Reforming New York's Foster Care System.

Show: FRESH AIR
Date: JULY 22, 1997
Time: 12:00
Tran: 072201np.217
Type: INTERVIEW
Head: Nicholas Scopetta
Sect: News; Domestic
Time: 12:06

TERRY GROSS, HOST: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

My guest Nicholas Scopetta was appointed last year by New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani to reform the city's foster care system. Scopetta is a product of that system. He and his two older brothers were placed in foster care in 1937 and spent six years in various institutions.

Scopetta is a former prosecutor who became known for his investigation into police corruption, when he worked with the Knapp Commission. He's also a former deputy mayor.

He's up against a lot now. The foster care system is overcrowded and can't always provide beds for newcomers, and several caseworkers have recently been accused of failing to properly investigate and monitor abuse.

I asked Foster about the circumstances that led him to be placed in foster care in 1937 when he was five years old.

NICHOLAS SCOPETTA, COMMISSIONER, ADMINISTRATION FOR CHILDREN'S SERVICES, NEW YORK CITY: Yes, well, my mother and father separated. My mother forced -- forcibly, that is, she ended -- she went to jail and we were left with my father. And my brothers and I were home alone. They -- I was of kindergarten age. They were of school age.

Eventually, school authorities sent investigators and an agency that was called the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children had peace officers. They investigated; they eventually placed us in -- we went through several institutions before we ended up at a place called Woodycrest (ph). And that turned out to be a very positive experience -- our years at Woodycrest.

GROSS: Why was your mother sent to jail?

SCOPETTA: Well, I have since seen the reports -- the investigative reports -- and she forged a check for $18 -- a neighbor's check that she had somehow come into possession of, and cashed that check. Actually, she got $18 in cash and $3.20 in groceries. So that's why she went to jail.

GROSS: When you think back, do you think the punishment fit the crime -- the punishment including that you and your two brothers spent six years in foster care?

SCOPETTA: Well, it seems to me like a pretty severe sentence. She went to jail for three months. Who knows what that proceeding was all about? That is -- today of course, every defendant is represented by a lawyer and there's a whole panoply of due process protections.

Not so in the '30s. People went through the system very quickly. I don't think the -- I think the punishment was excessive and the dramatic impact on the family was, I think, beyond anything that that conduct deserved.

You would think that a judge would take into account that there were young children who would be uncared for; would be unattended. Obviously, it didn't make any difference to him.

GROSS: When the caseworkers came and took you away from your father, did you feel -- how did you feel about that?

SCOPETTA: Well, you know, at five -- that's a long time ago. I'm not sure I could recapture all of that. But I remember the night before we left. It's something that my brothers and I have talked about. And my older brother, who was 11, tried to have a kind of going away party, if you can call it that.

He took us to the nearby 5-and-10, and I remember that evening-afternoon vividly as he took us to the 5-and-10. We couldn't buy anything. We had no money to buy anything, but it was a treat just to be there and look at toys and look at things. And that was his way of trying to, I suppose, be the good father to us before we left.

GROSS: Just curious -- do you think your mother had a pattern of breaking the law? Or was she desperate for food?

SCOPETTA: Oh, I have no reason to believe she had a pattern of breaking the law. I saw something in the file that showed that they had a weekly income of $15 a week that supported all of us.

That was a combination of what my father could earn at the docks, shaping up for work on a daily basis; working as a superintendent for the building. And I'm sure $18 seemed like a great deal of money to her.

GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Nicholas Scopetta, and he now runs New York City's foster care system. He directs the city's Administration for Children's Services.

You were in several homes before ending up in the home that you stayed in for five years?

SCOPETTA: Yeah. The first place we went to was called "The Children's Shelter." It's interesting -- I was just back there two weeks ago and didn't quite realize where I was until I walked into the building and I remembered that was the place I'd first gone to.

I was there with the mayor. He has cabinet meetings around the city, and that was a setting for a cabinet meeting because it's now El Museo de Baijo (ph) -- the Museum for Spanish-speaking Cultures.

GROSS: Did it bring back memories?

SCOPETTA: Well, I spoke to the director who then arranged to give me a tour. I remembered the rooftop because that's where we used to play. And I remembered the auditorium, though it seemed a lot smaller to me last week than it did when I was a child.

But that was about what I remembered. That was a tough place in that it was very crowded. The older children were mixed with the younger children and my brother Tony and I were together. We were separated from my older brother.

And I remember that it was so crowded that cots were set up in the hallways at night, and Tony and I slept in the same bed with our heads at opposite ends of the bed. Then the cots were taken down the next day -- folded up and put away.

There was a school of sorts in the building, but I don't remember much happening at that school. We were all crowded together. My brother and I shared a seat, as a matter of fact, and there were older children in the classroom, so it was mostly a kind of custodial arrangement. Nobody seemed to be doing any serious teaching there.

And that -- I'm not sure how long we were there, but I think we were there at least a couple of months.

GROSS: And from there?

SCOPETTA: Well then, I passed through a couple of places. I remember being in a home that must have been run by a Catholic organization. They were all nuns -- were the caretakers. Despite the fact that my background is Italian, I am Protestant and somebody must have learned that and moved me after a couple of nights to a place called "The Gould (ph) Foundation."

There is still a Gould organization. I don't know if they still run the same kind of facility, but this was in a country setting and I think it is -- was someplace in the northern Bronx or southern Westchester.

And a couple of interesting things happened there, in that I didn't know my brothers were there also. I guess I was five or six. And the next time I saw my brother Tony, I didn't recognize him. He had grown so much. And I ran into him at a visit to the dentist there at that institution. He recognized me, and told me who he was and told me that my brother Vince was there, too.

And we talked to a supervisor, I remember, and she assured me that we would all be -- could get together. And that never happened, and the next time I saw either one of them was sometime after, when we were moved to Woodycrest, which is the placed we lived at for most of our time away.

GROSS: You've spoken very highly of Woodycrest, the place that you lived at for, I guess, the better part of five years...

SCOPETTA: Yes.

GROSS: ... when you were in foster care. What is it about that place that you thought functioned well and was a good force in your life?

SCOPETTA: Well, a couple of things: one, I was together with my brothers. I think that had -- that was enormously important to me. Two, people cared about us and there was always a sense that they were there for you.

And I know that there were punishments for various infractions, but I never suffered any of those. In time, I was made to feel that I was smart and competent and that there was some potential there. I was always getting a lot of support.

We went to an excellent school nearby. It was in a section of the Bronx then that was very upper middle class. The school reflected the kind of attention and concern the public school system gives better neighborhoods, and the teachers were very involved with us. There were some ups and downs, but I think overall it was a very positive experience.

We also went to a summer camp that was part of Woodycrest for the entire summer. The day school was out to the time that school began, we were at a place located in Oceanport, New Jersey. That was really a wonderful experience. It was a camp with baseball fields and tennis courts and we went to the beach every other day -- bus trips.

So that it was about, I suppose, as good as institutional living can be for kids.

GROSS: You were in a group home. Did you ever wish that you were getting adopted by foster parents and living in a home with a family?

SCOPETTA: Never thought in terms of adoption. My mother was back on the scene. She visited us on a regular basis. And the assumption was one day we would go home -- not that we could be adopted.

And despite the fact that we thought of Woodycrest as a terrific place, I think we mostly thought of it as a terrific place after we were out of Woodycrest. Because while we were there, we were always looking forward to going home.

GROSS: Mm-hmm.

SCOPETTA: That was sort of the goal.

GROSS: Why did it take so long for you to be sent back home? Six years -- your mother was in jail for three months?

SCOPETTA: Yes, that's a little bit of a -- that's not quite clear, but I think what happened is that given the economics of the times that it was more convenient, more practical -- an arrangement that suited her -- that we stayed there.

GROSS: My guest is Nicholas Scopetta. He heads New York City's foster care system. We'll talk more after a break.

This is FRESH AIR.

Back with Nicholas Scopetta. He heads New York City's foster care system. He spent six years in foster care as a child.

Did growing up in foster care feel like something you needed to cover up? Were you embarrassed about it before you got into this professionally and before it became a real asset, because you understood so much about it?

SCOPETTA: Well, I suppose I always did feel it was something to be kept hidden. And I'm not sure I even today fully understand that dynamic. It made me feel different. It made me -- it was a kind of family secret. None of us really talked much about it. And it was a long time, certainly, before I talked about it publicly.

GROSS: Mm-hmm.

SCOPETTA: And now, of course, I think it's extremely helpful. I think it's a good thing to talk about with our kids in foster care. I want them to see that while they're different, the difference doesn't necessarily mean that they can't have a full and complete life and become a professional; do some of the things that I have done. And I think it's a very useful thing to do.

I think it gives me some credibility with them as well. And I think that's important because, you know, most of my kids -- our kids -- in the system come from very different background -- cultural backgrounds. And I think it helps bridge that difference when they know that I've been in foster care myself.

GROSS: Isn't the foster care system a very different system now than it was when you were in it?

SCOPETTA: Well, yes it is. It's different in many ways, most obviously in terms of the volume of kids in care now as compared to when I was in foster care.

GROSS: There's more of them now?

SCOPETTA: Oh, many, many more. We have over 42,000 children in our care now and I wouldn't -- I don't have the numbers from back in the '30s and '40s, but it surely numbered in the hundreds. And we have a much more elaborate system -- a very comprehensive system.

Our agency, for example, has jurisdiction over children in foster care investigations of abuse and neglect. Also, we run Head Start in New York and the daycare system and the Office of Child Support Enforcement -- an agency that goes after deadbeat dads and moms who have not lived up to their -- pay their financial obligations to children.

GROSS: Do you think the reasons that children end up in foster care have changed since the '30s when you were a foster child?

SCOPETTA: Very much so. Today, we have a large population of children, as much as 75 percent of our kids, come from backgrounds that -- where the parents have some abuse problem -- drugs or some substance abuse problem -- so drugs and alcohol, primarily. And that was really not a factor back in the '30s and '40s.

In my own case, we were children of the Depression years. There were a lot of kids who needed someone to take care of them, give them a roof over their heads and feed them. So it was directly related to the fact that times were tough, economic times were tough.

Here, it is very much, I think, an increase in the use of drugs that has made the system so complicated today.

GROSS: When you took over New York City's foster care system, did you say to yourself that there was any one or two things from your own experiences that you wanted to bring back into the system?

SCOPETTA: Well, I think there is a need to personalize the system in some way. That is, we are moving towards a neighborhood-based system of delivery of services -- neighborhood-based foster care. I think that is an important change in approach that's worked well in other jurisdictions -- Los Angeles, Cleveland -- some of the places I visited. And that is where we want to end up.

That's an enormous undertaking, because we don't do that now in New York. Kids get moved, say, from Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn and get moved up to the north Bronx with a foster care family.

That makes it very difficult for our families who are already fairly dysfunctional to begin with or the children wouldn't be in foster care; makes them -- it makes it difficult for them to stay in touch with their children.

We know from the little bit of statistical analysis we've been able to do on this manual system -- by the way, we're moving to a computerized system and are halfway there. In this manual system, our analysis shows that about 80 percent of our children return to families or relatives.

Now, that's an important consideration in setting policy for the agency. If the kids are going to go back, at least 80 percent of them are going to go back, we should be trying to make every effort to keep and develop and improve on the relationship between the birth parents and the children.

GROSS: What would you most like to see children of foster care have that you had when you were a child?

SCOPETTA: Well, the most important influence, I think, is -- stabilizing influence -- is some adult in their lives so that if it can be a foster family that, of course, is the best thing, I think, that can happen, because that's a family for life.

But for a lot of our kids, I think it means any adult. And what that means to me is having mentoring programs, and that's something that we're developing.

We have independent living training for children when they reach about 14, and they're in our care. And those kids who are going to leave the system at 18, when they age out of the system -- that's pretty young to be out on your own.

And so that if we can introduce adults into their lives so that they have mentors; so that they have some support out there, I think we'll be doing something very significant.

GROSS: It seems to me from your own past that you must have had a pretty ambivalent set of feelings about foster care. On the one hand, you had a really good experience in it. On the other hand, you probably felt like you didn't belong in foster care in the first place.

SCOPETTA: Well, perhaps. I don't think I ever, and to this day I don't fully understand all that goes on inside of me when I consider issues like that. For me, I was happy that I was having a positive school experience. That turned out to be very important for me.

And I think what it also did for me, and I think it can do this for our kids now -- I kind of developed a -- maybe, some survival mechanisms, you know, that somehow I knew that there was something, some inner core that I could rely on; maybe had to rely on. I think that's important for kids to feel that. Maybe you can translate that into a sense of self-esteem.

And it turned out to be an inner strength. I think kids can develop that, too, but they need a lot of help from all of us.

GROSS: Nicholas Scopetta is the commissioner of the Administration for Children's Services in New York. He'll be back with us in the second half of our show.

I'm Terry Gross and this is FRESH AIR.

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

Back with Nicholas Scopetta. He heads New York City's foster care system. He's a product of that system. He was placed in foster care in 1937 and spent six years in the system before he was returned to his mother.

Scopetta says that adoptions in New York City through the foster care system are up 78 percent since fiscal year '94. He told me about the strategy behind the increase and the problem that needed fixing.

SCOPETTA: Well, it was largely a management problem. What we did was create a sense of urgency in all the agencies that do adoption work, and in our own staff. We coordinated all of this with the family court. And then we did some things with the procedures that exist. We have been streamlining the procedures to a certain extent so that we have concurrent planning.

And by that, I simply mean that when a child comes into care and looks as though this is a case that conceivably could end up in adoption, we begin doing that planning immediately, because there a lot of things that have to happen: fingerprint records; home visits; home investigations; background checks; notification to family that may have expressed no interest in the child, but must legally be part of the proceeding before you can terminate parental rights.

All of that has to happen in the family court and that's what takes a good deal of time. And we've also instituted a change that the day the termination of parental rights is ordered by a court is the day we file the adoption petitions, so that it keeps it before the same judge. That didn't used to be the case.

So I have viewed it as more a management problem, and we created a special unit, the adoption-expediting unit, whose focus is on streamlining the process.

GROSS: Let's talk about race a little bit. I believe 90 percent of the kids in New York City foster care are minorities. I wonder how that effects their chances of adoption? I know that there was a time -- I don't know if this is still true -- when African-American children were less likely to be adopted that white children.

SCOPETTA: Well, there is no restriction in that regard. That is, a Caucasian family can adopt an African-American child and vice versa. Those restrictions don't exist in law, but of course, they do exist in reality and in practice. That is, that people, I think, are looking for children of their own cultural background, though not always the case.

So it is true that most of our children are African-American or Latino -- that -- the children we have in our care. We have about 18,000 children whose final goal is adoption, of the 42,000 children in our care. And there's no question that that is the population that we are -- have our outreach programs for.

For example, we have a program modeled after the one church/one child program that was developed in Chicago so many years ago. That means, one church provide one set of adoptive parents a year. Well, we have over 4,000 churches and we really should expand that. The alliteration works and we say "one church/one child." What we really mean is: one house of worship/one child.

If we can get the entire religious community involved in this effort, we will increase the number of children -- we began -- that can get adopted. We began this outreach in the African-American churches and we're moving to the Latino churches, because that is where the greatest need is, and we have had now several meetings with ministers from the African-American community to try to get them on board.

The response has been just wonderful -- virtually 100 percent of every minister we've talked to. And when this gets underway, I think we're going to have an enormous resource for additional adoptions.

GROSS: As the head of the Administration for Children's Services in New York City, as good deal of your job is taming this huge bureaucracy and making it run in a more efficient way. How often do you actually get into the field and visit children's homes and spend time with the children and see what the system is really like?

SCOPETTA: Well, I try -- sure -- I try to do as much of that as possible. During my first year, I visited every one of our field offices. And I have been visiting daycare centers, Head Start programs as well. Quite frankly, I find that a invigorating experience -- a kind of reviving experience.

To sit in a Head Start class with 14 or 15 youngsters and read to them and talk to them and get that kind of feed back is really therapy for me. It's -- it reminds us of what we're there for, but it is the most pleasant kind of experience that I can have in the agency.

GROSS: Were you ever tempted to become a foster parent yourself?

SCOPETTA: Oh well, you may have read some reports about young Jonathan Adams (ph) -- was a little 5-year-old who was abandoned by his mother at a toy store. And I got involved with that case in a very direct way because we could not locate Jonathan's parents, and it turns out they were from out of state. They were from the South -- his mother was.

Eventually what we did after several months of being able -- not able to locate or identify Jonathan's history, we went on television with Jonathan after we got a court order authorizing that. And so, in short order, we quickly identified Jonathan's family.

But in the process, I got to know Jonathan pretty well, and he's a beautiful little boy. He's really -- there's a kind of elegance about him and a dignity about him that he's acquired.

And he's the same age that I went into foster care at, and there was a lot of identification there. But I -- just -- it's not appropriate, I suppose, for the head of the agency to pick out a child and say, "I'll take this one."

And as a matter of fact, there is a family court proceeding that Jonathan is at the center of, where his aunt would like to get custody of him. That investigation is going on, and that matter is before the court. And it will get resolved one way or the other.

But I suppose if I was tempted, Jonathan would have been the temptation.

GROSS: Nicholas Scopetta, I want to thank you very much for talking with us.

SCOPETTA: Well, thank you for having me.

GROSS: Nicholas Scopetta is the commissioner of the Administration for Children's Services in New York.

Dateline: Terry Gross, Philadelphia
Guest: Nicholas Scopetta
High: Commissioner for New York's Child Welfare Agency, the Administration for Children's Services Nicholas Scopetta. He recently called for an expansion of foster care for the city's children, including "neighborhood based" care. Scopetta understands well the struggles of children in foster care. As a five-year-old boy, he was taken out of his home in New York's Little Italy for neglect and lived in several foster institutions for six years.
Spec: Youth; Foster Care; Cities; New York; Politics; Government
Please note, this is not the final feed of record
Copy: Content and programming copyright (c) 1997 National Public Radio, Inc. All rights reserved. Transcribed by Federal Document Clearing House, Inc. under license from National Public Radio, Inc. Formatting copyright (c) 1997 Federal Document Clearing House, Inc. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio, Inc. This transcript may not be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission. For further information please contact NPR's Business Affairs at (202) 414-2954
End-Story: Nicholas Scopetta
Show: FRESH AIR
Date: JULY 22, 1997
Time: 12:00
Tran: 072202NP.217
Type: FEATURE
Head: Make A Difference
Sect: News; Domestic
Time: 12:45

TERRY GROSS, HOST: You remember Henry Foster as President Clinton's one-time nominee for the position of surgeon general. After Dr. Foster's nomination was shot down, Clinton made Foster the President's Senior Advisor on Teen Pregnancy Reduction and Youth Issues.

Dr. Foster has written a new book called "Make a Difference." It's part memoir and part about his approach to helping at-risk teenagers deal with low self-esteem, poverty, and violence. Dr. Foster is the founder of the "I Have A Future" program for at-risk inner-city youth.

I asked him why he thinks the rate of teenage pregnancy is higher in the U.S. than in Europe.

HENRY FOSTER JR, MD, SENIOR ADVISER TO PRESIDENT CLINTON ON TEEN PREGNANCY REDUCTION AND YOUTH ISSUES: In all of the European countries, there is K through 12 family life education. Secondly, teachers are not harassed and brow-beaten about teaching human biology to people who are becoming adults.

Thirdly, the media -- all of the media -- print, visual, auditory -- are much more open about education; about sexually transmitted disease; about contraception; the birth process. And of course, birth control pills can be bought across the counter in European countries. So those are some strident differences that we have to look at and examine.

GROSS: What were your assumptions about teen pregnancy when you first started seeing a lot of teenagers coming to you who were pregnant?

FOSTER: Well the first thing, it's not a singular pattern that we see. It's important for your listeners to know that most teen pregnancies in America occur to whites in this country. People tend to think that the teen pregnancy problem is restricted, perhaps, to the inner city or the ghetto or the Appalachia or the barrio.

In fact, it's not. The Alan Guttmacher Institute, which is a research wing, clearly shows a slide that when you count only white teenagers in America, it does not change America's relative position to the other countries that I just mentioned. So it is a problem for the whole of the country.

But what I noticed is that there are different antecedents. In the inner city, the problems generally are a little bit different from the suburbs. And so we have to take different approaches.

In the inner city, so many of the kids really have no -- they don't see other options. See, everyone has to have a sense of being or a sense of worth, and this is a way for them to have a sense of self at this particular point.

But I asked: what were my own children doing when they were 12, 13, or 14? They were learning about a bigger world. So that's what we have done with the "I Have A Future" program for the inner city kids. We have gone in and shown them that there are things beyond the perimeter of the housing projects in which they live that they can be a part of.

This past Easter break, we took 100 of these inner city kids -- 100 -- to Los Angeles for spring vacation with 18 adult chaperones. These are the kinds of experiences that transform the abstract images that they see on television or hear on the radio into reality. They see black pilots. They see women pilots. They see all kinds of things that they would never see.

Ninety-six -- ninety-four of the kids had never flown before, out of 100. This is how you create an awareness to do something -- that there's something worthwhile. And if you sacrifice for it, you can get there. But nobody will make a sacrifice for something that they don't feel has a yield that's important to them.

GROSS: What else do you do in this program to try to convince young people to avoid pregnancy and to avoid getting a girlfriend pregnant?

FOSTER: Well, two things: first of all, we have programs that I characterize as enticements and enhancements. So, the two have to go hand in hand. There has to be something that they will appreciate and enjoy as they develop, and develop their skills.

But the things that we stress most are family life relationships. We have what we call "core curricula." These are modules, and they run anywhere from six weeks to 15 weeks.

One of the biggest ones is the Family Life Module -- has to do with interactions. There's another important one on conflict resolution. There's another on job readiness. There's another one of these on behavior.

One is called "Charm" that the women use -- Choosing How to Adorn and Refine myself. The fellows have a module called "Mature: Men Thinking, Adorning, Utilizing, Refined Energies.

In other words, we are trying to show these kids how they become socialized; how do you get jobs for job readiness.

GROSS: Let me interrupt you here. It sounds like your I Have A Future program isn't so much about convincing young people to use birth control or to abstain from sex. It's more about giving them more choices in life; more security in their future.

FOSTER: Absolutely. And that's what's necessary to have the self-esteem to avoid inappropriate sex. You know, the one thing I really -- I think we need to talk about, though, when we talk about "all" kids -- both -- in any segment -- we've got to do a better job in America, in my judgment, on educating our kids about family life and sex education that's age- and grade-appropriate.

You see, those -- we have a paradox in this country. We are in an open, free market society, and of course the media -- you have every right to do this; you can stimulate and titillate our children with every kind of sexual message imaginable from the time their awake in the morning until they go to bed at night -- and in a free society, that's fine.

There is no codified responsibility that the media show the negative consequences of this type of behavior which it tends to glorify or promote. That's OK.

But where the paradox occurs is: when those of us who try to educate our kids so they will be less vulnerable to these messages, there is this element that says, no, education is dangerous. It will make children become sexually active.

Now, the people who espouse this position, in my view, in the aggregate, are not evil, mean people. They're basically parents desperately trying to protect their children, which is fine. Except that they are terribly misdirected.

What they fail to understand is that it is not knowledge that makes people become sexually inclined. That is a biological instinct that does not have to be taught. Someone can be reared in a cave and when they reach puberty, you can turn them out. You need to teach them nothing.

To the contrary, what you need the knowledge for is to avoid inappropriate sexual behavior, because a 12-year-old who has reached her maturation biologically -- she is emancipated biologically. She can produce another child. She needs knowledge.

GROSS: At what point in your clinical career did you start seeing a lot of teenagers who were pregnant?

FOSTER: Well, from the very beginning, when I finished -- well, actually, in medical school we saw it. But I saw it more and more in my residency training. I had a hiatus when I was in the American Air Force -- didn't see too much of a problem there. But when I went into southeastern rural Alabama, and of course, it was a different kind of teenage pregnancy then.

There were -- a lot of these kids were marrying then. I don't know if your listeners know this, but in 1960, only 15 percent of teenagers who got pregnant were unmarried. Today, that figure is 74 percent. So things have changed.

But I saw it then, when I went to Alabama. I saw lots of very young girls -- 14, 15, 16 -- having babies.

GROSS: And did it trouble you then?

FOSTER: Of course it did. That's why I was there. One of the major things we did -- we tried again to make birth control, contraception available. Of course, we would always emphasize the area of abstinence, but realistically, when abstinence fails, you have to have a backup program. You can't walk away. And that was one of the things that we have done.

But again, just back to what you said, the key thing is giving people a hope for something else; to have a reason to delay childbearing. That's the whole idea -- to delay it.

GROSS: What kind of birth control do you think is most effective for young people?

FOSTER: Abstinence. Abstinence.

GROSS: Right. But as you said, if that's not -- if it's too late for abstinence, what do you think works best?

FOSTER: Well, it -- if you just have to try -- you know that as doctors, you have to individualize each case, but the oral contraceptive, obviously, works very, very well.

It's highly effective and it's proving to have a lot of other non-contraceptive benefits. As we go more and more down the road, we're learning these things. But there's a downside. Everyone cannot take them. They have to be remembered.

One of the newer methods that has been approved in this country within the last year or so is a long-acting injectable progestin (ph) -- a progesterone called depo-provera (ph), which is the -- I think it's the generic name, depo-provera.

But at any rate -- that's a proprietary name -- it is good because it only has to be given once every three months, or four times a year, so one can't discontinue it passively as you can with the birth control pill, for example.

GROSS: In your attempts to try to reach boys and to get boys to be more responsible sexually, what do you tell them? I mean -- somebody -- teenage boys particularly really hate the idea of condoms 'cause they feel that diminishes their pleasure, so they don't want to hear about it.

FOSTER: Well, first of all, once again, we start off with the same premise, which I hold -- that being sexually active as an unmarried adolescent is not the norm. So if you are not in that category, you're abnormal. That's important to understand.

But for whatever reasons, and I know where this is leading, after we've done all these things and someone fails to adhere to our recommendations or what we have said we think is best, then condoms is what we recommend primarily with males, because in addition to the contraceptive issue, it helps protect against sexually transmitted disease and HIV -- AIDS.

GROSS: If you have a lot of hormones churning through your body and you're very sexually awakened all the time, and you don't want to face pregnancy or getting your girlfriend pregnant, then masturbation is definitely an option that might be helpful.

Now Jocelyn Elders, who was surgeon general before you were nominated, said something in a public talk about masturbation and that seemed to have had a lot to do with her losing her position. What did you think about her comments on masturbation?

FOSTER: Well, first of all, her comments were taken totally out of context and actually were just misprinted awfully. They say that she said children should be taught how to masturbate in school, which was utter and sheer nonsense.

My position is very clear: we have to know the whole gamut of human sexuality. That is a part of human sexuality. Our children become adults. They need adult information. And again, for those who really challenge this position, I wish they would go and take a look at some of the countries that do better than us. Look at the curricula.

GROSS: Did you ever talk to President Clinton about that incident?

FOSTER: No, never. Not -- I talked to Dr. Elders about it, because we were in medical school together. She was two years behind me at the University of Arkansas.

GROSS: Dr. Foster, do you wish that you were surgeon general?

FOSTER: No, not particularly. I was not in Washington looking for a job. I was on sabbatical leave.

GROSS: But you accepted the nomination. Were you really disappointed when the nomination was dropped?

FOSTER: Oh, I was somewhat disappointed, but I was neither bitter nor shattered. I lost no sleep over the process.

GROSS: Do you wish you had answered any of the questions differently, like, when you were asked how many abortions did you perform? And...

FOSTER: Well, yeah, in hindsight I would.

GROSS: What would you have said differently, if you were asked it now?

FOSTER: Well, first of all, I come out of academia, so I had no reason -- everything that I've ever done has been published in peer review journals, so there was nothing to hide. I had done nothing that was either illegal or medically incorrect. Everything I'd done was legal and medically acceptable.

The only thing I would have done different in hindsight -- I would never have guessed on the answer. I would have given them the exact answer from day one, like I did when I went back and reviewed all of the cases over a 20-year period where -- at Meharry -- where we found 39 cases where I had been listed as the physician of record.

And on those 39 cases, 29 had resident physicians in assistance who really did the procedures. I take full responsibilities for it, because there's nothing -- I mean, nothing illegal. But with my own hands, I probably had done about 12 over a 30-year period.

GROSS: Well, Henry Foster, I want to thank you very much for talking with us.

FOSTER: Thank you very much for inviting me on your show.

GROSS: Dr. Henry Foster is President Clinton's adviser on teen pregnancy reduction and youth issues. His new book is called Make A Difference.

Dateline: Terry Gross, Philadelphia
Guest: Henry Foster Jr.
High: Henry Foster Jr., MD is Senior Advisor to President Clinton on Teen Pregnancy Reduction and Youth Issues. He founded the I Have a Future program to encourage at-risk youth to stay in school, and to build self-esteem. Foster was nominated by Clinton to be U.S. Surgeon General but his nomination was withdrawn because of controversy over Foster's record on abortion. He has a new book, "Make a Difference."
Spec: Health and Medicine; Youth; Teen Pregnancy; Politics; Government
Please note, this is not the final feed of record
Copy: Content and programming copyright (c) 1997 National Public Radio, Inc. All rights reserved. Transcribed by Federal Document Clearing House, Inc. under license from National Public Radio, Inc. Formatting copyright (c) 1997 Federal Document Clearing House, Inc. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio, Inc. This transcript may not be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission. For further information please contact NPR's Business Affairs at (202) 414-2954
End-Story: Make A Difference
Show: FRESH AIR
Date: JULY 22, 1997
Time: 12:00
Tran: 072203NP.217
Type: FEATURE
Head: Summers Hit Singles
Sect: Entertainment
Time: 12:55

TERRY GROSS, HOST: Summertime always seems to yield a few bright catchy hit singles -- singles that pop up on the radio all the time as you drive to work or the beach, and stick in everyone's minds.

As he has for the past couple of years now, Ken Tucker is gathering the biggest hits of the season and placing them under his rock critic microscope.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP, "OMC" SINGING "HOW BIZARRE")

SINGER: Well, the fellows in the back
Sweet singers in the front
Cruising down the freeway
In the hot, hot sun

Suddenly, red/blue lights
Flash us from behind
Loud voice booming
Please, step out onto the line
(Unintelligible) words of comfort
Tina just hides her eyes
Policeman taps his shades
Is that a Chevy '69?
How bizarre
How bizarre
How bizarre

KEN TUCKER, FRESH AIR COMMENTATOR: That's "How Bizarre," a big out-of-nowhere hit single from an act called "OMC." It's got everything a summer hit should: an irresistible sexy beat; a chorus you start singing along to the very first time you hear it; novel instrumentation -- in this case, accordion and trumpet; and lyrics that seem to make no sense whatsoever.

MUSIC RISES

SINGER: How bizarre, how bizarre
Ooooh, baby. Ooooh, baby
It's making me crazy. It's making me crazy
Every time I look around
Every time I look around
Every time I look around
Every time I look around
It's in my face

TUCKER: OMC is really one guy, Pauly Fuemara (ph), a New Zealand-based singer. OMC stands for Otara Millionaire's Club (ph), the name of a group that Fuemara used to lead. The group broke up because, believe it or not, it started attracting violent gangs at its concerts -- imported members of the warring California street gangs the "Bloods" and the "Crips."

They stopped performing, but Fuemara kept the name for his own recording efforts. How Bizarre is lightweight, but lovely -- an airy pleasure of a song.

Here, by contrast, is a more plodding but unavoidable hit.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP, MEREDITH BROOKS (PH) SINGING "BITCH")

MEREDITH BROOKS, SINGER, SINGING: I hate the world today
You're so good to me, I know
But I can't change
Tried to tell you
But you looked at me like maybe
I'm an angel underneath
Innocent and sweet

Yesterday, I cried
Must have been relieved
To see the softer side
I can understand how you'd be so confused
I don't envy you
I'm a little bit of everything
All rolled into one

I'm a bitch, I'm a lover
I'm a child, I'm a mother
I'm a sinner, I'm a saint
I do not feel ashamed
I'm your elf, I'm your dream
I'm nothing in between
You know, you wouldn't want it any other way

So take me as I am.

TUCKER: That's Meredith Brooks, and in case you've managed to avoid hearing it until now, yes, that song is called "Bitch." Brooks is working that Atlantis Morrissette (ph) angry young woman thing for all it's worth, and I certainly admit that the refrain -- a list of all the roles a woman may play in her life -- has an undeniably catchy guitar riff embedded in its heart.

But the song is so shallowly provocative that it lacks an essential qualification for a true summer smash, which is innocence. Innocence in abundance can be heard in Hanson's "Mmm-Bop," a song I reviewed here a few weeks ago, and the piece of music around which the past few pop music months have organized themselves.

There's one other song I want to play, though, a tune that's just starting to catch on. I think by the end of August, it will be unavoidable. It's called "Fly" by the band "Sugar Ray."

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP, SUGAR RAY PERFORMING "FLY")

SINGER: All around the world
Statues crumble for me
Who knows how long I've loved you

Everywhere I go, people stop and they see
Twenty-five years old
My mother, God rest her soul
Lord mercy
I just want to fly
(unintelligible)
Put your arms around me, baby
Put your arms around me, baby
I just want to fly
(unintelligible)
Put your arms around me, baby
Put your arms around me, baby
(unintelligible)

TUCKER: Now, that's a summer hit: bright; rather ditzy; completely self-absorbed. What's that line? "All around the world, statues crumble for me?"

Fly creates its own sunny pop world. All you have to do is bring along the sun-block.

GROSS: Ken Tucker is critic-at-large for Entertainment Weekly.

Dateline: Ken Tucker; Terry Gross, Philadelphia
Guest:
High: Rock critic Ken Tucker takes a look at this summer's hit singles.
Spec: Music Industry; Seasons; Summer
Please note, this is not the final feed of record
Copy: Content and programming copyright (c) 1997 National Public Radio, Inc. All rights reserved. Transcribed by Federal Document Clearing House, Inc. under license from National Public Radio, Inc. Formatting copyright (c) 1997 Federal Document Clearing House, Inc. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio, Inc. This transcript may not be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission. For further information please contact NPR's Business Affairs at (202) 414-2954
End-Story: Summers Hit Singles
Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.