North Carolina Now; North Carolina Now Episode from 05/01/1998

It was God it's Friday. They divorced tonight profiling the state's evidence for us said it and what did you find there. With a week. Hello and welcome to this Friday edition of North Carolina now. I'm Sonja Williams and former Trey our focus for this evening's program is twofold politics and children. Tonight we conclude our series of senatorial candidate profiles with a look at

Democratic contender. We'll also have a special wrap up of the Children's Health Insurance Plan agreement reached by the General Assembly and the UMC Chapel Hill researcher will be here to talk about her study on preparing preschoolers for kindergarten. But first all week we've profiled major candidates in the race for U.S. Senate. Tonight we take a look at another candidate from Charlotte. It was in the. Going city that Ellis Corporal won her first elected office now 11 years later she's hoping to become the first African-American woman from North Carolina to go to the U.S. Senate. Barclay Todd has more on Ella Scarboro and her candidacy. And I'm running the United States Senate. Have you ever had to have a fully understand Ella Scarborough and what she stands for politically. You need to know a little bit about her past public service past we started when she was 16 and marched against segregation in her hometown of Sumter South Carolina. My father was a Baptist minister. He instilled in us as children that we must always give back and we must serve people who serve God only as you serve yourself and your fellow man.

And I'm certainly committed to God Scarboro the great great grand niece of Mary McLeod Bethune the founder Bethune Cookman College believes she was born into a life of service 51 years ago as one of five children she describes her family as one that's always together. So it's not surprising that her nephew and great niece Easter vacation at campaign headquarters answering phones and sending out newsletters and other sister heads up her campaign. Scarborough is running for the U.S. Senate seat and what she calls everyday people issues the major issues of the people and that is education. That is also security. That is jobs job training. Certainly health benefits got to work on health benefits in North Carolina. And we certainly have to work on job training and job skills speaking to students at Shaw University Scarboro address the need for Congress to provide more black money to the states to help pay for more teachers in order to lower the teacher student ratio. Scarborough a little

mother of two believes education is the biggest issue for many North Carolina families. We will support more more teachers in the classroom less and what I call the teacher pupil ratio poet 15 from 10 to 15 children in a classroom and let the teacher teach them she can do with them better. She can teach them they can listen to her and she can listen to them even better she get a bit pay more attention to children. And we would have to have Ritalin in the classroom if on Social Security. We need to talk about not ever born again from Social Security in America. We need to ensure that people who are poor old and elderly are taken care particulars as they worked all of their lives their money have gone into Social Security. Why not have that money that they have for them now. And so I want to work on powers this is say that never to run from Social Security again there are many places in the American budget that we give our dollars on jobs and job training. We will say to our chambers of commerce all across North Carolina when you bring

jobs in here that are paying high wages. Please say to the industries coming in there we need 20 percent or some percentage of it going to the welfare mothers. If we're serious about getting the money where fair on the issue of tobacco in the recent tobacco agreement Scarborough would like to see more protections for farmers. We must maintain the small farmers and their crops. We must deal with the issues where where they where we can ensure that they're not losing money I think is important and it's imperative we come up with some recommendations such as give some subsidy to different farmers for different things. Scarlett tends to get her message to the voters in person and the radio and print campaign ads. Contrary to what some of our other opponents are doing she's not planning to do any television commercials. Scarborough believes voters are tired of seeing their elected officials only on TV and it tends to take her message directly to the voters. Raleigh News and Observer political reporter Rob Christensen thinks not doing TV ads

could hurt her chances of winning the Democratic nomination. It's very difficult it's very difficult and which is not to say that you know she can't spend a lot of time visiting other churches and making those kinds of connections which will be important her campaign without the TV without high profile candidates say it's kind of tough this garble camp plan to spend one point two million dollars on the primary. Six hundred thousand of that was earmarked for TV. Yes. Political observers believe her decision not to do television is because of lack of money. But Scarborough the only one of the major candidates who is not a millionaire insists her campaign is continuing to raise money. One of things as we worked on this campaign we found out that we need to do radio in a newspaper or we need to stay working with the people at the grass roots level. And for Scarborough that means spending every day on the campaign trail shaking hands and asking for votes.

Will the only black female running is quick to point out that she is the only Democratic challenger ever elected to office. She spent 10 years in the Charlotte city council. Two of those terms holding an at large seat Scarborough was also the first African-American woman president of the North Carolina League a minister Pelosi's opposition which helped her develop contacts across the state. But one big question is whether she has enough name recognition to draw votes outside of Mecklenburg County her recognition is close to zero. And it's not improving very much. She has to rely at this point totally on personal campaigning which is not very effective in a state this large. Well Scarborough contends that she is not targeting black and female voters. Political analysts say she needs that quote base of supporters but so far doesn't appear to have them in most of the major black political figures are not in the West are they have endorsed other candidates. The rally waxes and satiation which is the leading African-American group in the Raleigh Wake County area endorsed

Edwards. So it's not clear to me that she will know how she'll tap into into the African-American vote. Talking to the American African-American vote tapping into women voters I think is essential for our campaign. And she can do that and she's going to have problems. But Scarborough says she is encouraged by the enthusiasm she sees her campaign generating. People are excited that there's a candidate out there who is actually talking their issues someone they can actually touch feel and talk with about the issues you know parents over and over again it's going to be God we're going to out there because we need someone who will listen to us and actually respond to us. And when I go on the streets of North Carolina people are saying to me Boy we're just glad you're there. Some political analysts predict if Scarboro gets 20 percent of the vote she could force a runoff election. Scarborough is gaining support. This week the black political caucus of Charlotte endorsed her campaign. However current polls show her in third place behind the top two Democratic challengers. Well still to come a look at a comprehensive

agreement lawmakers reached on children's health insurance. But first let's check in with Mitchell Lois for a look at what's happening around our state. Hi Mitt. Hello Sonia. Good evening everyone. Topping our news a legal decision has declared state laws governing political action committees and corporate campaign contributions unconstitutional. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Terrence Boyle overturns the state's definition of a political action committee. Judge Boyle held that state law requiring detailed financial disclosures from any group seeking to influence an election are too broad. Boyle said such laws have a chilling effect on the free speech of organizations that merely want to engage in quote issue advocacy. The ruling could affect the current legal dispute involving the group farmers for fairness. State Attorney General Mike Easley says the ruling by Boyle compromises the integrity of the state's election process and the state's ability to monitor and control the flow of big money into political campaigns. Easily says his office will seek to block the ruling. The state's largest Teacher Association has filed a

lawsuit to block a teacher's skills exam bitterly opposed by many educators members of the North Carolina Association of educators say the test isn't any factual way to weed out incompetent teachers. The test is scheduled to be given in June to 247 public school instructors. The educators come out of the 15 schools that posted the lowest test scores under the new ABC use of public education. Statistics show teenage births in North Carolina are on the decline but remain high in comparison to the rest of the country. The birth rate for teenage girls in North Carolina ages 15 through 19 dropped by nine point three percent between 1991 and 1996. Nationwide the teenage birth rate declined by 12 percent over the same period of time. The largest drop however was in the recorded birth rate for black teenagers a 21 percent decline nationwide. Health experts say the fact that children are having sex less and using contraceptives are reasons for the declines. State agriculture commissioner Jim Graham is warning people to be aware of contaminated

beef that has been shipped to some North Carolina grocery stores. Nebraska based beef Packing Company IBP issued a recall of all ground beef it produced on April 14th IBP records indicate some meat was delivered to a Harris Teeter warehouse for distribution to Harris Teeter stores across the state. Commissioner Graham believes most of the beef has already been used but if consumers still have ground beef from these stores they should either return the meat or make sure that it is properly cooked. There have been no reported cases of sickness due to the consumption of the meat. And now for a look at tomorrow's weather. Temperatures in the mountains will reach the mid to upper 60s. The rest of the state will see highs in the mid to upper 70s partly on mostly cloudy skies will cover most of the state. In business news Governor Hunt has selected acting commerce secretary Rick Carlisle to head the department permanently and made the announcement today at the Chamber of Commerce in Charlotte. The 48 year old Carlisle has been interim commerce secretary since mid-January when Hunt moved then Secretary Norris Tolson to the Department of Transportation Carlyle

garnered praise after helping persuade Federal Express to put a 300 million dollar hub in North Carolina. And now for a look at what happened on Wall Street today. Thank you.

A recent national survey by the National Center for early development and morning shows that nearly half our nation's teachers worry that children are not properly prepared to enter kindergarten. The nearly 4000 teachers surveyed also expressed concerns that a child's transition from kindergarten to first grade is inadequate as well. Joining us this evening to tell us more about this survey and what it means for North Carolina's children is Dr. Martha Cox of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Frank Porter Graham Child Development Center. Dr. Cox thank you so much for joining us this evening. Now you helped conduct this national survey which was based at USC Chapel Hill. Give us some of the specifics of what the survey was actually looking for and what was revealed. We were interested in finding out from our nation's kindergarten teachers how they viewed the competencies and the problems of children entering kindergarten. The kinds of things that they did to help children be successful in kindergarten. And some of the reasons they felt they couldn't do everything that they thought would would help.

We found that the teachers thought that nearly half of the children had moderate to severe problems in adjusting to kindergarten whereas only a half they said had no problems. We found that the kinds of things that they do to help children make adjustments are not really the things that the literature would suggest are the most helpful things. For example family involvement is very important for young children and the kinds of things that teachers were doing were very unlikely to involve the family on a one to one basis. They tend to be things like group meetings and letters to parents. So it seems that there is a lot more that could be done to help children in the early grades get used to school and families get connected to school. What types of problems in particular did the survey bring to light the kinds of things that teachers said about children were

that children had trouble following directions. There was. There were problems with academic skills in the Tour de attentional problems so a number of problems that really will get in the way of children doing well and the early years of school are very important for children to do well we found in studies that how children do in the kindergarten through third grade period is very predictive of how they will do later. And whereas there is a lot of variation in the early years by third grade how well the child's doing is pretty much how he or she is going to be doing later. So we have to pay attention to how children do in the early years and we have a very broad effort. And the survey is one of those efforts to try to understand what kinds of things are important in ensuring success for children in the early school years.

Now I have a son who's almost 3 years old in preschool and kindergarten or certainly concerns of mine. What can we as parents do to help ensure help ease that transition from preschool to kindergarten children. Well given that teachers are not able to do much in the teachers told us that they would like to do more if they had classless generated earlier or if they had paid during the summer too. Do some kind of transition practices but parents certainly can do a lot to help ensure that they're involved in schools. There's a lovely book about the Berenstain Bears I don't know if you read that about going to school at a show sister or going to school the first time and mother takes her to the school and she meets a kindergarten teacher and the kindergarten teacher shows her all the activities. Now that's ideal for that kindergarten teacher to meet a child to meet the parents individually prior to the child going to school really connects a family with the school and in the early years particularly the

collaboration between parents and family or between parents and teacher is very important in the child being successful. So those are the kinds of things that maybe parents can initiate if the teachers don't have programs to help ensure that contact. There are other things that teachers can do as well to help with this transition. Well I think teachers can encourage their school systems to support transition programs. Classless certainly could be generated earlier than normally it's 15 days before school starts so teachers really don't know who they're going to have in their class. But those could be generated earlier in the summer. Teachers could be supported too during the summer to visit families to make contact with individual children because competencies and attitudes that children develop in those first few years are really important and if they feel like everybody in their

environment is concerned about how well they're doing in school that communicates a lot to them. Yeah I know that means that there's a partnership between the parents and the teachers and you know parents at home are there things that they can be doing to help get their children ready for school at home. They can of course we want all parents to be reading to their children and doing all of those things but they can talk with their children about kindergarten about what it will be like they can find out the name of the teacher they can get the child used to the idea of the teacher they can find out if there are other children who will be in the same class and try to increase the child's. Acquaintance with those children things to make the child comfortable and also communicate to the child that the parents think this is a terribly exciting and important touch important time of their lives or certainly good advice Dr. Cox we're out of time but thank you so much for sharing your expertise with us this evening. Thank you for having me. For more information on child development called affright Porter

Graham Child Development Center at area code 9 1 9 9 6 6 0 8 6 7 with the earth you would think. This week the North Carolina general assembly finished a bit of business just in time for primary elections and preparations for the budget session which begins in just 10 days. We have this look at the completed special session on children's health insurance from Todd Harrison the overwhelmingly bipartisan votes in the Senate and House which signaled the approval of the Children's Health Insurance Plan.

Now you know we're not a reflection of the six weeks it took to get such a plan. The report which was approved allowed both House Republicans and Senate Democrats to claim victory. The agreement covers a health insurance program that cost one hundred eight million dollars. Eighty million of that is federal tax dollars. This should cover about 60000 children from families of the working poor in North Carolina. A family could pay $50 per year per child to sign up for the insurance but a maximum of one hundred dollars per family. At the same time families would make co-payments of $5 per doctor visit and up to $6 per prescription. If a child visits an emergency room in the hospital for an ailment that is not an emergency. There is the $20 co-payment. There is a refundable tax credit for the costs families making less than two hundred twenty five percent of the federal poverty level would receive a credit of three hundred dollars. That income level would be a frock family thirty seven thousand dollars for a family of four

other families making less than $100000 could claim a $100 credit. It may sound simple now in fact it seems simple back on March 24th when the General Assembly started its special session. Governor Jim Hunt led a rally in front of the legislative building and urged passage of the bill he called Children's Health Insurance Plan or chip. Just step one chair rocking folks. Child Health Insurance upon the opening of the session the Senate began to consider the bill immediately. Senate rules allow Secretary of Human Resources David Bruton to address the chamber after Bruton the chief sponsor Sen. Tony Rand explained the bill. I believe this gives us a lot of opportunity to help children who have hearing problems who have vision problems who do not receive health care to do it. These are children of people who work for a living every day who

badly need this kind of help that very same day the bill cleared the Senate with some Republican opposition and moved to the house where the Republican majority unveiled its own plan complete with a fee schedule and a tax credit here provisions not included in the original Senate bill. We have copied a program somewhat similar to the sliding scale adopted in Florida only less. And that didn't discourage people from for dissipating as a matter of fact children on average in Florida stay on this program for 13 months. We feel like we have to. We feel like it's the only fair way to proceed with this program. They were helping to insure the uninsured but were also working to make sure that were fair and equitable to everyone. When the House passed its version of that early plan different from the Senate bill it set in motion the process of trying to resolve the differences recognized at the start of the second week of the session Republicans held a rally of their own and one of their major points was to

debunk the notion that North Carolina had to have a plan submitted to Washington by April 1st because there are no no. Anyway you're right. When the deadline was declared bogus Republicans blamed the Hun administration. But now we know now we know the deadline is not true and we might ask was it manufactured House conferees met in private. House Republicans had to rein in dissidents who weren't happy with any plan. In fact negotiators from the House and Senate never met in a public session. But rumors arose if that is something the House committee except you anticipate it will come back in here a day maybe for a vote. So contact some of the folks that are not here not today not today. And as negotiations were stymied assessments were offered. So we are where we were because for the last five

weeks these negotiations have taken on all the speed and deliberation I Forrest Gump on two bottles of Nyquil that led the Senate to begin running skeleton sessions with just enough activity to fill the letter of the law. Please see me with only two Wake County senators officially on duty House Republicans sought to make a little bit of political hay. I understand the Senate has gone home and my understanding kind of every three days and I conferees certainly I don't know what their plans are you're looking at the back row. Perhaps I have a clearer view of this than you so I'm going to back in June to find out where some of our colleagues in the Senate back you have heard from remember the way some of these when a couple in matters of the Congress go boom is here you know will you do this and again shake it to negotiate and continue to talk with you know

whatever you know still before the conference committee so. But Senate Democrats quickly claimed victory and the bill passed easily the House Republicans who had been reluctant to support their measure got their chance to speak. But this bill goes too far. It is trying to expand government subsidized health care to a much too broad segment of our population and children who can benefit from this plan still have to wait until a federal financing agency approves North Carolina's effort and the federal fiscal year begins October 1st. Governor Jim Hunt called a legislative plan a bold step for the children of North Carolina's working families. Well that wraps up another week of North Carolina now. Thanks so much for watching. And please make plans to join us again on Monday when we'll profile this year's recipient of the Omegas Gardner teaching award. Plus we'll take an in-depth look at a voting issue facing triad residents how to pay for their proposed baseball stadium until Monday thanks again for joining us and have a great weekend.