Governor’s cuts will spare schools

Both the Boston Globe and Lowell Sun are reporting that Gov. Deval Patrick will tell municipal leaders tomorrow morning that he will spare schools from massive budget cuts this year as he moves to close a $1.1 billion budget hole.

The governor, who plans to announce cuts to this year’s budget by next Wednesday (January 28, 2009), has decided to leave Chapter 70 aid to public schools intact, according to an administration source briefed on the speech.

Patrick will speak in Boston tomorrow morning at the annual Massachusetts Municipal Association breakfast, where aides say he will discuss various opportunities for local and state government to form partnerships.

The administration source declined to elaborate on where the cuts will come, and how deep other areas of local aid, such as lottery assistance, will be impacted.  It is also difficult to understand how these cuts will not impact education at the local level.  Most communities (Franklin included) maintain one pot of funds for all municipal needs.  Telling communities that education will be spared is inaccurate under that scenario.

For the Boston Globe report, click here. For the Lowell Sun report, click here.

You can review the text and/or video of the Governor’s remarks by clicking here.

Parents can sue for sex discrimination on schools under two laws

The Supreme Court has ruled unanimously that people who complain of sex discrimination in schools can sue under both a 1972 federal law and a broader post-Civil War provision. The decision was a victory for the parents of a Massachusetts schoolgirl, who said she was subjected to repeated harassment by a third-grade boy on their school bus. The case was the subject of an earlier blog post which can be viewed by clicking here.

It is quite common for students or parents claiming sex bias at school to make claims under both the Constitution (Section 1983) and Title IX, to maximize their chances for winning some remedy and perhaps, with the constitutional claim, a broader remedy. Section 1983 allows any citizen to sue any state or local official who deprives that citizen of rights under the Constitution or federal law. But the Supreme Court has ruled that the government isn’t liable for private discrimination by one person against another, even if the person discriminating is subject to government regulation and control, and even if the government is aware of, and indifferent to, that discrimination. Title IX protects students from being “subjected to discrimination” in schools regardless of the source of discrimination, even if the discriminator is a student — provided that the school district is on notice of the discrimination and is “deliberately indifferent” to it.

Lower federal courts had ruled that the parents, Lisa and Robert Fitzgerald, could not sue the Barnstable School Committee under the older law because Title IX, barring sex discrimination at schools that receive federal money, ruled out using the older provision.

Justice Samuel Alito said in his opinion for the court that Title IX does not bar suits under the older civil rights, which was designed to enforce the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. The Court specifically concluded that Title IX was not meant to be an exclusive mechanism for addressing gender discrimination in schools, or a substitute for §1983 suits as a means of en-forcing constitutional rights. To view a copy of the full decision, click here.

Facebook for educators

Here is a video for educators on how to use Facebook as an educational tool.  It includes creative uses of the news feed, wall, and applications specific for student-teacher communications.  As the author notes, Facebook can be a powerful tool to drive a sense of belonging in the classroom.  Click on the image below to view the video.

US Supreme Court to hear school drug search case

The United States Supreme Court will review whether a strip search for prescription-strength Ibuprofen violated a 13-year-old student’s constitutional rights. The issue before the court is whether the Fourth Amendment prohibits public school officials from conducting a strip search of a student suspected of possessing and distributing a prescription drug on campus in violation of school policy.

Last year, the federal appeals court in San Francisco ruled 8-3 in favor of Savana Redding, who was subjected to a strip search based on a classmate’s uncorroborated accusation that she was hiding the pills. The court split 6-5 in favor of allowing her to sue the school official who ordered the search.

Redding was an eighth-grade student at the Safford Middle School in Safford, Ariz., when she was ordered to the school nurse’s office and told to strip to her underwear, move her bra to the side and pull her underwear out, exposing her breasts and pelvic area. No pills were found.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals called Redding’s ordeal “a grossly intrusive search of a middle-school girl to locate pills with the potency of two over-the-counter Advil capsules.” The United States Supreme Court will get its chance to weigh in on this issue after it hears oral arguments in April.

To view the petition filed with the United States Supreme Court, click here. To view the brief filed by the National School Boards Association, click here. To view the Boston Globe report on the case, click here.

Light appointed principal at FHS

On Tuesday, January 13, 2009, Peter Light was appointed as the new Principal of Franklin High School. He will take over the reins on January 26, 2009.

Light has been a part of the Franklin community for the last 12 years, most recently as an Assistant Principal at Franklin High. The School Committee is delighted that Mr. Light will be staying in Franklin.

At the last school committee meeting, Mr. light took the opportunity to outline his vision, objectives, and leadership style. We have captured that segment of the meeting in three parts for viewing online. You can begin with part one by clicking on the image below. Parts two and three are included in the blog posts below.

Please join me in welcoming Mr. Light to his new position. For the Milford Daily News report on lights elevation to Principal, please click here.

Light outlines his vision and objectives for FHS

In this second part (of three videos), newly appointed FHS Principal Peter Light, continues to outline his vision and objectives for Franklin High School. He takes over the position beginning on January 26, 2009. You can view the video by clicking on the image below.

Light takes questions from the committee

In this segment of videos, Peter Light responds to questions concerning his new job as principal of Franklin High School. You can view the video by clicking on the image below.

Students give civics lesson to school board

In what may be the first attempt in California to unseat an entire school board, high school students and supporters who want to oust all five members of the Big Oak Flat-Groveland School Board fired collected enough signatures to put the issue before voters, the Tuolumne County clerk said Friday. The students organized the recall campaign as a civics project after the board voted to get rid of their popular math teacher Ryan Duton, a former professional football player.

The controversy began in September after Supt. Mari Brabbin and the school board removed Dutton from his job teaching math at Tioga High School over an allegation of plagiarism. He also lost his post coaching baseball. Dutton, 31, who was studying for his teaching credential at Cal State Fresno, was accused of copying another student’s homework in March. He denied the charge. The University says the allegations were unfounded but the school board refused to reconsider its decision, so the students organized a recall campaign and tossed out the entire school board.

The school board is scheduled to meet next week to receive formal notice that the recall has qualified. The board will have the option of calling the election itself and allowing a vote entirely by mail.

For the complete story as reported in the Los Angeles Times, click here.

Readiness report issued by state commission

On New Year’s eve, the Readiness Finance Commission presented a report to Governor Deval Patrick outlining an alleged combination of cost savings, school district restructuring, education reform strategies and potential new investments to help achieve the Governor’s Readiness Project. As you may recall, in June of 2008, Governor Patrick assembled the Readiness Finance Commission and charged it with presenting a variety of alternative means to achieve sustainable education funding for current needs and the sequenced investments necessary for a ten-year Readiness Project implementation plan.

The plan as presented by the Commission can be viewed by clicking here. A list and links to all of the other Readiness Project reports issued to date can be viewed by clicking here.

The goals and intent of the project are lofty, but some of the conclusions must be met with skepticism. The finance report focuses first on cost savings, presenting strategies for reducing employee health insurance and retiree benefit costs, maximizing Federal reimbursements to offset special education costs and promoting greater efficiency through regionalization and procurement and energy reform. Recognizing that cost savings and efficiencies alone will not be sufficient for full implementation of the Readiness Project reform strategies, many Commission members acknowledged that new investment would be required to fund current and future education reforms. In this context, many Commission members called for a balanced, multi-pronged approach requiring cost-cutting and efficiency strategies along with educational reform and revenue measures.

Initial reports on the Commission’s declarations point out that the assumptions of cost savings are noble but overstated. Also, as Glenn Koocher, the Executive Director of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees, noted: “It reflects a real lack of knowledge about what it’s like to be in a community that supports its schools and the real lack of respect for parent empowerment and civic engagement that is the Achilles Heel of national education reformers.”

With regard to supposed enhanced revenues, it is important to point out that on the day before this report was issued, the Governor announced that he was preparing for up to $1 billion in additional mid-year budget cuts, raising the specter of possible reductions in local aid to municipalities and additional layoffs of state employees. This left many of us wondering how these expensive and well-intentioned projects can be pursued in the context of these other budget cutting measures.

We all support the notion that we must provide a public education system that more fully educates all students. Indeed, we have been working at this for many years. The problem is that we have educational theoreticians who produce reports, issue unfunded mandates, and forget that they are not elected lawmakers. Those of us who deal regularly with the real people they seek to control know that there are difficult tasks ahead, but we need collaboration and resources rather than dictates.

We must remember that all the policy recommendations outlined in the Readiness reports are just words on paper until the real policy makers – the state legislature – takes it all up anew. Until then, these reports will remain as untested theories, leaving those of us who are in the trenches to figure out how to manage our educational systems at the local level in the face of further budget cutting proclamations.