drug reform would be to pass a phony program that undermines the coverage that already exists," Kennedy said.

Kennedy supports a Senate bill that would cost $500 billion, while the House Republican bill before the Ways and Means Committee would tally $350 billion.

Apart from cost, a major difference between the GOP and Democrat plans is how the drugs would be delivered to Medicare beneficiaries. Republicans would have patients buy coverage from HMOs or private insurance companies, while Democrats would cover the drugs directly as part of the existing Medicare program.

"The benefit package is just going to be structured by the insurance company," Kennedy said of the Republican plan. "It’s not a serious effort."

Republicans and Democrats also differ on deductibles, monthly premiums and coverage limits.

Kennedy’s proposal was dismissed by Christin Tinsworth, a GOP staffer for the House Ways and Means Committee.

"We’ve constructed a generous, reasonable and responsible plan to provide help for seniors with their prescription drug costs," Tinsworth said. "Right now, seniors aren’t getting any help. We’re saying they should get help. We’ve constructed this bill within the $350 billion allocated to us in House budget resolution. (The Democrats) are just kind of doing whatever suits them."

House Democrats have proposed an $800 billion prescription drug plan, which Tinsworth called "a pie-in-the-sky press release proposal."

Kennedy was optimistic that Senate and House Democrats could easily work out the $300 billion that separate their plans.

"The differences between the Democrats in the House and Senate could be worked out in about half an hour or 45 minutes," he said.

During his speech at the National Press Club, Kennedy proposed measures aimed at reducing the number of uninsured Americans. He also proposed requiring any business employing more than 100 people to offer health insurance equal to the coverage that members of Congress and the president receive.

Kennedy also proposed or expressed support for the following measures:

— Expanding eligibility in the Children’s Health Insurance Program to the parents of low-income children.
— Working on mental-health parity legislation.
— Making Medicaid available to non-poor families.
— Requiring medical providers to adopt electronic bill processing.
— Adding funds for diabetes and stroke research.
— Authorizing the FDA to further regulate the sale and advertisement of tobacco products.
— Making it harder for pharmaceutical firms to keep generic competitors off the market.
— Toughening regulations on direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertising.
— Creating a federal government index of leading "family health" indicators, including health coverage, child poverty and high school graduation rates.
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© 2002, McClatchy/Tribune Information
Services

WASHINGTON — Warming up what will likely be an oft-heard campaign theme this fall, Senate Democrats on Thursday attacked President Bush’s Social Security reform proposal to allow individuals to invest a part of their payroll taxes in the stock market.

In a letter to President Bush signed by 49 Senate Democrats and independent Sen. James Jeffords of Vermont, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle and Sen. Jon Corzine of New Jersey charged that Bush’s plan would "substantially reduce the level of guaranteed Social Security benefits."

John Breaux of Louisiana was the only Senate Democrat not signing the letter.

There will be a 9 percent cut in guaranteed benefits by 2012 under the Bush plan and as much as a 45 percent cut by 2075, according to actuarial estimates by the Social Security Administration.

"Privatization is wrong," Daschle said at a news conference on Capitol Hill. "Social Security should be a guarantee, not a gamble."

A call to the White House press office for a reaction was not returned.

The Daschle and Corzine letter also asked the president to demonstrate his opposition to benefit cuts by repudiating the privatization reforms proposed by the Social Security commission he appointed last year.

"We think this is an important issue to be discussed before the election as a part of the agenda that the American people consider when they go to the polls this fall," Corzine said.

"The word ‘security’ in Social Security was intended to guarantee a floor," said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich. "There were not going to be winners and losers when it comes to Social Security, but when it comes to privatization, there are going to be losers."

Congressional Republicans countered that ignoring the looming Social Security crisis could lead to benefit cuts of 33 percent and payroll taxes of more than 50 percent.

"Senate Democrats continue using Social Security as a political battering ram to hide the fact they have no plan to strengthen Social Security," responded Rep. E. Clay Shaw Jr., a Florida Republican.

A Gallup poll released this month showed that 43 percent of Americans think Democrats would do a better job of dealing with Social Security, compared to only 33 percent for the GOP.

However, 55 percent of Americans told National Public Radio pollsters in March that they agreed with allowing individuals to invest a part of their Social Security contributions in the stock market, while 40 percent disagreed.

Senate Democrats are being shortsighted about the risks of the stock market, said Matt Moore, a policy analyst for the conservative National Center for Policy Analysis. While the rate of return from Social Security is only 2 percent, the stock market has averaged a 6.4 percent return over any 35-year period in the last 128 years, he said.

"The attacks they’re making are a distraction from the real issues," Moore said. "In 15 years they’re not going to have enough money to pay the funds. So we need to have an honest and open dialogue. You’ve got to have two sides talking. Only one side has proposed a solution."

When asked about alternatives to Bush’s plan, Levin advocated a bipartisan commission like the one formed in 1982 and headed by current Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan. By contrast, Bush’s commission "was clearly tilted toward those who favor privatization," Levin said.

That Bush selected people who agreed with him should come as no surprise, said Michael Tanner, a Social Security expert at the libertarian Cato Institute, from which three commission members and one staffer were drawn.

Tanner also said that in criticizing the Bush proposal’s cuts, Senate Democrats neglected to include the benefits individuals would be receiving from their individual retirement accounts.

"Under all the reform plans, benefits provided by the federal government are reduced, but you get money from your individual account," Tanner said.

"The Bush administration is trying to create the fiction that Social Security’s broken and needs to be fixed, when in fact the opposite is true," said Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn., who was also at the briefing.

"Social Security is in good shape for the next three to four decades, depending on the economy, and it’s only their actions that threaten to break it sooner," he said.

Tanner disagreed, arguing that Social Security benefits are threatened by a $24 trillion unfunded liability over a 75-year actuarial period. He added that there is nothing to prevent Congress from decreasing benefits or increasing taxes to keep the system solvent.

Levin said Social Security is a "huge, significant, critical, fundamental issue," which should be debated, not "delayed until after the campaign, as the president desires."
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© 2002, McClatchy/Tribune Information Services