A New Lawsuit Challenges The Legality Of 'No Excuse' Charter Schools | The Progressive

A New Lawsuit Challenges The Legality Of 'No Excuse' Charter Schools | The Progressive:

A New Lawsuit Challenges The Legality Of 'No Excuse' Charter Schools 

 How should public schools and classroom teachers address a student population increasingly traumatized by the effects of chronic poverty?

A majority of children attending the nation’s public schools now come from low-income families, according to a study released a year ago by The Southern Education Foundation. And there are more homeless students in American schools than ever before.

We’ve long recognized the impact of poverty on the future wellbeing of children. Students who come to school hungry have more difficulties focusing on schoolwork. Students who grow up without books in the home, or without computers or Internet access at home are at a severe disadvantage in school. Students who don’t have stable home lives or lack clothing or medical care are more apt to have behavioral problems.

What are schools to do? This question is urgent at a time when budget cuts have decimated student health services traditionally provided by social workers, counselors, nurses, and other support staff.

Recently, a popular answer to that question, at least in policy and media circles, has been to promote the idea that the impact of childhood poverty and trauma is an "excuse" for academic problems. Teachers who practice in “no excuses” schools are encouraged not to accommodate children's problems that are created by adversity, but to lay down strict rules and rigid expectations that challenge children to overcome—even ignore—their personal backgrounds and circumstances.

Educators who follow a progressive "child-centered" model for teaching are repulsed by the

- See more at: http://progressive.org/pss/new-lawsuit-challenges-legality-no-excuse-charter-schools#sthash.5PhpgWOM.dpuf

Alert for California Parents of School-Age Children

Alert for California Parents of School-Age Children:

Alert for California Parents of School-Age Children

California School Students Information Scheduled to be Released

A Court Order detailing the security protocols that are to be put in place to safeguard sensitive student information has been provided to the ITRC. This document is a public record.  This information was not provided on the opt-out notification.

Parents should review this document carefully when deciding whether or not to opt-out of sharing their student/s information. There are seven different databases that are encompassed in the attachment to the court order.  They are listed on pages 7-12 of the PDF file.  The data security process can be found on the last two pages of the attachment to the court order.  It should be noted that the concerns regarding appropriate security protocols, and the consequences of lost or compromised data, are discussed in the document.

Proposed E-Discovery Protocol - Safeguarding the Security of the Produced Data

The Special Master has significant concern about the storage and use of the highly sensitive student data that will be produced by CDE to the Plaintiffs. Loss or compromise of the produced data could result in the notification of literally millions of persons under state and Federal breach notification requirements, at a cost of millions of dollars. Such notification could also affect persons who are now residents in other states, and trigger breach notification laws in those states.

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The Identity Theft Resource Center and Privacy Rights Clearing House want to alert all parents of school-aged children throughout California about a pending deadline to Opt-Out on the potential release of their child’s sensitive personal identifying information. The deadline for parents and adult students to object to the disclosure of personal information and records is April 1, 2016.

PROTECT YOUR CHILD'S STUDENT RECORDS FROM BEING RELEASED BY FOLLOWING THESE SIMPLE STEPS:

• Click on this link and complete the objection form (complete one form per child)
  
• Mail this completed form via regular mail to:
  United States District Judge Kimberly J. Mueller
  c/o Clerk of the Court
  Robert T. Matsui United States Courthouse
  501 I Street, Room 4-200
  Sacramento, CA 95814
  Attn: Document Filed Under Seal

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A court granted the release of documents subject to a protective order, stemming from a lawsuit between the Morgan Hill Concerned Parents Association and the California Department of Education. This would allow for the release of extremely sensitive information stored on the CDE databases and network drives to be released to the parties of the lawsuit, their attorneys and consultants, and the Court.  The ITRC believes that all California parents should be aware of this event and need to decide for themselves if they wish to opt-out.  Some families may feel strongly that providing this information for this purpose is Alert for California Parents of School-Age Children:

Jersey Jazzman: NJ Teachers Should Refuse To Be The SOLE Solution To the Pension Mess

Jersey Jazzman: NJ Teachers Should Refuse To Be The SOLE Solution To the Pension Mess:

NJ Teachers Should Refuse To Be The SOLE Solution To the Pension Mess

I'm guessing that New Jersey's pension "reformers" are thinking the same thing: now that Chris Christie's absurd run for the White House is over, they should make their push to screw public employees out of their pensions now, rather than later when we are nearly certain to have a Democratic governor.

Hence the crush of op-eds by folks like Tom Byrne, a member of Christie's pension commission. Byrne is very, very sorry he has to shaft middle-class workers out of the benefits they are owed on a pension plan they were forced to participate in -- but, alas, there just isn't any choice:

Benefit levels are far higher for New Jersey public employees than is common in the private sector. It is the Obama administration, not Republicans, that has said health benefits at the New Jersey level should be subject to a luxury tax.
So there are two paths.

1. Ask taxpayers to continue subsidizing a level of health benefits that even the Obama administration says is too rich.

1. Put those benefits at or near the highest level specified under Obamacare, and use those savings to fill the hole in the pension funds. 

Certain Democrats say "just make the payments." But when the governor asked a joint session of the legislature for a show of hands on who was willing to vote for higher taxes in order to do so, not a hand went up.  

It is fair enough to say that neither the governor nor legislative leaders should have signed a 2011 deal that was premised on unrealistic revenue projections.  Let's not compound that mistake this time with a constitutional straitjacket and more unrealistic revenue assumptions.  

Delay may allow politicians to posture and build alliances. But until they

- See more at: http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2016/02/nj-teachers-should-refuse-to-be-sole.html#sthash.toeXkjFe.dpuf

CURMUDGUCATION: Beauty, the Rip, and Expectations

CURMUDGUCATION: Beauty, the Rip, and Expectations:

Beauty, the Rip, and Expectations

Back in May of 2015, Shea Glover, a student at the Chicago High School for the Arts in Ukranian Village, created an art project for her class. The project, she said, "evidently turned into a social experiment."

The result became a viral sensation, so you may have seen this before. Even if have (and especially if you haven't), take a look at it now. Go ahead. I'll wait.

At the moment, the video is closing in on ten million views. Numerous videos inspired by this one are out there, as well as an ad campaign from Dove that lifts the idea.

It's simple and striking. Glover tells her subject that they are beautiful, and they become more beautiful. You couldn't ask for a more powerful, clear and simple demonstration of the power of positive expectations.

It stands, of course, in sharp contrast to the gut-wrenching video that surfaced yesterday showing a teacher emotionally abusing a small child at Success Academy, the roughly sixty-gazillionth piece of evidence about SA's emphasis on brow-beating students into either excellence or departure.

There are many folks who don't get it. We see it in "no excuses" and other brutally over-controlling versions of classrooms-- this idea that "high expectations" means rain down shame and an ass-kicking to students who don't meet those expectations. It's ugly and unpleasant and when we see it in its raw naked form as in the SA video, we see just how awful it is. But it's not an anomaly at Success Academies-- or if it is, it's an anomaly so common that many, many people can step forward to say they've seen it, and can, independent of each other, say that it has a name at SA-- "rip and return."

I'm not advocating for a warm, gooey classroom where every student is effusively praised just for holding a pencil and making random marks on paper. Students will make mistakes, often, and we can't pretend they don't, or shouldn't. But mistakes are an opportunity for growth, not a cause for CURMUDGUCATION: Beauty, the Rip, and Expectations:

Are You Kidding Me? Here’s Where You Can Put Those Test Scores … – Welcome to the Testing Games

Are You Kidding Me? Here’s Where You Can Put Those Test Scores … – Welcome to the Testing Games:

Are You Kidding Me? Here’s Where You Can Put Those Test Scores … 

Listen. The tests are a joke. We all know it. Our children are suffering. Our schools are falling apart. Our teachers are quitting in droves. It is time to do something. Will you?

Here is my state: The Florida Standards Assessment test questions were rented from Utah for 5.4 million after Utah realized the test was so bad, they threw it out. Then, Florida computer systems crashed for weeks making testing a complete joke. You remember the posts. Now, 11 months later and 2 weeks before the kids start testing again, they finally release scores … and people care what grade their school got?

Are you kidding me?

Listen.

Wherever you live, do this instead … call every news station, every news paper, and every politician running theirmouth about school testing grades, and give them the hell. Flood their emails. Tie up their networks and media pages Are You Kidding Me? Here’s Where You Can Put Those Test Scores … – Welcome to the Testing Games:

Don’t forget Marc – Missouri Education Watchdog

Don’t forget Marc – Missouri Education Watchdog:

Don’t forget Marc

 Marc Tucker must be mad.  Bill Gates gets all the credit for our current transformation of education, when Marc was the mastermind of this “wholly restructured school system”.  Creating national standards for academics and standards for workforce (and national assessments for both), turning schools into workforce apprenticeship training programs,  and combining community college and high school, was all part ofMarc’s plan. Gates was just the money man.

 .

It seems Marc gets overlooked often.  Take Lumina Foundation’s recent idea to create a National Department of Talent, combining Departments of Education, Employment and Training Administration (ETA) of the Department of Labor and the talent recruitment functions of the Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) of the Department of Homeland Security.  This idea sure sounds like Marc’s idea from 1992 to create the National Institute for Learning, Work and Service.

 .

People forget that Marc already tried “Outcome Based Education” (OBE),  also sometimes called “Standards Based Education”.  The high school diploma associated with Marc’s Outcome Based Education was called a   “Certificate of Initial Mastery” (CIM).  Marc tried this OBE, CIM project in Washington and Massachusetts schools.   Sadly for Marc, and all the school children exposed to this experiment, it failed.   Some would say Don’t forget Marc – Missouri Education Watchdog:

Keeping retirement weird. I could have been a contender. | Fred Klonsky

Keeping retirement weird. I could have been a contender. | Fred Klonsky:

Keeping retirement weird. I could have been a contender.

 Retirement has meant me working out on a regular basis with my trainer Mike at the gym. Not as regular as my trainer Mike would like.

But, you know.

Regular.

The results of the past three years seem remarkable to me. I am down 20 to 30 pounds, depending on the month and the level of my dining self-discipline. And I feel better. I hurt less. I can bend over to pick up Ulysses’ dog poop without uttering a strange noise. I have biceps that nearly fill the sleeves of my smaller t-shirts. I can’t say that I love workouts. But I am happy with the results.

Last week I put on the boxing gloves for the first time and started hitting the boxing pads Mike holds up.

I beat up a punching bag.

I love this exercise.

It’s hard work. I sweat.

I visualize people who have pissed me off in public life and in my personal Keeping retirement weird. I could have been a contender. | Fred Klonsky



Art + Activism. Our exhibit opened last night.

A constant flow of friends and Chicago’s activists kept the Uri-Eichen Gallery packed to the gills most of the night for the opening of an exhibit of work by my friend Ellen Gradman and me.

Spoken word artist Jalen – he enters Whitney Young High School in the fall Art + Activism. Our exhibit opened last night.

Emmett Till, Tamir Rice.

Russ on Reading: Want Great Literacy Instruction? Trust the Teacher

Russ on Reading: Want Great Literacy Instruction? Trust the Teacher:

Want Great Literacy Instruction? Trust the Teacher

 In the final chapter of the book, Research-Based Practices for Teaching Common Core Literacy, James V. Hoffman and P. David Pearson take an historical perspective on where trust is placed in the teaching of reading. Summing up more than three-hundred years of literacy education history, the authors conclude that education policy has consistently put its trust in programs rather than in teachers. Hoffman and Pearson believe this has been a mistake of historic proportions. I agree.


Teachers have rarely been given the respect they deserve as the knowledgeable professionals they are; as the persons in the best possible position to make the instructional decisions on the fly that will assist the developing reader to become a literate individual. Throughout education history all sorts of programs have been touted as "teacher proof" systems sure to bring students to literacy if compliant teachers just implement them with fidelity. And so we have seen one program after another: the alphabet-spelling method, the "look-say" method, the Dick and Jane basal readers, phonics driven Direct Instruction (DISTAR), etc., etc., etc. Interestingly, no independent research has ever found one reading program to be superior to another. All have strengths and weaknesses and all Russ on Reading: Want Great Literacy Instruction? Trust the Teacher:

With A Brooklyn Accent: Privatizing What Should Be Public; The True Face of Inequality in Parks and Schools in NYC

With A Brooklyn Accent: Privatizing What Should Be Public; The True Face of Inequality in Parks and Schools in NYC:

Privatizing What Should Be Public; The True Face of Inequality in Parks and Schools in NYC

 During the late 1970's, under pressure from a banker led Emergency Financial Control Board, two important public agencies- the Department of Parks and the Department ( then the Board) of Education made draconian budget cuts that would dramatically change the face of New York City for the next 40 years.

The Parks Department, forced to slash its budget in half, dramatically pared down its staff for maintaining trees, meadows and ball fields and eliminated the position of recreation supervisor ( "parkie) from the thousands of vest pocket parks around the city

The Department of Education eliminated its great after school programs and night centers and shut down the music programs in its middle schools and high schools which served hundreds of thousands of youngsters a year, produced thousands of professional musicians and were the pride of city schools.

These cutbacks had immediate and tragic consequences. Parks and ball fields around the city began to deteriorate, with weeds growing on diamonds and grass rarely cut. And young people were suddenly and shockingly derived of the mentoring and arts and sports instruction they once received in parks and schools. The city became a meaner place, with young people all over set adrift and lacking opportunities they once had.

But not in all neighborhoods. In the city's wealthier communities, especially those adjoining Central Park, private funding stepped into the breach, replacing the services that were cut in parks through the creation of private maintenance organizations, and swelling the coffers of PTA's in schools in wealthy neighborhoods with the funds to support first rate arts and music programs.

Over time, the city ended up with what amounted to a dual park With A Brooklyn Accent: Privatizing What Should Be Public; The True Face of Inequality in Parks and Schools in NYC:

School Choice Fails to Make a Difference - Bloomberg View

School Choice Fails to Make a Difference - Bloomberg View:

School Choice Fails to Make a Difference

This is the kind of news that school-choice advocates and skeptics alike need to pay attention to: The Economist magazine reports that a team of academic economists found that students who won a lottery in Louisiana to receive vouchers to go to the public or private school of their choice did worse than students who didn't win the lottery.

This outcome flies in the face of the predictions of many economists, who often tout school choice as a way to improve the U.S. educational system while also increasing equality of opportunity. Economists typically assume that people are rational and well-informed, and will make decisions that benefit them. If giving students and their parents more school choice hurts the students academically, then something is seriously wrong with the theory.

The Louisiana finding is just a more extreme version of a fairly typical finding. School-voucher programs rarely actually hurt students, but most produce little if any positive effect. A recent survey paper by economists Dennis Epple, Richard Romano and Miguel Urquiola, covering many randomized studies similar to the Louisiana study, found that the typical voucher program does nothing for test scores. The researchers report:

The evidence does not suggest that awarding students a voucher is a systematically reliable way to improve their educational outcomes. A…large proportion of the best-identified studies suggest that winning a voucher has an effect on achievement that is statistically indistinguishable from zero.

An example of the programs covered in the Epple et al. survey is Washington’s Opportunity Scholarship Program, which began in 2003. This program awarded vouchers to thousands of low-income children in the metropolitan area. Epple et al. report on a 2010 studyfinding that the program had no detectable impact on test scores in either the short term or the long term. Studies of other programs tell School Choice Fails to Make a Difference - Bloomberg View:

Success Academy undercover video shows no-excuses discipline at its ugliest.

Success Academy undercover video shows no-excuses discipline at its ugliest.:

That Brutal Charter School Video Shows That Rich People Love No-Excuses Discipline ... for Other People’s Kids

 oday, the New York Times published undercover video taken at a Success Academy elementary school in Brooklyn that’s part of the controversial charter network known for “no excuses” discipline. It shows a first grade teacher berating and humiliating a girl who stumbles when solving a math problem. The teacher, Charlotte Dial, rips up the student’s paper and barks, “Go to the calm-down chair and sit!,” though by all indications, the girl was already sitting calmly. “You’re confusing everybody,” the teacher says, her voice seething. “I’m very upset and very disappointed.” I found the video shocking and disturbing; other parents I know said they couldn’t bear to watch the whole thing.

According to reporter Kate Taylor, an assistant teacher who was concerned by Dial’s “daily harsh treatment of the children” filmed the scene surreptitiously. Success Academy’s founder, Eva Moskowitz, as well as some of the parents whose children attend the school insisted that Dial’s behavior was anomalous. “But interviews with 20 current and former Success teachers suggest that while Ms. Dial’s behavior might be extreme, much of it is not uncommon within the network,” Taylor writes. She quotes a former Success Academy assistant principal: “It’s this culture of, ‘If you’ve made them cry, you’ve succeeded in getting your point across.’”

As it happens, the Success Academy where the video was filmed is a few blocks from my apartment in the hyper-gentrifying neighborhood of Cobble Hill, Brooklyn. Cobble Hill has been affluent for a while, but in recent years, there’s been an influx of the really rich; early this year, a nearby townhouse sold for $15.5 million. Last year, a friend whose son started kindergarten at our local public elementary school, P.S. 29, was shocked when she realized his class was entirely white. By contrast, if you watch the Success Academy video, you’ll notice that the students, whose faces are blurredSuccess Academy undercover video shows no-excuses discipline at its ugliest.:

Marie Corfield: The Day NJ Parents Occupied the State DOE

Marie Corfield: The Day NJ Parents Occupied the State DOE:

The Day NJ Parents Occupied the State DOE

The February 10th NJ State Board of Education meeting was a watershed moment in the NJ Opt-Out movement. Here's my report from the field.

 Newton's third law says that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. 

So, when Commissioner Hespe, sitting smugly on his throne at the February 10th State Board of Ed meeting and borrowing a page from Arne Duncan’s book of anti-middle class rhetoric, proclaimed the NJ Opt Out movement last year was nothing more than a bunch of high school students* not wanting to take the test...

As Bari Ehrlichson gushed over the wonderfulness and fabulousness of the CCSS and PARCC, and practically compared Language Arts writing prompts currently used by elementary school teachers to coloring books...

As Hespe proclaimed, “This is what educators want! This is the promise and we’re delivering!”...

As board member Dorothy Strickland, stricken with a severe case of the vapors over the CCSS and PARCC, proclaimed, “I’m so thrilled!... Delighted!”...

... a storm was brewing. 

Parents were traveling from all over the state to Trenton for the afternoon session of testimony. 

I've attended and testified at many State Board of Ed meetings, but this one was Marie Corfield: The Day NJ Parents Occupied the State DOE:

Romano: The topsy-turvy tale of charter schools and whom they really serve | Tampa Bay Times

Romano: The topsy-turvy tale of charter schools and whom they really serve<p></p> | Tampa Bay Times:
Romano: The topsy-turvy tale of charter schools and whom they really serve

 Here is a hand basket.

And here is your state Legislature continually packing Florida up like so many groceries ready for final delivery.

Granted, today's outrage is more sneaky than blatant. It's more sleazy than audacious. Still, it gets high marks for being both shameless and, in the long-term, dangerous.

The subject itself — money for school construction — sounds like a bit of a snooze. But the devil, and his Tallahassee minions, are in the details.

Let's begin with the guy driving this mess.

Rep. Erik Fresen, a font of smiling insincerity, wants the state to turn most of its school construction and renovation funds over to companies that run charter schools.

Never mind that traditional schools outnumber charters about 6-to-1. Never mind that from 2009-14, charters got $312 million in capital funds and traditional schools got a pat on the head. Never mind that practically 1 out of every 4 charters eventually closes and that taxpayer money is forever lost.

Nope, let's forget all of that for a minute, and focus on Fresen, a Republican from Miami.

The guy the Miami Herald reports earns $150,000 a year consulting for an architecture firm that specializes in — I can't make this up — building charter schools. The guy whose sister and brother-in-law are executives with one of the state's largest charter operators.

Now who thinks that might be a conflict of interest for a politician in charge of divvying up construction funds between charters and traditional schools?

But perhaps I'm being unfair.

After all, the original mission of charter schools in Florida was certainly admirable. Charters were considered cutting edge education in the 1990s, and they were supposed to pick up the slack in areas where public schools were failing.

It was even spelled out in Florida's original charter school statute:

The schools were to have "special emphasis on expanded learning experiences for students who are identified as academically low achieving.''

That sounds like at-risk kids. Poor kids. Minority kids.

And yet all these years later, that's not what's happened.

For instance, based on the data included in the Florida Department of Education's school grades released Romano: The topsy-turvy tale of charter schools and whom they really serve<p></p> | Tampa Bay Times:

School policies have gotten smarter in the decade after ‘No Child Left Behind’ - The Washington Post

School policies have gotten smarter in the decade after ‘No Child Left Behind’ - The Washington Post:
School policies have gotten smarter in the decade after ‘No Child Left Behind’

Michael J. Petrilli is president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. Chester E. Finn Jr. is a distinguished senior fellow and president emeritus of the institute. Both hold fellowships at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.

A decade ago, U.S. education policies were a mess. It was the classic problem of good intentions gone awry.

At the core of the good idea was the common-sense insight that if we want better and more equitable results from our education system, we should set clear expectations for student learning, measure whether our kids are meeting them and hold schools accountable for their outcomes, mainly gauged in terms of academic achievement.

And sure enough, under the No Child Left Behind law, every state in the land mustered academic standards in (at least) reading and math, annual tests in grades three through eight and some sort of accountability system for their public schools.

Unfortunately, those standards were mostly vague, shoddy or misguided; the tests were simplistic and their “proficiency” bar set too low; and the accountability systems encouraged all manner of dubious practices, such as focusing teacher effort on a small subset of students at risk of failing the exams rather than advancing every child’s learning.

What a difference a decade makes. To be sure, some rooms in the education policy edifice remain a mess. But thanks to the hard work and political courage of the states, finally abetted by some unquenchable leaders in Washington, the core elements of standards-based reform have seen a reasonably thorough cleansing and dramatic upgrade.

Take the academic standards themselves. We and our colleagues at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute have been fans of the Common Core standards. By our lights, they’re dramatically clearer and stronger than most of the state standards they replaced (and on par with the rest). They do a good job of School policies have gotten smarter in the decade after ‘No Child Left Behind’ - The Washington Post:

Sacramento’s next mayor has a full plate | The Sacramento Bee

Sacramento’s next mayor has a full plate | The Sacramento Bee:
Sacramento’s next mayor has a full plate

After eight years of Kevin Johnson, Sacramento’s next mayor will be a very different politician and personality. Which is fine because what the city requires right now is less celebrity and drama. It needs a steady, intelligent leader to build on Johnson’s accomplishments – and take on new challenges.

So far, the campaign between the two main contenders – City Councilwoman Angelique Ashby and former state Senate leader Darrell Steinberg – has been mostly about raising money and collecting endorsements.

In the three months before mail balloting starts for the June 7 primary, Ashby and Steinberg owe it to voters to be crystal clear on where they want to take the city and how they’d get there. To start with, neither of their campaign websites have a section on where they stand on the issues, which is surprising and disappointing. They should fix that, pronto.

There’s no shortage of subjects on which voters need to know their positions. The next mayor will have a full plate – issues that will carry over from the Johnson era, but also new ones. Just to name a few:

▪ Downtown: The new arena is jump-starting downtown redevelopment, but other major public projects are on the horizon. It appears likely that the next mayor and City Council will make the final decisions on whether to renovate the Community Center Theater, expand the Sacramento Convention Center or even build a brand new performing arts center – and where to get the money.

▪ Crime: Violent crime is on the rise after years of decline. While anti-gang and other efforts must be beefed up in the hardest-hit neighborhoods, the city needs to follow through on its long-term strategies of adding patrol officers, partnering with community leaders and diversifying the police force. The next mayor should listen closely to any recommendations from the new Community Police Commission.

▪ Jobs: In his final State of the City speech, Mayor Johnson focused on growing the city’s innovation economy. There are some promising prospects, but it’s essential that the city do what it can to attract middle-class jobs beyond construction and government.

▪ Infrastructure: The city is headed toward raising water and sewer rates again to finish installing water meters and repair pipes and facilities. An increase in storm drainage rates could be coming in 2017. The next mayor must help make sure that the work is done efficiently and without too much disruption, and that those least able to pay get more help.

▪ Regional cooperation: Too often, Sacramento’s leaders don’t work closely with their peers in surrounding cities. Collaborating with West Sacramento on developing the riverfront and on building a streetcar line could usher in a welcome new era.

▪ Homeless: Frequent protests are a vivid reminder that homelessness hasn’t been resolved. City and county leaders must still come up with a smart, long-term strategy and stick with it. The next mayor should be an active participant in that conversation.

▪ Pensions: The city has made some progress, but must continue trying to trim retirementSacramento’s next mayor has a full plate | The Sacramento Bee:

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/editorials/article60109566.html#storylink=cpy

Rick Snyder's Gag Order Fails to Block Teachers - HeraldCourier.com: News

Information freeze thaws after injunction on election law - HeraldCourier.com: News:

Information freeze thaws after injunction on election law

 LANSING, Mich. (AP) — An information freeze on local and school officials is thawing after a federal judge put a preliminary injunction on a new Michigan election law that critics called a "gag order."

The injunction was a relief to many local and school officials fearful of legal repercussions for distributing information about upcoming ballot proposals. Gov. Rick Snyder had signed the legislation into law early this year.

Some local officials say they're once again holding public meetings, talking to media and distributing information about some of more than 100 upcoming money-related local ballot proposals up for vote. Others said the law only stopped them from using taxpayer money for mass mailing, robo calls and TV or radio advertising campaigns.

The law confused many. Now that the injunction is in place, some local officials are rushing to spread the word about their city, county, or township proposals.

Dickinson County Clerk Dolly Cook said she's scrambling to inform voters about 12 proposals. That includes a 911 dispatch millage renewal, a service that can't function without tax money.

"We do need to get (information) out, like I'm on the radio once a month," Cook said. "And man, I'll tell you what, when they put that out I didn't say a word because you're looking at a $20,000 fine. I'm glad the injunction is there."

Benton Harbor Area Schools has a $6.062 million millage renewal request on the ballot. Chief Financial Officer Scott Johnson for the Berrien Regional Education Service Agency said the agency is "seriously considering" sending information about the proposal with the injunction in place.

Superintendents from Pontiac School District and Pittsford Area Schools also say they're happy about the injunction. The Pontiac School District has a $27.6 million millage renewal proposal over the next 20 years. Pittsford has several bonding proposals that would help fix a leaky roof in a 1939 section of the school, repair old bathrooms and add electrical outlets to classrooms.

The new law stopped them and other local governments from distributing information about upcoming ballot proposals 60 days before an election through mass mailing campaigns, robo calls and television or radio ads. The law was meant to curb the use of taxpayer money to spread biased interpretations of proposals, a practice that supporters of the change called "electioneering."

U.S. District Judge John Corbett O'Meara issued the injunction about a week ago citing vague and confusing language after 18 plaintiffs — mostly school and local officials — filed a lawsuit against the state and secretary of state over the law.

One plaintiff, Dowagiac Mayor Donald Lyons, said he was concerned about language he thought prohibited the use of city resources for informing voters about proposals.

"What defines a city resource? Am I, as a mayor, a city resource? They're spending money, and I'm a resource, so does that mean that I can't speak on this issue?" Lyons asked. "The whole thing was very confusing, and I felt Information freeze thaws after injunction on election law - HeraldCourier.com: News: