Friday, April 20, 2007

Judge Upholds Illinois School's Ban on 'Be Happy, Not Gay' Shirt

Two Neuqua Valley High School students won't be able to wear T-shirts saying "Be Happy, Not Gay," to school on Thursday following a judge's ruling. U.S. District Judge William T. Hart ruled in favor of the high school Tuesday in a preliminary injunction that would have allowed the students to wear the shirts the day after Wednesday's National Day of Silence. On the Day of Silence, students can refrain from speaking as an effort to protest discrimination against homosexuals.

The Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund is representing Heidi Zamecnik of Naperville and Alexander Nuxoll of Bolingbrook in a lawsuit that claims Zamecnik's rights were violated last year when she wasn't allowed to wear the shirt in school. The Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative Christian litigation group, will appeal the judge's decision on the preliminary injunction to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, attorney Jonathan Scruggs said. The lawsuit is still pending. Scruggs said the school is violating the students' rights to free speech by banning the shirt. "The school cannot silence speech merely because some people find it offensive," Scruggs said. "We believe that's the core of what the First Amendment protects."

Jack Canna, an attorney for Indian Prairie Unit School District 204, said banning the shirt is part of a policy "to preserve the notion that kids shouldn't make negative or derogatory comments about other students." Messages left by The Associated Press with the Indian Prairie Unit School District 204 and Neuqua Valley High School were not immediately returned Wednesday morning.

Source





Rod Paige Warns of a 'Death Grip' by Unions

President Bush's first-term education secretary, Rod Paige, is sitting in his office on the 75th floor of the Empire State Building, the leather of his black cowboy boots creaking beneath the cuffs of his pinstriped suit, and talking about the "death grip," the "stranglehold," that teachers' unions have on public education in America. His new book is titled "The War Against Hope: How Teachers' Unions Hurt Children, Hinder Teachers, and Endanger Public Education." The unions, he writes, are "arrogant" and "destructive." They defend incompetent teachers and oppose merit pay for teachers who excel. "No special interest is more destructive than the teachers' unions, as they oppose nearly every meaningful reform," he writes.

Lest New York City teachers get all riled up at him, there's a catch: The book actually praises the president of New York City's United Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten. It says she is among those union leaders who "have exhibited the unique ability to achieve, or at least to strive to achieve, the proper balance between the interests of the public education system and the well-being of the union's members." "Sure, she gives Joel Klein, New York City's commissioner of education, headaches. But I'll bet that even Klein has no doubt that she understands the need for, and is committed to, school improvement for kids," Mr. Paige writes. It's a bet that Mr. Paige may have lost: He tells me that when he last saw Mr. Klein, "He said, `I think you gave her too much credit.'"

Mr. Paige splits his time between Houston, where he was superintendent of schools before joining the Bush administration, and Washington, D.C. He was in New York for a meeting of the board of News Corp., the press and entertainment company led by Rupert Murdoch that owns, among other things, the New York Post and the Fox television networks. Mr. Paige is a director of News Corp., but his main work is as chairman of Chartwell Education Group, a less-than-two-year-old company with about two dozen employees that consults on education reform. It is in Chartwell's office in New York - decorated with photos of Mr. Paige with Mr. Bush and the first lady - that my interview with Mr. Paige takes place.

What does he think of Mr. Klein, I ask. "I think he has made a great difference and he's on the right track," says Mr. Paige, who acknowledges that New York City's size makes it a "very complicated system to operate." He says that Mr. Klein has the advantage of a supportive mayor in Michael Bloomberg and a governance system in which the mayor has a lot of control over the schools. Mr. Paige cites "student performance gains" in New York, as well as the system's being named repeatedly as a finalist for the $1 million Broad Prize for Urban Education. As a member of the board of governors of the Broad Foundation, Mr. Paige says he is familiar with the "pretty excruciating" selection process for that award.

I ask him if he thinks his outspoken criticism of teachers' unions will hurt Chartwell's consulting business. He pauses. "Well, there's been a lot of discussion on that," he says. "You can't improve the system by not addressing the real issues." "The system is not performing," he says. The people who suffer most, he says, are minorities and disadvantaged students. "The union is sitting on both sides of the negotiating table," he says, referring to the power of the unions in electing the politicians they are negotiating with in collective bargaining. The result, he says, are "systems whose main purpose is the employment well-being of the adults in the system."

"This book is about raising the issue for public discussion, because I believe the American public is a wise public," he says. "As Americans, we know better than this." "It's the truth," he says. "All you've got to do is look at a union contract.It speaks for itself."

Are vouchers allowing public school students to escape to private schools part of the solution? As education secretary, Mr. Paige spearheaded a successful effort by the Bush administration to win congressional approval for a school voucher program in the District of Columbia, whose well-funded public schools have a dismal record when it comes to student performance on standardized tests. "I'm very proud of that program," Mr. Paige says. "We've got parents lining up."

What of the latest scandal to hit the New York City schools, the high school teacher on the Upper West Side who led a group of students on a trip to Cuba in apparent violation of the federal sanctions on the Communist government led by Fidel Castro? While declining to get into specifics since he hadn't personally investigated the details, Mr. Paige did say that he felt the "appropriate response has to be aggressive and quick."

Aggressive is one thing Mr. Paige certainly is; his book recounts the fury he kicked up when, as education secretary, he likened the National Education Association to a "terrorist organization," a choice of words for which he quickly apologized. He makes no apology, though, for calling attention to the power of the unions. "The people need to understand," he says. "The power needs to be rolled back so we can have a more proper balance between the interests of the employees and the interests of the parents, students, and taxpayers."

Source





Huge waste in Detroit

The educators seem about as bright as their students

About five years after Detroit Public Schools sold its headquarters and committed $57 million to buying and leasing swanky offices in the New Center area, the cash-strapped district has decided it can't afford all the space. And now taxpayers could face a big hit as a result.

The district is hoping to rent out some of the space. But the rent for much of the 70,000-plus square feet of space DPS leases in the Fisher, New Center One, Albert Kahn and Lothrop Landing buildings are on the high end of what the current market will bear, leading real estate experts to say DPS would either have to eat a portion of the rent to sublease the space or pay $9 million over the next seven years for offices that it cannot afford.

In either event, the leases -- signed when the district paid more for five floors of the Fisher Building than the Farbman Group, a developer, paid for the entire building the previous year -- would be an added expense for the district that has shuttered dozens of schools in recent years to help balance its budget. "We did not make those decisions, but we have to undo some of them because they're not serving the district," said Joyce Hayes-Giles, the Detroit school board's vice president and finance committee chairwoman. The last of the leases runs out in 2014.

Detroit school board members, all of whom took office last year and were not involved in the purchase or leases, said the district needs to move offices into one or more of the schools that are closing. In a memo obtained by the Free Press, board member Marie Thornton listed the prices for the leases -- all with the Farbman Group -- and wrote that she was "appalled." The district pays between $4,120 and $63,784 per month to lease the office spaces -- or about $12 to $19 per square foot -- Mark Schrupp, deputy chief of facilities maintenance and auxiliary services for DPS, confirmed last week.

There's no word on what will happen with the space that the district bought in 2002 in the Fisher Building. DPS spent about $39 million to buy and improve floors nine, 10, 11, 12 and 14 -- about 130,000 square feet -- using money from the $1.5-billion bond voters approved in 1994, Schrupp said. That was more than the $30 million the Farbman Group paid to buy both the 26-story Fisher Building and the Albert Kahn buildings in 2001. The DPS administration offices moved during the 2002-03 school year into the New Center area spaces after the administration of former Chief Executive Officer Kenneth Burnley sold the former Schools Center Building and four other properties to Wayne State University for $9 million. Burnley and the district were criticized after local news media reported on the pricey furnishings in the new offices.



The big-spending Dr Burnley above


Schrupp said the plan to move offices is still developing, but if approved, some administrators could be moved to the all-girls International Academy building on Woodward or the facility that houses Barsamian alternative school after those students move into other buildings this fall. But that's if anyone wants to sublease the space. The asking price for office leases in the greater downtown Detroit area is $17.78 per square foot. And there is a 26.5% vacancy rate, the highest in a decade, according to an online report by CB Richard Ellis Inc., a multinational commercial real estate firm with offices in Detroit.

The $18.70 per square foot to lease the 18th floor in the Fisher Building was probably more than should've been paid, considering DPS leased major space, said Steve Morris, managing partner of Newmark Knight Frank, a firm with offices in Farmington Hills. He said DPS may only get $12 per square foot on subleases because landlords typically make standard improvements to lure tenants to office space.

Parent Joseph Williams said as children are uprooted from 34 schools this year to try to save money, it is only fair that the administrators move out of their nice offices. "Would anybody in this city give their house away and go rent? That's just showing how everybody is taking advantage of our children," said Williams, who is president of the Local School Community Organization at Redford High, which will close this year. As for the move from rented offices and into schools, he said, "I'll believe it when it happens."

Source

***************************

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"


For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

***************************

No comments: