Kentucky Senate panel passes bill to override JCPS busing plan
This from
C-J:
 |
| Sen. Dan Seum (R) |
A bill that would allow parents to override Jefferson County Public
Schools’ controversial student-assignment plan cleared a Kentucky Senate
committee Thursday — even as its sponsor conceded he doesn’t expect it
to become law.
Senate Bill 9 would give
parents the right to enroll their children in the school closest to
home, undermining Jefferson County’s controversial system of busing
students to other neighborhoods to help promote diversity and equality
in education.
The
measure — sponsored by state Sen. Dan Seum, R-Fairdale — passed the
Senate Education Committee 7-5 vote and heads to the full Senate, where
Seum said he hopes to keep the issue alive with a floor debate.
But Seum, a longtime busing opponent, said SB 9 likely won’t get the support it needs to pass the House this year.
“We
are spending millions of dollars moving kids around the community when
we have parents who would love to have them stay in their
neighborhoods,” Seum told the committee Thursday. “This whole process
has just been absurd.”
The
legislative push comes as the Kentucky Supreme Court is set to hear
arguments this spring in a legal challenge over the district’s
controversial integration policy, which became highly politicized and
continues to anger some parents because of longer bus rides....
2 comments:
Legislature doesn't have any business being involved in Jefferson County districting or busing any more than they should be telling neighborhood associations what kind of structures can and can't be build in their membership covenants. Darn it, they can't even get their own legislative districting right, how do they think the can determine JCPS?
For goodness sake, don't they have more important things to do like making travel arrangements for basketball tournaments during the general assembly.
I'm curious how many of the State Senators read the briefs filed in the Jefferson Co. Bd. of Educ. v. Fell case currently pending before the Supreme Court of Kentucky. This bill does not address the concerns raised in the amici curiae briefs filed on behalf of the other school districts in Kentucky regarding the inefficiency which would be created state-wide if the old language regarding "for attendance" were read back into the statute.
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