OHIO: LEGAL ATTACK ON PARENTS

The Cleveland Bar Association is threatening to fine the parents of an autistic boy $10,000 for not hiring a lawyer when they brought, and largely won, a court case on their son's behalf four years ago. After a long court battle, Brian and Susan Woods settled their case with the Akron school district in 2002 when the district agreed to send Daniel, now 11, to a private school.

But in February, the Cleveland Bar Association took issue with the Woodses' handling parts of that case themselves and not through a lawyer. The bar charged them with unauthorized practice of law and threatened a $10,000 fine, saying that although the Woodses were allowed to represent themselves, they could not act as lawyers for their son. The charge is normally filed against nonlawyers who provide legal services for pay, but is rare against parents.

Representatives of several advocacy groups - plus the National School Boards Association, the American Bar Association and the Ohio bar's Committee on the Unauthorized Practice of Law - could not recall any cases of parents being charged with this misdemeanor offense. Last week, the Ohio Supreme Court, which will ultimately decide the case, ordered the bar to present evidence on why the case should not be dismissed, saying it appeared that "Woods has not engaged in the unauthorized practice of law."

Michael Harvey, the Rocky River lawyer handling the charges for the bar association, said the goal is to protect the rights of children. Harvey said special education laws are so complex that children need experts, not untrained parents, looking out for their rights. "You hope parents will do the right job for the child, but that's not always the case," Harvey said. Harvey said that although the bar is officially seeking a $10,000 fine, it would be happy with an admission that the Woodses broke the law and an agreement not to do it again.

Brian Woods thinks he's being intimidated to prevent parents from handling cases themselves - and to protect the large fees lawyers charge for such cases, which can easily run into the tens of thousands of dollars.

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THE OLD ENVY OF PRIVATE SCHOOLS STILL FESTERING IN BRITAIN

(Note that when the Brits used to refer to "Public schools", they meant a place where you go to be educated when you do not have a personal tutor. That usage is now dying out however -- with "independent school" being the preferred term for the same thing. Some of the people quoted below do use the old terminology, however

Private schools face a fresh battle to preserve their charitable status in the face of a powerful campaign to end the tax break that helps to keep many of them in business. A coalition of charities and Labour MPs will target legislation this summer in an effort to block the tax breaks that give fee-charging schools 88 million pounds a year. Campaigners claim that the Charities Bill fails to put an end to the presumption that private schools should have charitable status.

The Bill calls on independent schools to demonstrate that they benefit the wider community to justify their tax advantages. But, according to the Charity Commission's interpretation of the proposals, private schools and other charities that charge high fees will have to prove only that the less fortunate are "not entirely excluded" from their services.

Campaigners, led by the British Red Cross, among others, say that this does not go far enough. In a joint letter to Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, they say that the public benefit test will have "minimal impact" on charities that charge high fees unless a more robust definition is drawn up. "The Bill does not go far enough. Anyone able to benefit from a charity's service must have a reasonable chance of doing so," the charities said in a joint statement. Their stance is supported by between 35 and 40 Labour MPs, who are planning to rebel against the Government when the Charities Bill is debated in the House of Commons this summer.

John McDonnell, Labour MP for Hayes & Harlington, said that he hoped to table an amendment to the Bill with a more robust definition of public benefit, modelled on Scottish law, to ensure that charities charging high fees did not place "unduly restrictive" conditions on people wanting to benefit from their services. "I would like to exclude public schools [He is using the old terminology. He means private schools] from being charities. However, if they do want to demonstrate how they are in the public interest, we need to raise the bar and then ensure they do it properly," he said. John Grogan, Labour MP for Selby, North Yorkshire, said that to pass a robust public benefit test a public school would have to do a lot more than merely allow the local comprehensive to play football on its grounds once a year or offer a couple of scholarships.

Rosamund McCarthy, a charity law specialist at the firm Bates, Wells & Braithwaite, said that the public benefit clause could scupper the Bill. "A lot of people might see this as an assault on public schools, but it is not. It's about identifying what is truly charitable. The vast majority of the public have no idea that the majority of independent schools are charities. It would be a tragedy if the Bill falters on this point because there are a huge number of very good things in it," she said.

Stephen King, of the Independent Schools Council, said that his members already provided immense public benefit to the wider community. "For every one pound in taxation benefits they get, schools are giving 3 pounds in assistance with fees," he said. A spokeswoman for the Home Office said that the Government's proposed definition of public benefit did provide a sound basis for the Charity Commission to determine whether organisations should have charitable status.

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U.K.: MALICIOUS STUDENTS SHOULD BE PROSECUTED

Head teachers said that they should be free to sue pupils and their families if allegations of abuse are made maliciously. Members of the National Association of Head Teachers voted unanimously to support legal action against children who make unfounded accusations of physical or sexual abuse with the intention of wrecking teachers' careers. The union said that the threat would help to deter malicious children who, at present, suffered no repercussions for making allegations that they knew to be untrue.

Michael Murphy, who proposed the motion, told delegates that it was not intended to hinder investigations of justifiable accusations against heads. "But the pendulum has swung too far. All we want is balance, fairness and freedom from fear," said Mr Murphy, head of Corpus Christi primary school in Wolverhampton. "If you do something wrong you expect to be accountable for it. But we must support those good people who do their best to support children and their communities but are thwarted by misguided and malicious individuals."

Heads who faced an allegation of abuse suffered the humiliation of suspension, isolation from the school and their colleagues, police investigation and the possibility of dismissal for gross misconduct. "Then the Crown Prosecution Service throws the case out. Our colleague goes back into the school and is left to face the reprehensible outcome of this malicious, unproven and unnecesary allegation alone. The perpetrator walks away without accountability. This cannot be right, fair or just," Mr Murphy said. The conference voted to instruct its ruling council to investigate "ways of taking legal action against a young adult, or member of their family, who make a clear cut, provable malicious allegation".

Source

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

The NEA and similar unions worldwide believe that children should be thoroughly indoctrinated with Green/Left, feminist/homosexual ideology but the "3 R's" are something that kids should just be allowed to "discover"

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