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March 13, 2008

House Ed Committee hears bill with obscenity amendment

The House Education Committee had a hearing today on SB 429, the bill that includes the controversial Brownlee obscenity amendment that was added on the Senate floor. 

This bill started as a proposal to lift the permanent ban on a teacher’s license for anyone convicted of a misdemeanor DUI. Under current law, if a teacher or prospective teacher is convicted of a misdemeanor DUI, he/she can never be issued a teaching license or have one renewed. While the bill would lift the ban on misdemeanors, it would retain it for a felony DUI.

On the Senate floor an amendment by Sen. Karin Brownlee (R-Olathe) was adopted that would require any materials used by teachers to be pre-approved by the local board of education.

Under the Brownlee amendment the teacher who uses that book would be committing a crime if the book was not pre-approved by the local school board. In addition a principal who allows any person to “read, use or display in a school” any material that some person might challenge as obscene would be committing a crime. If the director of an art museum came to speak to high school art students, any works that he/she would show would have to be pre-approved by the board. If the art director were to show photos of the statue of David or Marcel Duhamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase and someone objected to them as obscene, the principal would be liable.

If this amendment were to pass it would have a “chilling effect” on teachers and teaching. High school teachers might decide not to even submit a title because some parent might be offended; elementary teachers would likely stop using personal collections gathered over the years because of their tie-in to certain units of study.

We are hopeful that the House committee will remove the Brownlee amendment before passing the bill out to the full House. Based on questions from the committee, this seems probable.

But in any event, we urge teachers to be ready to act on this matter. Whatever happens, this issue is likely to come up again. It is a perennial “political post card” topic.

Senate Fed & State sends out amended version of immigration reform bill

The Senate Federal and State Affairs Committee sent a dramatically amended version of the immigration reform bill to the full Senate for consideration. The new version of SB 458 makes sure that the children of immigrants still qualify for resident tuition rates under the same guidelines as in current law.

KNEA and KASB had jointly testified in opposition to the bill because it stripped these high achieving young people of the opportunity for post-secondary education. As originally written, we believe the bill would not only repeal resident tuition but also prohibit enrollment in a post-secondary institution at any tuition rate.

The bill had something for everyone to hate in it and as a result the usual opponents (Education and Religious groups) were joined by a veritable alphabet soup of organizations from the Farm Bureau and Livestock Association to the Chamber of Commerce and Local Governments.

The bill will be taken up by the full Senate some time next week.

Senate Ed Committee considers consolidation carrot

In the Senate Education Committee today there was a hearing on HB 2734, a bill providing incentives for school districts to consolidate before they get to the point where they have no other option.

The bill included financial incentives for school districts that consolidate but those incentives become smaller the longer you wait. School districts that have more than 200 students and choose to consolidate get a better deal than those with fewer that 200 and more than 150 students. And those districts get a better deal than districts with fewer than 150 students.

The idea behind the bill is that most districts wait to consolidate until it becomes clear that they simply can no longer survive – usually when they hit about 100 students.

Consolidation is always a touchy subject under the dome. If the bill gets out of committee, look for a lively debate on the Senate floor.

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