Letters
Soccer and the legislative process share common elements: Both try to keep the other team from scoring; kicking the ball (bills) is more common than using the head. But only in the legislature would I find all the players on the sidelines, the clock running, four coaches on the field and not a ball in sight. Nor a referee. I bought a ticket to this? There may be a lesson here. A few more two-chamber shootouts and Illinois might be well advised to ask FIFA, the international soccer organization, to recommend new rules and enforcement procedures. A few red cards, perhaps. Or we could learn how soccer clubs put aside their local interests in order to develop a national team for the World Cup. Couldn't hurt and it might improve the game. Eileen Subak Chicago
The survey, sponsored by the Illinois Planning Council on Developmental Disabilities in conjunction with the Illinois Department of Commerce and Community Affairs, tells us it will take a collective effort on the part of small businesses, individuals with disabilities and service providers to make inclusion in the workplace a reality. Service providers and advocates must increase efforts to link people with disabilities to the ever-growing number of job opportunities with small businesses. Most importantly, small business owners must have an open mind and an open door when they have job applicants with disabilities and recognize them as valuable, potential employees. Kathleen Conour Springfield
Ms. Stevenson cites an article which concluded that some undefined class of school dropouts have lifetime earnings of $237 billion less than an equivalent class of high school graduates. Ms. Stevenson then extrapolates a figure of $70 billion in lost tax revenues, which is what she says the $237 billion figure "translates into." It appears this "translation" proceeded from the following unwarranted assumptions: 1. That all the dropouts could have graduated had they persisted in school. 2. That all the dropouts would, through their having graduated, achieve the earning capacity of those who in fact graduated. 3. That all the dropouts would then go out and actually work up to their capacity. I suggest that there must be some number of dropouts who could never achieve graduation, others who would not have retained anything useful even if they did graduate, and many whose lack of motivation to succeed in school presages an absence of ability to hold a job. If Ms. Stevenson factored in data on these varieties of dropouts in computing her $70 billion, then I congratulate her. But since doing that would not have supported her foregone conclusion, somehow I doubt it. C. Richard Gruny Carbondale
Charla R. Stone
Letters to the Editor
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September 1994/Illinois Issues/7
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