American Demographics: Letters To The Editor

Education Reform

Your stories about public schools in the "Pulse" section of your magazine (September 2002) rang home to us. As parents of seven children ages 11 and younger, my wife and I became interested in vouchers, homeschooling and other alternatives to public education when we learned that at the start of World War II the U.S. illiteracy rate was 4 percent for whites and 20 percent for blacks. At the end of the 20th century, the rate was 17 percent for whites and 40 percent for blacks.

A 325 percent increase in white illiteracy and a 100 percent increase in black illiteracy are reasons enough for us to keep our kids as far away from public schools as possible.

Sad to say, public education is a government-sanctioned monopoly run by two teachers' unions for the benefit of the teachers, not the children. Year after year private schools turn out better educated students for far less money. BOB BLAND CEO, www.quotesmith.com

Place Your Bets

I just received my September issue of American Demographics and dove right into it, as usual. Because our Convention and Visitors Bureau represents the area of Connecticut in which Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun casinos are located, I was very interested in your "Off the Map" page.

Although you appear to include Tribal Gaming in at least some of these snapshots, you did not include Connecticut Tribal Gaming in the "It's a Living" box. For the record, Foxwoods Resort Casino employs 11,600 people and Mohegan Sun employs 9,500. This is a Connecticut total of 21,100 employees in TWO casinos. I believe that is a significant figure to ponder - for a number of reasons. DEBORAH J. DONOVAN Director of Marketing CT's Mystic & More! Convention and Visitors Bureau New London, Conn.

Editor's Note: The statistics that you have brought into question are a ranking of states by the number of commercial casino employees working in each state as reported by the American Gaming Association. The two casinos you mentioned in Connecticut are not commercial casinos, but tribal casinos, so they would not have been included in the AGA's ranking. This could have been made clearer in the heading for that column; we could have stated that only employees of commercial casinos were included. We apologize for this confusion. Thank you for your passionate interest in American Demographics.

Till Death Do Us Part

In "Reader Request" (September, 2002), you responded to a question concerning prearranged funerals by referring to the Funeral and Memorial Information Council (FAMIC) study. My company, MKJ Marketing, has conducted nearly 500 quantitative consumer research studies for funeral homes, nationally and in Canada, over the past 20 years. Our studies include adults ages 35 and over.

One of the standard battery of questions investigates ownership and interest in funeral preplanning. Based on our studies, approximately 9 percent of Americans ages 35 and older have preplanned their funeral. Approximately 18 percent of consumers ages 65 and older have a prepaid funeral contract.

I am not familiar with the FAMIC study, but I feel confident in our findings given the number of surveys conducted and the broad- based field sampled over an extended period. It is my understanding from our company's nearly 2,000 funeral home clients that approximately 1 in 4 deceased individuals served by funeral homes had prepaid funeral arrangements in place at the time of death. Families will often begin to make funeral arrangements during the days and weeks preceding the death of a loved one, so technically, the payment for services and merchandise is in advance, though the need is imminent.

Women are more inclined to make prearrangements only because they are more likely to be the surviving spouse: 70 percent of married women will be widowed. Many widows will make funeral arrangements following the death of their husband simply as a convenience to their surviving children, but also to confirm services and merchandise to their liking and to assure burial beside their husband.

The most important factor contributing to funeral prearrangement is the laws regarding going on public aid. Most states do not include funds paid in advance against funeral costs as assets when determining an individual's allowances under public aid. As such, many families take this opportunity to prepay for funerals. GLENN GOULD CEO, MKJ Marketing Largo, Fla.