SCHOOL SPENDING, INVESTING, SUCCESS

They never learn: A state judge recently ruled that New York's education funding arrangements are unconstitutional because they allegedly shortchange New York City. The majority of the city's public schools are indeed abysmal, but the answer is not a court-mandated version of throw-more-money-at-the-problems.

The Big Apple spends about $9,700 per pupil, more than 16 percent above the national average. How New York manages its system, not inadequate funding, is the core problem. Houston, for example, spends about $6,000 per pupil. Test scores there are improving, and violence is declining. No wonder President Bush appointed Houston's schools superintendent Roderick Paige to be his new education secretary.

Iowa and Minnesota spend barely two-thirds of the amount the Big Apple does per pupil, yet their students' test scores are traditionally among the top 10 percent in the country. Not content to sit on its laurels, Minnesota several years ago instituted an innovative school-choice program offering parents a mix of tax credits and deductions to help them send their kids to the schools of their choice. Thus, government-run schools face growing competition from independent and parochial schools, keeping them on their toes. In an expanding, successful school-choice program, Milwaukee has demonstrated that accountability is the key to excellence. These schools, public and private, are enacting meaningful reforms.

Why didn't that meddling, money-can-cure-anything New York judge look at real-life experiences? As in numerous other states, New Jersey's top judges have routinely butted in on school funding formulas, never finding them fair and forcing more outlays. As a result, the Garden State's expenditures per pupil are the highest in the country. But the students' overall performance still ranks only 25th among the states.

Fifteen years ago a federal judge effectively seized control of the Kansas City school system. He decreed a near doubling of property tax rates. Per-pupil spending skyrocketed. Result: Student performance remains miserable, and schools are even less integrated than before.

One thing President Bush should do is push a bill that was passed by Congress in 1998 but vetoed by then-President Clinton. The measure would give vouchers of up to $3,200 a year to 2,000 Washington, D.C., parents to help pay tuition for their kids at schools of the parents' choice. Such a program in the nation's capital, where schools are visibly failing, would be a shining example of what accountability and choice can achieve and would be promptly imitated in the rest of the nation. -- Steve Forbes

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The year 2000 proved unsettling for many investors. After closing up 19.5 percent in 1999, the S&P 500 ended down 10.1 percent in 2000. The Nasdaq closed at 2470.52, down 39.3 percent -- its worst year since its creation in 1971. The Dow Jones average broke a nine-year winning streak, falling 6.25 percent for the year. These are sobering statistics.

There were bright spots: More stocks rose than fell for the year on the New York Stock Exchange, for example, and the S&P transportation, utilities, financial, mid-cap and small-cap indexes each recorded gains of 11 to 54 percent. Especially in turbulent markets, it's important to have a long-term perspective and investment strategy. And even in today's market, we see opportunities and ways not only to help you maintain your wealth, but hopefully to build it. -- Investment newsletter

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Ten misconceptions about success:

1. Success is best measured by money. Money is usually the worst measure of success. "To laugh often and much, to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children, to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends, to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others, to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition, to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded."

2. Success requires special talents and education. History demonstrates that any person -- regardless of race, wealth, status, education -- can be successful if he chooses to do so and is willing to pay the price.

3. Long hours are required to succeed. Working smarter instead of longer gives success. Several years ago a new Navy jet fighter shot itself down. Flying at supersonic speed, it ran into cannon shells it had fired only a few seconds before. The jet was traveling too fast.

4. Success is achieved overnight. According to Diana Rankin, "It requires 20 years of hard work to become an overnight success."

5. Success requires luck. Not true! Success is the result of careful thought, hard work and a refusal to quit. Those who don't quit do get luckier.

6. Successful people don't make mistakes. Successful people make mistakes, learn from them and then move on. Double your rate of mistakes and you will increase your success.

7. Successful people play it safe. Wrong again. To discover new lands requires leaving the sight and safety of the shore.

8. It's too late for me to succeed. Age is not a factor as long as a person can dream and will pay the price of success. Harland Sander began his KFC empire at age 65 with one Social Security check.

9. Success is easy for some people. It only looks that way from the outside. The mountain of effort and determination required to produce the mountain peak of success is seldom seen. But it's there.

10. Success creates stinginess. The most successful are often the most generous. It's also true that generosity breeds success. Zig Ziglar says, "You can have anything you want in life if you just help enough people get what they want in life." -- Pure Living

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People power: Any time I look at a tax cut, I always look to see how it would affect the kind of family I grew up in: one with a single mother raising two children. Under the current rate, that single mother begins paying taxes when she earns $21,300. Under the Bush plan, she would not begin paying income taxes until her earnings reach $31,300. That leaves extra money in her pocket for school clothes or for the heating bill.

I am proud to co-sponsor President Bush's tax cut in the Senate because I agree with his basic premise: American taxpayers rich and poor are better judges of how to spend their money than we are. -- U.S. Sen. Zell Miller (D-Ga.) in USA Today

Gary Rust is chairman of Rust Communications.