Decriminalize Youthful Indiscretions

This from the Bowling Green Daily News:

Bill targets youth who send ‘sexts’

Richards’ proposal would lessen penalty

for sending sexually explicit messages

A new form of sexual exploration has grabbed the attention of Kentucky lawmakers.State Rep. Jody Richards, D-Bowling Green, has introduced legislation that could lessen the penalty for minors who “sext” - sending sexually explicit pictures or text messages with a cell phone.

Currently, teenagers who are caught sexting can only be charged with crimes usually used in child pornography cases.“Sometimes kids or young people, not realizing the long-term damage they’re doing, can take pictures of people and publish them or send them out to others,” Richards said. “We wanted to do this in a way that would be a punishment but not a lifelong taint.”

House Bill 57 would make it a simple violation for minors to send a nude picture of themselves or another minor on the first offense, and a misdemeanor for each subsequent offense.

Richards’ bill comes after several instances in other states involving serious punishment for sexting. One case in Florida left a sexter a registered sex offender for the next 25 years after he sent nude pictures of his 16-year-old girlfriend to friends after an argument. This is the kind of scenario Richards is hoping to avoid.Legislation regarding sexting was introduced in at least 11 states in 2009, with six passing the bills, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Amended HB 508 Clears House Education Committee

This from Jim Warren at the Herald-Leader:

House Committee adopts student testing bill

FRANKFORT — A bill that would replace Kentucky's student testing system but retain some of its key principles sailed out of the House Education Committee on a unanimous vote late Tuesday.

House Bill 508 not only would create a new testing system, starting in the 2011-2012 school year, but calls for creation of new curriculum standards that would be used for the test...

...[The bill's lead sponsor, Rep. Harry Moberly, D-Richmond] said after Tuesday's vote that the House Education Committee probably will place the "substance" of HB 508 in the Senate's testing bill as a committee substitute later this week.

The Senate measure, Senate Bill 1, also would abolish CATS. But it seeks to replace open-response questions with more multiple-choice exams that its backers say would save time and money. SB 1 already has passed the Senate.

If an amended version of SB 1 clears the House, a committee of lawmakers from both chambers would probably negotiate a compromise bill later this month...

...the House committee approved several technical changes to HB 508, plus a longer amendment offered by state Rep. Jody Richards, D-Bowling Green, aimed at strengthening writing.

HB 508 would retain writing portfolios for instruction purposes but take them out of the state accountability assessment program. Richards said he feared that could lead to writing being de-emphasized. His amendment calls for various changes to help improve how writing is taught...

Western's Ransdell Welcomes KERA Review

This from KSBA:

Governor Steve Beshear has

suggested it “is time for a thorough review of the Kentucky Education Reform Act,” and said that next week he will launch a task force on early childhood services to better coordinate and have more consistent services.

“It’s critical that our children enter the K-12 system with minds prepared to work,” Beshear said.

He also wants more dialog between education, business and legislative leaders.

Western Kentucky University President Gary Ransdell was pleased to hear of the interest in reviewing KERA and seeing where improvements can be made.

“We (at universities) are spending a lot of money on developmental education for underprepared students,” Ransdell said. “I just don’t know how much longer we can do that. Our primary focus has to be on capable, prepared students if we are to drive Kentucky’s economy.

“I agree wholeheartedly that public education has to prepare students,” he said. “A university has to focus on ‘higher’ education, and not offering a repetition of what a student should already have when they get to us. And if that is to be done, then we need to partner with community and technical colleges to do most of that remediation.”

Rep. Jim DeCesare, R-Bowling Green, said he was both surprised and pleased with the governor’s line that it was time for a review of KERA.

“Hopefully, we will be able to get something done with changes in the (Kentucky Accountability Testing System) and portfolios, like I have been working on all along,” DeCesare said.

...Rep. Jody Richards, D-Bowling Green, said he’s not sure if the governor plans to form a task force to study KERA or whether he expects changes to be made through legislation already proposed during this session.

“The House will certainly look at those changes,” Richards said. “The main thing is the testing, which is so influenced by whether or not (the federal) No Child Left Behind will be retained. To me, that is a big culprit. (NCLB) doesn’t help the Kentucky educational process – and it really harms it – because it’s another layer of assessment on what we already had.

“There may be a chance that Congress will repeal that, and it would be the best thing that could happen to us.” ...

Speakers Race could Determine Ed Chair

This from the State-Journal:

Stumbo challenges Richards for House leadership

House Democrats will elect new leaders when they come back to Frankfort on Tuesday.

Rep. Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, is seeking to usurp Jody Richards, the longest-serving House speaker in Kentucky's history. Richards has held the job for 14 years. Stumbo is a former attorney general and House majority leader.

Rep. Carl Rollins, D-Midway, and Rep. Derrick Graham, D-Frankfort, say they have been flooded with phone calls and letters from those candidates, as well as contenders in other elections.

...Rep. Carl Rollins, D-Midway, and Rep. Derrick Graham, D-Frankfort, say they have been flooded with phone calls and letters from those candidates, as well as contenders in other elections.

"They've all been working hard to garner the support of all our membership," Rollins said. "Especially this week." ...

...The elections are made by a secret ballot and Rollins and Graham were tight-lipped about whom they were supporting. Rollins called for a change in the way business is conducted in the House. He said strong leadership is needed. ...

...Whatever the results are, both Rollins and Graham said the new leaders will need to work together and avoid backlash against members who didn't support them.

"We've got a tough job and we don't need to be playing games by punishing some people or rewarding others," Rollins said...

Hat tip to KSBA.

Thank you, Sir. May I have Another.

Lovin' the bad news...'cause it's not worse.

This from PolWatchers:

'Good news and bad news' budget agreed upon

After an all-nighter, lawmakers negotiating the state’s budget emerged from behind closed doors at about 7 a.m. with a plan that cuts university funding by 3 percent and other government programs by an as-yet unknown amount.

State workers and teachers are slated for 1 percent pay raises in each of the next two years. "There's some good news and bad news," said House Speaker Jody Richards, D-Bowling Green. "Not as good in human services and education as we'd like but it's an improvement over the (governor's proposed) budget that we got."

This latest version of the $19 billion two-year spending plan, which key House and Senate members finally finished cobbling together after 21 straight hours of work, adds at least $150 million more each year beyond what Gov. Steve Beshear first outlined in January...

..EDUCATION: Public universities would have to trim another 3 percent beyond the 3 percent Beshear asked them to cut back already this year.

The Bucks for Brains program, which helps attract prominent professors to Kentucky public colleges, would receive the $60 million Beshear requested, Kelly said.

The budget also includes more money for student financial aid than was proposed by Beshear.

The spending plan, Kelly and Richards said, also includes money local school districts can use for textbooks and safe schools programs, which has been urged by Rep. Harry Moberly, D-Richmond...

..."Given the revenue constraints they had, I think it's a remarkable showing of how much both chambers value us," said Doug Whitlock, president of Eastern Kentucky University. "We recognize the realities of the situation." ...

...UNIVERSITIES REACT: Several university presidents expressed gratitude that their budgets weren't cut further.

"Given the revenue constraints they had, I think it's a remarkable showing of how much both chambers value us," said Doug Whitlock, president of Eastern Kentucky University. "We recognize the realities of the situation."

..."I'm quite ecstatic," said Brad Cowgill, interim president of the council. " It's like a coming from behind win for the home team. Higher education has staying power with this legislature, and we're grateful for that." ...

Senate passes bill to overhaul public school testing

This from the Herald-Leader:

FRANKFORT, Ky. --The state Senate has approved a bill that would overhaul Kentucky's methods for testing student achievement.

The plan calls for ending the Commonwealth Accountability Testing System. That divisiveness of the proposal was reflected in the Senate's 22-15 party-line vote on Friday. The measure now goes to the House for consideration.

The bill now moves into choppy waters in the House. Speaker Jody Richards predicted the measure would fail there. Governor Steve Beshear is poised to veto the bill if it passes both chambers.

House Leaders will reject Fletcher's CPE appointments

Megan Boehnke and John Stamper over at the Herald Leader's Pol Watchers blog reports:

House leaders say they won't approve Fletcher's CPE appointments

The state's Democratic-controlled House of Representatives will not approve three of the governor's recent appointees to the board that oversees state universities because they are not female Democrats, the chamber's Education Committee chairman said today.

Rep. Frank Rasche, D-Paducah, said he is sending a letter to Gov. Ernie Fletcher today, telling him that his July appointees do not comply with statutes requiring the Council on Postsecondary Education to have equal numbers of men and women and to reflect the political party affiliation of the state's voters.

Fifty-seven percent of the state’s registered voters are Democrats and 37 percent are Republicans.

“Because of the statutory language and its mandates, this latest group is not acceptable,” Rasche said.

Fletcher appointed four new members -- two Democrats, one Republican and one independent as of 2006 -- to the board and re-appointed one Republican.

The issue first came to light Saturday, when House Speaker Jody Richards accused Fletcher of ignoring the law in a morning speech to Democrats in Mayfield.

"They're just simply breaking the law," Richards, D-Bowling Green, said in an interview later Saturday. "We're not going to accept those."

Fletcher’s press secretary, Jodi Whitaker, said yesterday that if the House or Senate has concerns about the nominees, “it's completely their prerogative to look at that when it comes time for confirmation.”

“That's why there's a system of checks and balances in place,” she said.

Whitaker noted that the House has confirmed Fletcher's six previous appointments, which included five Republicans and one Democrat.

Of the board’s 16 members, the governor appoints 13, who then must be confirmed by the House and the Senate.

Rasche said the governor could keep one of his Democratic nominees, but would have to reappoint the other three vacancies.

But even if all four appointees are Democrats, the board still won’t reflect the state’s voter population, he said.

KRS 164.011 also requires the board to be racially and geographically diverse and for its members to hold degrees from different state institutions. Those requirements are satisfied, Rasche said.

John S. Turner, chair of the board, said it is important for the make up of members to be complaint with the law, although he downplayed the importance of diversity in political affiliation.

“What's more important is to get people who are willing to be engaged and have a real passion for post secondary education," he said, adding that members need to be "willing to invest time and effort to be conversant and up to speed" on educational issues.

Richards pitches expanded college grants to poor

If elected, Richards said, he would promote "College Opportunity Grants" for students that would double the maximum $2,000 a year now available to students through the Kentucky Educational Excellence Scholarship program. It would cost the state about $28 million a year. Students from families earning below 150 percent of the federal poverty level would be eligible. The federal government sets the poverty level for a family of four at $20,650.

This from the Courier-Journal.

The Courts' Opinion in Young v. Williams

by Richard Day

On February 13th, Franklin County Circuit Court Judge Thomas Wingate issued an order granting summary judgment to the legislative defendants in the school funding case, Young v. Williams. Summary judgment is the court’s equivalent to a blocked dunk shot; where the case is thrown out of court without a trial because “it appears impossible” for the Council for Better Education “to produce evidence at trial which would effect a favorable judgment.”

Swat; into the cheap seats.

Given the importance of this case to Kentucky’s children and our future economy, I was shocked by the decision. Certain inadequacies are so glaring that I assumed summary judgment wasn’t even a possibility. I spent a couple of weeks brooding before driving to Frankfort over spring break to review the case file; and it’s a big honker. It took the clerk three trips to deliver the arm loads of evidence, depositions and motions – and cost me $60 to photocopy a small fraction of the files. But the biggest shock was yet to come.

Judge Wingate was appointed to the Franklin County circuit bench by Governor Ernie Fletcher last June as former Judge William Graham was retiring. There has been more than a little speculation that certain executives at the state and federal level are making efforts to stack the courts with restrained jurists who may fail to act at times when they should redirect the other branches of government; and I’m just skeptical enough to believe it could be true. So, I was ready for a fight. But as I scoured the case file I came to a surprising conclusion. As much as I hate to say it, I think Wingate’s summary judgment was constitutionally correct. This is a big deal because the action effectively halted the Council for Better Education, a collection of 164 Kentucky school districts, in their effort to challenge the adequacy of the present school system to meet its legislated goals – a cause I fully support.

When former Governor and federal Judge Bert Combs argued Rose v. Council for Better Education before the Kentucky Supreme Court, he was very careful to tip-toe around any suggestion of a legislative remedy. The Council’s legal theory was that no district in the state was over-funded. As Co-counsel Debra Dawahare argued, “Possibly, as compared to Connecticut, we're all a mess.” But they stopped short of suggesting what should be done about it.

Combs wanted the court to direct the legislature to exercise their authority and proceed “as far as they can” to enact an efficient system of public schools. How far is that? Combs told the court, that they could say to the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate, “You can exercise your authority to propose legislation that is constitutional.” That would leave them knowing what the law is, and the governor would know, and the General Assembly would know. Combs noted that nowhere in the original circuit court ruling did Judge Raymond Corns’ direct the General Assembly to pass any particular laws, or derive school funding from any particular source, or to adopt any particular system. The circuit court went as far as it could go.

Apparently in the Young case, specific remedies were suggested that violated the “Constitutional bar” and would render the court powerless to enforce its own ruling. Expert witnesses and a handful of studies confirmed the present inadequacies. But when the Council asked the court to direct the legislature to use a “specific, systematic method to quantify the amount of money necessary to provide an adequate system of common schools” they went over the line. Judge Wingate responded with a swat; don’t bring that specific remedy into my house.

House Speaker Jody Richards told the Herald-Leader that Wingate’s ruling, “…vindicates our position that we have made an attempt to adequately fund education.” Of course, the ruling does no such thing. The constitution requires more than an attempt from the legislature. Wingate also rejected claims of sovereign immunity advanced by Richards and Senate President David Williams, and their request that the court “dismiss the legislative defendants” was flatly denied. Don’t bring that legislative immunity stuff into my house either.

Wingate’s rejection of the Council’s legal theory in Young was, consistent with Rose, a stark refusal to step “onto the slippery slope by stipulating the manner by which the General Assembly must carry out its responsibilities.” Because of this, it’s hard to see how a motion for reconsideration, or an appeal of the present case, can win. It looks like the only viable option for the Council for Better Education is the initiation of a new action - and I hope they get to work on that right away. Wingate’s ruling will only reinforce the legislature’s natural tendency maintain the status quo.

Big News on the School Funding Front

Did I mention it was bad news?

What follows are two articles on Judge Thomas Wingate's ruling in Franklin County Circuit Court...


KY. SCHOOL LEADERS' SUIT DISMISSED - SUPERINTENDENTS SOUGHT 'ADEQUATE' STATE FUNDING

Lexington Herald-Leader (KY)
February 14, 2007
Author: Raviya H. Ismail and Art JesterHerald-Leader Education Writers

A Franklin Circuit Court judge ruled yesterday that a group of school superintendents had failed to prove that the General Assembly violated the state Constitution by inadequately funding the state's public schools.

In the state's most important school finance case since the reform of Kentucky's public schools in 1990, Judge Thomas D. Wingate issued a summary judgment in favor of the legislature and said the issue of adequate funding should be resolved by lawmakers, not the courts. "Ultimately, increases in education funding must be the product of political will, not judicial decree," Wingate said in a 22-page opinion.Wingate said the plaintiffs, The Council for Better Education, had not provided "objective evidence of shortcomings in Kentucky's education system." Because the plaintiffs had not established that there was a clear constitutional violation, the court should not dictate how the legislature should appropriate money for the public schools, Wingate said."This court will leave the legislating to the legislature and hope that the citizens of Kentucky fortify it with the will to strengthen education for future generations of Kentuckians," he said.

The Council for Better Education had built its case on the historic ruling in the Rose case of 1989, which paved the way for the sweeping Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990. In the Rose case, Kentucky's Supreme Court, led by then-Chief Justice Robert Stephens, concluded that the legislature's support of the public schools was inadequate and therefore unconstitutional.In the recent lawsuit, the plaintiffs, a group of superintendents, claimed that funding of Kentucky's schools is "inadequate and arbitrarily determined by the legislature." The plaintiffs based their claim on the Rose decision, where the Kentucky Supreme Court eventually ruled that "the General Assembly shall provide funding which is sufficient to provide each child in Kentucky an adequate education."

There are 164 school districts of a total 175 that belong to the Council for Better Education. The suit claimed Kentucky schools were underfunded from between $1.08 billion to $1.2 billion in the 2003-2004 school year, and underfunded in other years.

The legislature's two top leaders -- Senate President David Williams, R-Burkesville, and House Speaker Jody Richards, D-Bowling Green -- were named defendants in the suit."It vindicates our position that we have made an attempt to adequately fund education," said Richards. " Do I think it's funded well enough? No, I do not."

The defendants refuted the allegations and argued that the state's Constitution "prohibits the judiciary from dictating to the legislature what levels of funding are appropriate and what process to use to determine how much funding education requires."In the ruling, Wingate found that the Council for Better Education had no evidence "relating to the actual nature of school system inadequacy or poor student performance."

The ruling concluded that the General Assembly "has created a system of common schools with tremendously enhanced results" and "KERA has produced dramatic progress toward excellence in public education."

"The determination of adequacy must be based on objective outputs, such as the CATS testing scores and our performance relative to neighboring states," the ruling continued.

Marion County Schools Superintendent Roger L. Marcum, president of the Council for Better Education, said the ruling was disappointing and far from the outcome the group expected. The group wouldn't say whether they planned to appeal the decision."Kentucky has made a lot of progress in improving student achievement," he said. "We are ignoring the fact that a lot of that progress has been made from students that are least at risk. You're going to see that there are many subpopulations that we are not reaching and they are not moving forward toward proficiency. You can see that in a number of schools in the state, in a number of districts."

What surprised Bob Sexton most was the language of the ruling."Many of the legislative leaders are regularly claiming that (KERA) is a failure," said Sexton, executive director of the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence. "I'm surprised by some of the language (in the ruling) that essentially says the schools are doing so well. I just find this whole thing to be inconsistent to what I'm hearing from legislators."


Edition: FinalSection: Main NewsPage: A1
Copyright (c) 2007 Lexington Herald-Leader
Record Number: 0702140002


And this...

Courier-Journal, The (Louisville, KY)
February 14, 2007
Author: Nancy C. Rodriguez

State's neediest students ill-served, coalition says

A coalition of Kentucky school districts lost its legal bid yesterday to force state lawmakers to spend more money on public schools.But educators in the failed lawsuit said that their fight is not over and that without additional funding, they will never be able to serve some of Kentucky's neediest students.

The Council for Better Education filed suit in 2003, accusing the legislature of inadequately funding public schools. It asked the court to order lawmakers to direct hundred of millions more dollars into Kentucky classrooms.The state spends about $4.1 billion a year on education.

Marion County Superintendent Roger Marcum, the council's president, called the ruling "disappointing" and said the council might ask Franklin Circuit Judge Thomas Wingate to reconsider his opinion or appeal to a higher court."I can assure you this is not the end of the line for us," Marcum said.

In 1985, the council filed a similar lawsuit that resulted in the state's school-funding system being declared unconstitutional and paved the way for sweeping education reform in 1990.But unlike that case, which focused on funding inequities, the latest lawsuit focused on whether districts were receiving adequate funding to teach every student the skills and knowledge necessary to meet Kentucky's education standards.

Wingate ruled that funding for Kentucky's schools wasn't "so inadequate that it amounts to a violation ... of the constitution."He said it's not the court's role to tell the legislature the specific method to use to determine if schools are being adequately funded.And he said the legislature's method of using rising test scores as proof that schools are being adequately funded is constitutional.

Method questioned

Wingate said, however, that it was "puzzling" why the legislature has not developed a different method of determining whether eSchools Lose Suit to Boost Funding

ducation is adequately funded."We do not know why, despite over a decade of requests from interested citizen groups and the Office of Educational Accountability, the General Assembly has yet to commission a study of its own to determine whether its funding levels for education are adequate," Wingate wrote. "... Perhaps it is afraid of the results that study will produce."

Marcum said, "We feel the issue about adequate funding is still something that needs to be addressed. " He added that without additional funding it will be "difficult, if not impossible" for schools to meet ambitious student achievement goals by the state's 2014 deadline.

Marcum said it is unfortunate that schools are being "penalized" for making gains and argued that while progress has been made, the state's neediest students are still in dire need of additional services."The students that are most at risk are the ones we still have not reached," he said, noting test scores that show low performance among low-income, minority and special-education students. "The reform was about proficiency for all."

Legislative reaction

But Mark Overstreet, the attorney representing Senate President David Williams and House Speaker Jody Richards, said the ruling was "a well-reasoned decision.""And it recognizes the hard work that the General Assembly has done over the 16 years since" the state passed education reform.

Richards, who recently announced he is seeking the Democratic nomination for governor, said last night that he agreed with the ruling."We have made some great progress since the reform act was enacted," Richards said. "I don't think we've done well enough. It certainly is my goal and my intent to fund education better in the future. "

Richards said that cost increases for the Medicaid program and state prison system hampered the legislature's ability to fund public schools since the education reform act was passed.Asked why the legislature did not raise taxes to raise money for schools in that period, Richards said: "The citizens generally don't want taxes raised."

Marcum acknowledged the legislature's efforts last year to increase school funding, saying it was "better than it has been in some time ." But most of those increases went toward salaries, health insurance and retirements costs, he said."It does not provide additional resources for kids," he said.


Edition: KYSection: NewsPage: 1A
Dateline: Kentucky
Copyright (c) The Courier-Journal. All rights reserved. Reproduced with the permission of Gannett Co., Inc. by NewsBank, inc.
Record Number: lou39775540

LEGISLATORS IMAGINING PRIVILEGES

Lexington Herald-Leader (KY)
August 7, 2006
Author: Richard Day

I've been racking my brain, but I can't remember the last time I hid money in the freezer.

That's what U.S. Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., did.Court documents say Jefferson accepted bribes to help a Kentucky-based company obtain government contracts -- economic development's ugly side, I guess. The FBI followed the money to the congressman's freezer, and Jefferson cried "legislative immunity." Did the FBI have a right to conduct a warranted search of the congressman's office?

In a rare, yet unfortunate, act of bipartisan unity, Democratic and Republican lawmakers went berserk, complaining that they should be immune from searches by the executive branch.Jefferson called it "an outrageous intrusion in the separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches of government."

In a recent ABC News poll, 86 percent of Americans disagreed.

Privileges granted to Kentucky legislators -- such as Republican Senate President David Williams and Democratic Speaker of the House Jody Richards -- under Kentucky's Constitution are identical to those for members of the Congress.And like Jefferson, Williams and Richards want to reinvent the definition of legislative immunity.

Fortunately for us, the Kentucky Supreme Court recently ruled on the issue in Baker vs. Fletcher.The court illustrated the intent of the law, citing the English Bill of Rights and James Wilson, a Pennsylvania delegate to the Constitutional Convention who said, "In order to enable and encourage a representative of the publick to discharge his publick trust with firmness and success, it is indispensably necessary, that he should enjoy the fullest liberty of speech, and that he should be protected from the resentment of every one, however powerful, to whom the exercise of that liberty may occasion offense."

Virginia's experience with legislative immunity is instructive.

In 1660, Virginia Delegate Nathaniel Bacon was arrested by the royal governor as he traveled to the House of Burgesses to vote in opposition to the governor's wishes. Clearly, in such instances, legislative immunity is vital.

Unfortunately, in recent years Virginia lawmakers have used legislative immunity as a dodge. The Virginian-Pilot reported that state troopers were powerless to stop legislators from "driving as fast as they pleased on county roads outside Richmond."One delegate claimed immunity while he continued to use his radar detector, which is illegal in Virginia. Still another delegate claimed immunity as a defense against an indecent-exposure charge. Clearly, in such cases, legislative immunity is a coverup.

In a Kentucky case, Council for Better Education vs. Williams, Williams and Richards have not been deposed for almost a year now. They are claiming legislative immunity.

CBE vs. Williams questions whether the General Assembly has met its constitutional obligation to public education. The Supreme Court has already made clear in Rose vs. Council for Better Education that the General Assembly is solely responsible for maintaining an efficient system of schools and providing adequate resources to reach its rather ambitious goals.But the Council for Better Education, a collection of nearly all of the state's school districts, has filed suit asserting that the legislature has not met its constitutional mandate.

I understand that legislators should be protected from the resentment of the powerful, but I'm pretty sure that does not include Kentucky's children. There's a legitimate legal question; we need a ruling.

Rather than claiming immunity to protect legislative free-speech rights, Williams and Richards want to clam up. They want to misuse one section of the constitution to keep from having to do what another section requires of them.

We've come to expect this kind of legislative over-reaching from Williams. He's the legislative top dog in a state with a weak Republican governor, a confused opposition and a growing number of "right thinking" judges.Who can forget Williams' infamous assertion that "if 20 people in (the Senate) voted that someone was 30 years old (even though they aren't), no court in the land could overturn that."I can guess where his head is. "King David" has a nice ring to it.

But what is the explanation for Richards? Good stewardship of the public schools ought to be a bedrock principle of the Democratic Party, but I guess not.

The praise Republicans deserve for a 2006 regular session that improved the schools pales when one recalls the previous decade of neglect. And Democrats were largely responsible during most of Kentucky's history; that's a story with more lows than highs.

Clearly, Williams and Richards should not be deposed when the legislature is in session. But they have refused for a long time now, whether the General Assembly was in session or not. Shame on them. It's time to drop the pretense, take the immunity defense out of the freezer and do the people's business.

Caption:- Richard Day of Lexington is a former elementary school principal.
Edition: FinalSection: CommentaryPage: A9
Copyright (c) 2006 Lexington Herald-Leader
Record Number: 0608080135