The Anti-Union Movement in Wisconsin: Myth vs. Fact

The Forum for Education and Democracy has set out to distinguish between the myths and the facts around the turmoil in Wisconsin as thousands continue to march on the Capitol to oppose anti-union legislation.  They ask their readers to rethink some of the myths that are circulating.  We share their ideas about the myths with our readers to rethink also.

•Myth #1: Public employees in Wisconsin and elsewhere are overpaid. The truth is they’re probably underpaid when you factor in things like level of education. In Wisconsin, nearly 60 percent of public employees hold at least a four-year college degree – double the private sector workforce. That’s because many are teachers and other professionals. When you compare apples to apples, they earn 4.8 percent less than comparable private sector workers, according to the Economic Policy Institute.


•Myth #2: Public employees aren’t sacrificing their fair share. In the last round of bargaining in Wisconsin, the American Federation of Teachers alone offered more than $100 million in concessions in the form of higher health insurance premiums, furlough days and increased pension contributions. In Ohio, unions representing public employees gave back more than $200 million in concessions, essentially balancing the budget on their own backs.

•Myth #3: High employee benefits got us into this budget mess. Wisconsin was looking at a budget surplus until Republicans gave $117 million in business tax breaks. The reality is that the state is now facing a budget gap, but the gap is 13 percent of the budget. The average gap in other states is 20 percent, so things in Wisconsin are actually better than the norm.

•Myth #4: The state retirement system is in trouble. Again, Wisconsin is in a better position than many states. The $72 billion Wisconsin Retirement System is over 97 percent funded according to the Center of Retirement Research, a non-partisan think tank. By comparison, the fund in neighboring Illinois is only 52 percent funded.

•Myth #5: The governor has no other option. This is clearly not the case. The public employee unions have already said they will give him concessions to erase the budget gap – if he backs off his pledge to crush their bargaining rights. Also, Wisconsin and other states have large amounts of unspent stimulus funds that could be used to ease the burden. If ever there was a rainy day, this is it!

A Wikipedia for Legislation and Public Policymaking?

I received an e-mail recently from an Andrew Schwartz who thought our readers might be interested in a project that he and others have started. It is sort of a Wikipedia for legislation and policymaking that citizens can construct together. What do you think of this idea?


Here is more from his e-mail:


WriteTheBillWiki.com is a site created by a group at Harvard that provides a user-friendly platform for public policymaking--it’s like a Wikipedia for legislation. Anyone can jot down some ideas, write a section of proposed legislation, or edit what has been written by others. If the issues you care about are not already featured on the site, you just add them. WTB is all about collaboration and moving the conversation forward!

WriteTheBillWiki.com is launching a 3-day editing blitz on education legislation, starting at 8:00pm tonight. We’re bringing together policy experts, legal scholars, teachers, students, community activists, and everyday citizens to draft pieces of REAL legislation. Over the next 3 days, we’re going to tackle topics like:

• Teacher evaluation and merit pay
• School vouchers
• Charter schools
• And any other issue you feel compelled to add

Once our 3-day blitz is over, our goal is to have REAL legislation that’s ready to be introduced by the new Congress.

PS - if you’d like to find out more, please check out the site http://writethebill.wikispaces.com/
or our quick (2 minute) video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYfe0zJ5gIc

Recommended Changes to a future DREAM Act

Although the DREAM Act was not passed by the current Congress, it will undoubtedly come up again for consideration. At its recent convention in October, the Illinois Federation of Teachers had recommended that the bill include more options. Concerned with the militarization and the limited options of the current bill, the IFT had recommended four changes for a more just version of the bill. Perhaps, a future bill will accommodate these changes:

1. Include a community service path to legalization

2. Include a vocational path to legalization

3. Allow undocumented youth access to Pell Grants and federal financial aid money to offer an honest chance to go to college

4. Allow youth to petition their parents for legal status

More on the Tribal Sovereignty Curriculum: Since Time Immemorial

Since we posted an outline of Washington State’s new Tribal Sovereignty Curriculum on this blog, we have received many e-mails for more information. Shana Brown gives us a first-hand account below of her involvement with the curriculum both as a teacher and lead contributor to its development. Shana also provided us with a nine-page report that gives more details. We have added a link to the report and the webite where readers can find the curriculum following her post along with a short bio to introduce this committed teacher to our readers.

Shana's personal story comes at an opportune time for me. Just the other day, students in our teacher education program brought up some searching questions about the profession they are about to enter. They are young, idealistic and committed, but also somewhat anxious about the reality of the world they are about to experience. They want to make a difference in this world and are searching for answers to their existential questions. Shana's story of life as a teacher, sometimes lonely, sometimes exhilarating, is a deeply honest and insightful account on ways teachers can make a difference in community with others. Her story will not only speak to our students' search for the meaning of the profession they are about to enter, but hopefully also to the politicians, media and think tanks that have exploited real problems and real social and human conditions by resorting to a simple campaign of "teacher bashing." Thank you for your story Shana.



Since Time Immemorial: Tribal Sovereignty in Washington State Curriculum

By Shana Brown

It’s been awhile since I reflected in writing about STI: Since Time Immemorial. I’ll post the articles I’ve written and co-written for a lot of the background information, but as far as what I’m feeling now regarding the curriculum, how I feel as a teacher, tribal person, parent…well, that deserves a bit of writing.

When I started this project, I felt very alone in it. I was trying to get my teacher colleagues to include tribal perspectives in history and literature, trying to get myself to do the same, and it never quite matched my vision of what it ought to be.

And that gets us in trouble, we teachers. Always thinking about the way our classrooms, lesson, students, and the world ought to be.

But it is what keeps us honest, too.

And when we’re honest about what we can and cannot do, we become one among those rare, incredibly lucky teachers whose visions becomes actualized. And the thing I have concluded through this immense exercise that I began almost twenty years ago is that if we depend just upon ourselves to realize whatever our educational vision happens to be, we will fail. Big.

Kafka says that “…the book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.” If for Kafka the book is the remedy for our inner being, our inner truth, then it is the act of communing that is the remedy for the isolation that stems from being an army of one. As it turns out there were dozens of teachers plugging away at making their little corner of the universe a little better, a little more inclusive of tribal history, a little more truthful. As it turns out, there were dozens of tribes plugging away at making their histories known. As it turns out, the teaching of tribal history and tribal sovereignty was an idea whose time had finally come.

For a very large reason, a kind of harmonic convergence occurred over Washington State beginning in 2005 with the passage of House Bill 1495. John McCoy’s sponsored bill was the “giddyup” that we needed to bring all of us together. The “Us” became OSPI (Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction), Federal Title programs, state legislature, teachers, school districts, the state AG’s office, tribal attorneys, state library associations, the state’s Secretary of State’s office, tribes, tribal schools, tribal libraries, and the list just continues. We’ve received funding from federal, state, and tribal agencies, and most recently we added the Gates Foundation. And then we joined other states in their varying degrees of tribal history inclusion, namely Montana (Regional Learning Project) and Wisconsin (Indian Land Tenure Foundation). I tell you, the more who were interested, and who in turn invested their time and money into our efforts, became overwhelming. I’d find myself giggling while en route to whatever training, presentation, or function, I’d happen to be attending, giddy with the fact that what I’d envisioned so long ago was coming true. Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. Yes, Virginia, there are other like-minded individuals, who can nod and make it so. I’m smiling and giggling right now, in fact.

My words of wisdom: it may take awhile, but don’t give up. Really. It happens. It can and it will. And sometimes it happens all discombobulated and backasswords, but really—have faith. If Ray Kinsela taught me anything it is that sometimes when faith is all you got, it’s all you need. We started with a flickering of an idea when it came to our curriculum initiative, and we had no funding. Now we’re staring at a regional, multiyear effort that has a generous budget.

Now, the curriculum itself. In the articles I explain the rationale and the mechanics of it, but I’m still fearful that it’s not good enough. Hell, I know it’s not good enough purely because many of the lessons haven’t been tried. Remember how I said some things happen bassackwards? Well, the writing was one of them. I wrote, then my curriculum partners wrote, but without pilot schools to try them out. Then, we got pilot schools, but no real budget to support them the way we wanted. That meant only a few of the lessons were vetted properly. Then, we got the budget to support them, but after the pilot ended. So now, we have the budget to pilot and evaluate, get the lessons out to the tribes for them to see, too. But there’s still a big chunk of it that needs to be scrutinized, edited, and reworked. For example: I have a GREAT idea for how we can take the history of Celilo Falls on the Columbia river and transform it into a storypath, a la Margit McGuire from Seattle University (look her up. She’s great.) But, time for a teacher is short, and so I had to resort to recording my suggestions on what to do with the unit in order to develop it further. So, perhaps one day I’ll be able to continue it, but it’s going to take awhile. Another: some of the units just feel so “first-drafty” to me, but that, too will change as more people look ‘em over and say, “Hey! You really ought to change it to X,” or, “There’s a problem with Y.” I’m just lucky my ego ain’t locked up inside of my work. Okay, not locked up inside my work that much.

The cornerstone of our curriculum, though, is our saving grace: we don’t pretend to be the definitive voice on any one tribe’s history and definition of tribal sovereignty. Our curriculum compels its users to create and develop partnerships between school districts and tribes so that tribes can tell their own stories and begin trusting an educational system that was hurtful at best and genocidal at worst. Tribes are damned tired of having schools teach about them rather than with them. Our curriculum’s success depends on it. And how will you as teachers accomplish this? Hopefully, not bassackwards, but have faith that if it does happen that way it will probably be okay.

There’s a lot more to say, and my class will begin in 20 minutes and I have yet to make the photocopies I need (that part of teaching does not change. Ever.). I hope I’ll be able to chat with some of you as time allows. I’m very eager to find out what people think, how the work is used, not used, augmented, revised, and ultimately used.

There’s a whole other topic about the generosity of folks in this project. I think part of why it works is that no one wants to make any money on it. When you’re not worried about profit, the rest seems to flow easier. Kind of like growing up poor and not realizing it until your adulthood. You’re incredibly oblivious to just how difficult being poor actually is because you’re just so incredibly happy. It doesn’t matter that it’s your fifth meal mainly comprised of commodity cheese; you’re just happy you get grilled cheese sandwiches again!


Link to Report: Washington State’s Tribal Sovereignty Curriculum Initiative: Since Time Immemorial by Shana Brown and CHiXapkaid

Also see: Since Time Immemorial: Developing Tribal Sovereignty Curriculum in Washington's Schools by Barbara Leigh Smith, Shana Brown, and Magda Costantino

Link to the website: Tribal Sovereignty Curriculum Website


Shana Brown is a descendant of the Yakama, Snohomish, Stillaguamish, Squaxin, Puyallup, Muckleshoot, Tulalip, and Snoqualmie tribes. She was born and raised on the Yakama reservation, and despite her surroundings, was never introduced to any tribal history in the public schools. It has been her vision as a veteran English, Language Arts, history, and technology teacher of 22 years to develop curriculum that becomes part of the everyday experiences of all students, not just an ancillary tip of the multicultural hat. She has developed curriculum for the Washington State Historical Society, the University of Montana’s Regional Learning Project, and is the lead curriculum developer and writer for OSPI’s Since Time Immemorial: Tribal Sovereignty in Washington State, or STI. She currently teachers ancient cultures, language arts, and technology at Broadview-Thomson K – 8; her husband and two young children keep her busy, happy, and healthy.

A Groundbreaking Curriculum on Tribal Sovereignty in Washington State

Since Time Immemorial: Tribal Sovereignty in Washington State


Denny Hurtado

Director, Indian Education
Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction
Washington State


In 2005, the Washington State Legislature passed House Bill 1495, which officially recommended inclusion of tribal history in all common schools.


The resulting curriculum is called Since Time Immemorial: Tribal Sovereignty in Washington State. The final product will be web-based and will be available in August 2010.

This curriculum uses three approaches:


An inquiry based approach with five essential questions:

How does physical geography affect the distribution, culture, and economic life of local tribes?

What is the legal status of tribes who negotiated or who did not negotiate settlement for compensation for the loss of their sovereign homelands?

What were the political, economic, and cultural forces consequential to the treaties that led to the movement of tribes from long established homelands to reservations?

What are the ways in which tribes responded to the threats to extinguish their cultures and independence, such as missionaries, boarding schools, assimilation policies, and the reservation system?

What have tribes done to meet the challenges of reservation life? What have these tribes, as sovereign nations, done to meet the economic and cultural needs of their tribal communities?

A place-based approach. Our approach encourages teachers and students to address the essential questions in the context of tribes in their own communities.

An integrated approach. Teachers choose how much time to spend on tribal sovereignty content to complete their units throughout the year. The integrated approach provides three levels of curriculum for each of the OSPI recommended social studies units, each level building on the last. Where appropriate, units build toward successful completion of Content Based Assessments (CBA).


Selected goals of tribal-sovereignty curriculum

Elementary School:

• Understand that there are more than 500 independent tribal nations and that they deal with the United States and one another on a government-to-government basis.
• Define tribal sovereignty as "a way that tribes govern themselves in order to keep and support their cultural ways of life."
• Identify the names and locations of tribes in their area.

Middle school:

• Understand that under the U.S. Constitution, treaties are "the supreme law of the land."
• Understand that tribes are subject to federal law and taxes, as well as some state regulations.
• Understand that levels of sovereignty vary from tribe to tribe and that there are continued threats to tribal sovereignty.

High school:

• Recognize landmark court decisions and legislation bearing on tribal sovereignty.
• Understand that tribal sovereignty works toward protecting tribes' ways of life and toward the development of their nations.
• Explain the governmental structure of at least one tribe in their community.

The Arizona Bill and the Politicizing of Education: A Response to NY Times Commentator Stanley Fish

The meaning of Arizona HB 2281 that we posted below is perhaps best understood by analyzing it within the political and social context that motivated its passage. In the May 17th issue of the New York Times, commentator Stanley Fish chooses instead to examine the conflict within two philosophical paradigms. Fish’s concern is not with the motivation behind HB 2281 but rather with arguments around its justification or lack of justification. His argument leaves open many questions.

What is Fish’s argument? On the one side, Fish portrays the ethnic studies program at the Tucson Unified School District as an example of attempts to politicize education by indoctrinating students into certain beliefs about social justice that will lead to actions consistent with that political agenda. He writes:

The Social Justice Education Project means what its title says: students are to be brought to see what the prevailing orthodoxy labors to occlude so that they can join the effort to topple it. To this end the Department of Mexican American Studies (I quote again from its Web site) pledges to "work toward the invoking of a critical consciousness within each and every student" and "promote and advocate for social and educational transformation."

While students may act on beliefs they are exposed to, Fish objects to teaching that sets out to agitate rather than educate. Fearing indoctrination, Fish sees the Tucson program as a “Trojan horse of a political agenda” and one that ”the people of Arizona should indeed be concerned.” Let’s disentangle a few points first. Is Fish intending to include in his charge that the ethnic studies program is violating the new Arizona bill. If one looks at the website http://www.tusd1.org/contents/depart/mexicanam/model.asp , nothing that is mentioned seems to violate the details of the law that stipulates that curriculum should not: "promote the overthrow of the United States government, promote resentment toward a race or class of people, are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group, advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals." And, of course, this is the argument that the school district is making. Perhaps, Fish isn’t accusing the district of this. His argument is more subtle, and as a result, more in need of critical examination.

On the other side, Fish sees HB 2281 attempts to ban certain ethnic courses in the public school as a similar attempt to politicize education. Rather than removing politics from schools, House Bill 2281 mandates an opposing political ideology of individual rights. Fish writes:

The idea of treating people as individuals is certainly central to the project of Enlightenment liberalism, and functions powerfully in much of the nation’s jurisprudence. But it is an idea, not a commandment handed down from on high, and as such it deserves to be studied, not worshipped. The authors of House Bill 2281 don’t want students to learn about the ethic of treating people equally; they want them to believe in it (as you might believe in the resurrection), and therefore to believe, as they do, that those who interrogate it and show how it has sometimes been invoked in the service of nefarious purposes must be banished from public education.

Fish is right in seeing the state’s solution to what it sees as politicizing education by politicizing it to serve its own agenda as wrongheaded. In his attempt to avoid both the school district and the state legislature's attempts to politicize education, Fish proposes that we should return to an objective, neutral concept of education as a pursuit of knowledge where all sides are presented in a fair-minded way. Fish’s concept raises a number of questions that need to be further examined because his critique of an approach that apparently is serving an underserved population well will have consequences.

What does it mean to politicize education? What would constitute a neutral, objective approach to education? In one sense, public education is a political endeavor in the broadest sense of the word. It serves to reproduce in the young the necessary skills, knowledge and dispositions to function effectively in the political life of the nation. But perhaps Fish has in mind a more narrow sense of politicizing, one which narrows the choices available consistent with a particular ideological stance. Indeed, this more narrow sense is contradictory to the larger understanding of the political philosophy of a liberal democratic society. Although this larger political philosophy rules out the narrowing of the curriculum to reflect only a particular partisan view, it isn’t clear that a neutral presentation of both sides of an issue will necessarily provide the kind of critical awareness that Fish values. If students come with certain assumptions that are often embedded in the conventional thinking of their time, would a neutral presentation of sides largely leave the dominant assumptions unexamined in any meaningful way? And would students really care about the implications of their thinking?

This is the thinking that not only underlies Paulo Freire’s thought that Fish criticizes, but it also underlies the approach that goes back to Socrates. For in any philosophical dialogue, Socrates always starts with where his opponents are and simply challenges them with questions until they come to see the problems in their own ways of thinking and realize that what they thought they knew they never really knew at all. Creating cognitive dissonance was part of the educational journey. Indeed, an education that reveals and uncovers the injustices embedded in the dominant forms of thinking that have been internalized in the minds of the students leads to a truer, more objective understanding of the reality that Fish so values. That such an education becomes transformative and may lead to action follows not from the attempt to indoctrinate or agitate that Fish claims, but rather from the journey that the student has embarked upon. Of course, any particular incident of teaching can involve a betrayal of the intent here, but it shouldn’t lead us to the kind of generalizations that Fish makes.

Stanley Fish, "Arizona: The Gift That Keeps On Giving," New York Times, May 17, 2010

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/17/arizona-the-gift-that-keeps-on-giving/

Arizona’s Other Bill: What Does it Say

While much of the nation’s attention has been on Arizona’s law on illegal immigration and its implications for racial profiling, another bill has surfaced over the elimination of certain ethnic studies programs in the schools. While we will have more to say about HB 2881 later, we thought readers would want to read the bill for themselves.

From the Arizona State Legislature Website:
House of Representatives
HB 2281
prohibited courses; discipline; schools


HB 2281 prohibits a school district or charter school from including courses or classes that either promote the overthrow of the United States government or promote resentment toward a race or class of people.

History

The State Board of Education (SBE) must prescribe a minimum course of study, incorporating Arizona’s academic standards, to be taught in Arizona public schools (Arizona Revised Statutes (A.R.S.) § 15-701). School district governing boards must approve the course of study, including the basic textbook for each approved course and all other units recommended for credit before implementing each course in both elementary and high schools. Pursuant to A.R.S. § 15-701.01, a governing board may adopt courses of study that are in addition to or higher than that prescribed by the SBE.

Current law requires the principal of each school to ensure that all rules pertaining to the discipline, suspension, and expulsion of pupils are communicated to students at the beginning of each school year. All cases of suspension must be for good cause and must be reported within five days to the governing board by the superintendent or person imposing the suspension. The school district governing board is required to post regular notices and take minutes of any hearing concerning the discipline, suspension, or expulsion of a pupil (A.R.S § 15-843).

Provisions

• States that the Legislature finds and declares that public school pupils should be taught to treat and value each other as individuals and not be taught to resent or hate other races or classes of people.

• Prohibits a school district or charter school from including in its program of instruction any courses or classes that:

Ø Promote the overthrow of the United States government.

Ø Promote resentment toward a race or class of people.

Ø Are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group.

Ø Advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals.

• States that if the SBE determines that a school district or charter school is offering a course that violates this act, the SBE must direct the Superintendent of Public Instruction (Superintendent) to notify the school district or charter school that it is in violation.

• Stipulates that if the SBE determines that the school district or charter school has failed to comply within 60 days after a notice has been issued by the Superintendent, the SBE may direct the ADE to withhold up to 10% of the monthly apportionment of state aid that would otherwise be due to the school district or charter school and requires ADE to adjust the school district or charter school’s apportionment accordingly.

• Specifies when the SBE determines that the school district or charter school is in compliance with not offering a prohibited course, ADE must restore the full amount of state aid payments to the school district or charter school.

• Stipulates that actions taken under this act are subject to appeal pursuant to laws relating to uniform administrative hearing procedures.

• States that this act cannot be construed to restrict or prohibit:

Ø Courses or classes for Native American pupils that are required to comply with federal law.

Ø The grouping of pupils according to academic performance, including capability in the English language, that may result in a disparate impact by ethnicity.

Ø Courses or classes that include the history of any ethnic group and that are open to all students, unless the course or class violates this act.

• Prohibits rules pertaining to the discipline, suspension, and expulsion of pupils from being based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, or ancestry.

• States that if the ADE, the Auditor General, or the Attorney General determines that a school district is substantially and deliberately not in compliance with pupil disciplinary actions and if the school district has failed to correct the deficiency within 90 days after receiving notice from the ADE, the Superintendent may withhold the monies the school district would otherwise be entitled to receive from the date of the determination of noncompliance until the ADE determines that the school district is in compliance.

David Saxe, litigant in Saxe v. State College Area School District, tells his own story

We have added a new article to our rejoinder section of the Journal of Educational Controversy. In the first issue of our journal, we focused on a controversy that emerged from the court case, Saxe v. State College Area School District, that was decided by Judge Samuel Alito before he was appointed to the US Supreme Court. The case reflects the tension between two values – liberty and equality – that both form the bedrock of our liberal democracy.

David Saxe, the litigant in the case, has decided to end his silence of ten years and tell his own story. Saxe argues that the characterization of his motives as “homophobic” or “religious fanaticism” was unfounded. On the contrary, he argues that he was actually defending the first amendment of the US constitution. You can find his article in our Rejoinder Section or go directly to:

Union next to our liberty most dear: Anatomy of Saxe v State College Area School District and Constance Martin, Righting Wrongs in the Sea of Rights

Judge Alito had found that the anti-harassment policy that David Saxe challenged was too vague and couldn’t pass constitutional muster. How might an anti-harassment policy be written that would be found constitutional?

We invite readers to add their thoughts with a formal rejoinder or a more spontaneous comment on our blog.

Washington State Legislature passes two bills on Civil Rights in Schools and Anti-bullying

The Washington State Legislature has passed two bills that will be of interest to readers concerned with the rights and protections of our students. We would be interested in learning about actions taking place in other states.

The Safe Schools Coalition has provided the following analysis of the bills and has permitted us to post it to our blog for our readers.

The bills are:
(1) HB 3026 -- civil rights in schools
(2) HB 2801 -- bullying bill

*****************************************
(1) HB 3026 -- civil rights in schools

From the Safe Schools Coalition’s Law & Policy Work Group Co-Chairs Jennifer Allen and Lonnie Johns-Brown:

Engrossed Second Substitute House Bill 3026 was passed by the Senate as the very last bill before the cut-off. Both of the harmful amendments to the bill were defeated, and the bill passed on a vote of 30-18.

Thank you Rep. Sharon Tomiko-Santos for serving as the bill's prime sponsor and providing leadership and thank you to the communities of color that have championed the bill from its birth.

Background

Since 2006, Washington State law has prohibited discrimination in employment (which applies to teachers) and public accommodations (which applies to students) on the basis of sexual orientation, gender expression and identity, and HIV status (as well as race, creed, religion, color, national origin, honorably discharged veteran or military status, and disability). Individuals could file discrimination complaints with the Washington State Human Rights Commission. But there was no state agency with authority, short of a specific claim of discrimination, to monitor or enforce the law.

HB 3026: What it does

In a nutshell, it gives the law teeth with respect to schools.

Engrossed Substitute House Bill 3026 will establish a new chapter in the Common School Code of Washington State that prohibits discrimination based on race, creed, religion, color, national origin, honorably discharged veteran or military status, sexual orientation including gender expression or identity, the presence of any sensory, mental, or physical disability, or the use of trained dog guide or service animal by a person with a disability. The bill will authorize the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) to make rules and regulations to eliminate discrimination and – this is the crucial piece -- to monitor local school district compliance with the anti-discrimination policies.

Under current law, the protected classes identified in E2SHB 3026 are required to file complaints with the Washington State Human Rights Commission or file a civil suit in order to seek relief from actual or perceived discrimination. This legislation will enable the OSPI to help preclude litigation against school districts through compliance monitoring and dispute resolution.

What needs to happen next

The bill's costs need to be included in the budget … still being negotiated.

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

(2) HB 2801 -- bullying bill

Thank you to Equal Rights Washington for this summary:

It’s a victory for everyone in Washington State, especially students, and a milestone in how far society has come in their understanding of LGBT Washingtonians.

Yesterday the Washington State Senate passed HB 2801, An act relating to anti-harassment strategies in public schools. What made this vote so impressive was that it was 48-0 in the State Senate. Earlier in the session the bill passed the State House 97-0.

Background


In 2002 the Washington State legislature passed an anti-bullying law. At the time the bill that was meant to protect ALL students from bullying was controversial because it included sexual orientation. The anti-bullying law required schools to adopt an anti-bullying policy that covered, at a minimum, all the classes contained in Washington State’s hate crimes law and this included sexual orientation. In 2009 the definition of sexual orientation was amended to include gender identity and expression.

In 2007 the scope of the anti-bullying law was expanded to include electronic acts, and the Washington State School Directors Association (WSSDA) was directed to develop a model policy and sample materials prohibiting acts of harassment, intimidation, or bullying conducted via electronic means by a student while on school grounds and during the school day.

Meanwhile, the legislature commissioned a report to study the effectiveness of the State’s anti-bullying law. The Report was released in late 2008 and found that bullying in Washington Schools had not diminished. New legislation was needed.

You can read the full report here:

http://equalrightswashington.org/pdfs/Bullying%20in%20Washington%20Schools_electronic%20version_FINAL.pdf

Representative Marko Liias who serves on the education committee immediately responded to the report and introduced legislation in the 2009 and 2010 legislative sessions. Among the challenges facing the legislature was how to address the persistent problem of bullying in the context of the economic crisis. HB 2801 is an important step in reducing bullying in our schools and reflects the legislature’s ability to address important issues even during the economic downturn.

HB 2801: What it does

The new law begins with an assessment of the current situation and a strong desire to improve the situation.

“The legislature finds that despite a recognized law prohibiting harassment, intimidation, and bullying of students in public schools and despite widespread adoption of antiharassment policies by school districts, harassment of students continues and has not declined since the law was enacted. Furthermore, students and parents continue to seek assistance against harassment, and schools need to disseminate more widely their antiharassment policies and procedures. The legislature intends to expand the tools, information, and strategies that can be used to combat harassment, intimidation, and bullying of students, and increase awareness of the need for respectful learning communities in all public schools.”

The law that will now go to Governor Gregoire to be signed into law includes the following provisions:

• By august 1, 2011 each school district must adopt or amend its anti-harassment policy and procedures to at a minimum incorporate the revised model policy that will be drafted by the superintendent of public instruction, in consultation with representatives of parents, school personnel, the office of the education ombudsman, the Washington state school directors' association, and other interested parties.

• Each school district shall designate one person in the district as the primary contact regarding the antiharassment, intimidation, or bullying policy. The primary contact shall receive copies of all formal and informal complaints, have responsibility for assuring the implementation of the policy and procedure, and serve as primary contact on the policy and procedures between the school district, the office of the education ombudsman, and the office of the superintendent of public instruction.

• The superintendent of public instruction shall publish on its web site, with a link to the safety center web page, the revised and updated model harassment, intimidation, and bullying prevention policy and procedure, along with training and instructional materials on the components that shall be included in any district policy and procedure.

• The superintendent shall adopt rules regarding school districts' communication of the policy and procedure to parents, students, employees, and volunteers.

• Each school district shall by August 15, 2011, provide to the superintendent of public instruction a brief summary of its policies, procedures, programs, partnerships, vendors, and instructional and training materials to be posted on the school safety center web site, and shall also provide the superintendent with a link to the school district's web site for further information. The district's primary contact for bullying and harassment issues shall annually by August 15th verify posted information and links and notify the school safety center of any updates or changes.

• The office of the education ombudsman shall serve as the lead agency to provide resources and tools to parents and families about public school antiharassment policies and strategies."

To be certain much work remains to be done to combat bullying in Washington Public Schools but HB 2801 is an important step forward. A key finding of the 2008 report was that anti-bullying programs need to be funded. When the economic crisis lessens we will need to return to address the budgetary needs of anti-bullying programs. Happily Washington State has a strong Safe Schools Coalition that will continue to work with the legislature to make sure that Washington State Law reflects best practices in combating bullying in schools. The Safe Schools Coalition website is an important resource for Parents, Educators and students alike.

Today let us celebrate the leadership of Representative Marko Liias who championed this legislation, the commitment of the legislature to ensuring that every student enjoys a safe learning environment and the ongoing work of the Safe Schools Coalition.

Joshua A. Friedes
Advocacy Director
Equal Rights Washington

Senator Craig Johnson, charter school supporter -- that is for NYC, not his constituents!

Excerpt from today's NY Post oped by Sen. Craig Johnson, Democrat from Port Washington LI, who broke ranks with his party by supporting the Governor's bill that would raise the cap charter schools statewide with no input allowed from parents about where they would be placed:

“While there are no charters in the district I represent, I'm not blind to good they've done elsewhere.”

Is he also blind to the destruction they have caused here in New York City, where the charter school wars divide parent from parent and are undermining the strength and stability of our public schools?

Lucky for his constituents that they don’t have to deal with charter schools invading the school buildings that their kids attend; I wonder how they would feel about legislation that denied the parents of Port Washington the right to have any input into these sitings – as did the bill which Johnson supported.

Here is Johnson’s email: johnson@senate.state.ny.us

Here are the name and addresses of Port Washington's school board -- which here in NYC, we also don't have the right to elect. Instead our school board is controlled by the mayor. Feel free to copy them and let them know how you feel.

While you're at it, let Governor Paterson know how you feel about his bill that refused to let parents have any input into unchecked charter school expansion.