R.I. district may rehire fired high school teachers
Obama had supported firings but triggered criticism from teachers
Yikes! A charter-friendly superintendent
[This is my column for the Local Living section of March 4, 2010.]
Zina McGowan-Thomas, the energetic public information officer for St. Mary's County public schools, sends me many announcements and news releases that I am tempted to delete, as I do most e-mails from local school districts. I know this is a bad idea, because sometimes you will find, in the smallest bulletin, something astonishing, like such as the e-mail she sent me a few weeks ago about the Chesapeake Public Charter School.
She told me and her long list of contacts that the school was about to have an open house. Ho-hum. All schools have open houses. Wait a minute: McGowan-Thomas works for a public school district with 27 schools and 17,000 students. Her job is to spread information about them, not a charter school. To most public school employees in the United States, charter schools are the enemy. Finding McGowan-Thomas promoting a charter school event is like seeing your local post office displaying a FedEx poster.
Congress moves quickly to stop abuse at schools--NOT
Last spring, a U.S. government investigation found hundreds of cases of alleged abuse and deaths of children who were subjected to seclusion and restraints in public and private schools over the previous two decades.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office also revealed that there were no federal laws restricting the use of these disciplinary tactics, Such federal protections already exist for children in hospitals.
Some of the cases were egregious: A 7-year-old was believed to have died after being held face down for hours by school staff; 5-year-olds were allegedly tied to chairs with bungee cords and duct tape, suffering broken arms and bloody noses.
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