Letters

No Paleoliberals Here

Ramesh Ponnuru's "Tax and Spin" (August 30) brands me and the organization I direct as "paleoliberals." Yet we favor paying down debt over either tax cuts or new spending, believe Social Security reform should include benefit reductions, favor means-testing the Medicare premium, and support extending the spending caps beyond 2002. Last year, when some congressional Democrats pushed to make school breakfasts free at all income levels, it wasn't the Heritage Foundation or the Cato Institute that led the opposition, but the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. How's that paleoliberal?

The article portrays us as fanatically opposed to tax cuts. Not so. Tax cuts could be in order when a significant surplus outside Social Security materializes or when the economy turns downward. But neither has happened yet, and congressional action on appropriations bills signals a non-Social Security deficit next year.

Several specific critiques of our views on tax cuts are incorrect or caricatures. But the article is right in one respect: I'm chagrined to note that, owing to a late-night editing error on my part, a recent Center analysis mistakenly used the word "families" instead of "households." We've now corrected it.

Robert Greenstein

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

Washington, D.C.

the Business ResponsE

"Board Games" by Danielle Dunne Wilcox and Chester E. Finn Jr. (Aug. 9) erroneously suggests that because the nation's two largest teachers' unions are National Board for Professional Teaching Standards supporters, all other supporters, including the business community, must be tied to the unions' positions on licensing standards, continuing education, and alternative teacher-certification programs. This is nonsense.

NBPTS supporters include organizations that are the traditional collective-bargaining opponents of the teachers' unions, as well as bipartisan associations of elected public officials whose Republican members are frequently at odds with the unions' agendas. The Business Coalition for Education Reform supports both alternative licensing programs and the NBPTS.

Standards and assessments are the core of National Board Certification. The focus is on learning for both students and teachers. Teachers must know their subject matter. They must meet the National Board's standards through assessments which encourage research-based practice that has a positive effect on student learning. The quality of student work submitted by the certification applicant is at the heart of this process.

We know there's a connection between teacher quality and student achievement. The NBPTS has garnered support from the business community because it is an organization that recognizes and encourages experienced classroom teachers who voluntarily demonstrate knowledge of their subject field and accomplished teaching practices.

Edward B. Rust Jr.

Chairman & CEO

State Farm Insurance Companies

Bloomington, Ill.

Signs of hope

Reading David Pryce-Jones is always a pleasure, and "Twilight of the Ayatollahs" (Aug. 30) was a double happiness, because it is so informative and offers reason for hope. The issue of Palestine has been a source of rage, and therefore of strength, for Islamic radicals. Terrorists have always feared a peace agreement because they know that an independent Palestine can exist only with Israel, not against it. When Yasser Arafat accepted the idea of a Palestine that would live in peace with Israel, he betrayed the cause of those whose top priority is the destruction of Israel.

President Mohammed Khatami of Iran, Pryce-Jones informs us, "projects himself as a moderate and a reformer." Khatami, however, has not dared suggest that Iran live in peace with Israel. Although Iran shares no border and has no quarrel with Israel, Iran supports groups like Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad, which are opposed to the very idea of peace. If Khatami wants a stable Iran, he must speak against those who use anti-Zionism as a tool to perpetuate fanaticism.

George Jochnowitz

Staten Island, N.Y.

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