Student Newspaper Fires a Shot across EKU's Bow

Last Friday, the EKU student newspaper submitted a 50-page formal complaint to Attorney General Jack Conway alleging that the university violated state law when it withheld public information requested under the Freedom of Information Act.

Today, The Eastern Progress editor Marty Finley went public with his complaint.

His half-page editorial claimed that the "University is censoring the Progress." To punch up their point, in today's print edition, the word "censoring" is redacted in such a way as to possibly suggest any number of "___g" words that might be under cover. They also produced a new ad declaring: "The Eastern Progress: We're not Chicken!"

Finley told KSN&C that working with the university has actually been pretty good until recently. The change of attitude immediately followed a recent hazing story involving Kappa Alpha Psi, an EKU fraternity. The university suspended the fraternity while it investigated a claim that hazing sent a student to the hospital.

In April, the Progress pursued an open records request that produced only some of the requested documents; a number of them heavily redacted. University Counsel argued that the redactions were appropriate under Kentucky Revised Statute 61.878 and were intended to protect "personal privacy" such as addresses and ages (which the paper uses as distinguishing identifiers - to avoid misidentification of uninvolved parties). But Finley says "sometimes they redacted whole sections" of reports.

The law makes certain records exempt from inspection, such as,

"Public records containing information of a personal nature where the public disclosure thereof would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy...

This from The Eastern Progress:

"...We believe that some information is clearly private, such as credit card account numbers or social security numbers, but we feel addresses, ages and even phone numbers do not violate this statute.

Quite frankly, the statute does not list any of those as examples, but the university has chosen to use this as a blanket statement to keep this information secret.We think they couldn't be more wrong.

But the Progress did not blindly assume this. We contacted a Kentucky Press Association lawyer who specializes in media law. He was utterly dumbfounded by our story and suggested we contact the Attorney General for an official ruling.

While we have not heard back from the Attorney General as of press time, we feel withholding such information is a clear violation of open records law - the records should be given to us as free of redactions as possible." ...

KSN&C is seeking comment from the university regarding today's editorial.

Student Killed in Pendleton School Bus/Dump Truck Crash

This from the Enquirer, Photo by Patrick Reddy:

1 killed in school bus crash

PENDLETON COUNTY - A teenage boy was killed this morning after a dump truck sideswiped his school bus on Ky. 22 around 7 a.m.

The accident occurred on a rural stretch of Ky. 22 near Ballinger Road.

Residents of the area said the westbound dump truck hit the end of the eastbound school bus in a curve in the rural, two lane road. The rear driver's side of the school bus suffered extensive damage.One student on the bus was killed. The 10 other students on the bus were taken by ambulance to St. Elizabeth Medical Center in Grant County. Their injuries were described as minor. Both drivers were also taken to the hospital. All had been treated and released by 10:30 a.m.

Christa Moore, spokesperson for St. Elizabeth, said the children ranged in age from 5 to 16 years old." Any time you're dealing with children, there is a lot of emotion that goes into it," Moore said. "They were all scared."

During a news conference this morning, Pendleton County Sheriff C.W. "Craig" Peoples declined to discuss details of the accident and would not confirm that the person who was killed was a student on the bus. He said both the bus driver and dump truck driver will be tested for drugs and alcohol, which is standard procedure in accidents of this nature....

...Dina Dennie heard the crash while she and her kids were getting ready in their house around 7 a.m. Her 17-year-old daughter Sadie ran outside and was the first person on the scene. She brought the injured children inside their house while her mother called 911 and the school, Dina Dennie said.

"I could feel my body go weak. I heard the kids screaming, 'Help me! Help me!'," she said...

'Banana boys' suspended for senior prank. So was the Gorilla.

This from the Waukegan News Sun:

A senior prank at Zion-Benton Township High School seemed quite humorous at first. But as a group of students quickly learned, the administration isn't amused with monkey business.

Zion-Benton High School students re-created their senior prank at Village Park in Winthrop Harbor on Tuesday. Eleven students were suspended for seven days after one dressed up in a gorilla costume and chased 10 wearing banana costumes through the school last Thursday.

And so -- after 10 students in larger-than-life banana costumes ran the halls of the high school with an eleventh student dressed as a gorilla giving chase -- the boys are on the raw end of a seven-day suspension.

The prank started innocently. Senior Andrew Leinonen, who will study criminal justice at Carthage College this fall, wanted to do something that wouldn't damage property or hurt anyone, while still being hilarious.

"What's funnier than a gorilla chasing bananas through a school? Nothing," Leinonen said. "It was a harmless prank."

Leinonen -- who played the role of the gorilla -- went on a recruiting mission, quickly finding 10 guys willing to pay $30 for a banana costume. The group drew up a plan and picked a route. They planned to wear black pantyhose on their heads to remain anonymous, and even planned for escape vehicles.

The boys entered the school's main entrance around noon last Thursday and made their way through the English and science hallways before running into a crowded lunch room and then out a back door. All the while they flailed their arms and yelled "Seniors '08."

The prank was quick, and almost painless. Four bananas were rounded up by school security and the plan would soon unravel. By the next day, the boys were slapped with a suspension and at risk of missing prom as well as being kept off the stage at graduation.

Zion-Benton Township High School Superintendent Deborah Clarke said she couldn't comment on punishment because of student confidentially concerns. Clarke said the school followed guidelines in place for what they consider "serious pranks."

"We're basically enforcing our policy," Clarke said.

The same policy led to five-day suspensions for kids caught fighting in school.

The punishment was not welcomed at first. None of the "Banana Boys" had ever been in big trouble before.

In support of them, other students planned protests. A private group dedicated to "Saving the Banana Boys" was even set up on MySpace.com.

But fearing that the school may carry out its threat to keep them from prom and graduation, the "Banana Boys" said they advised others to relax and agreed to peacefully serve their punishment before returning to class May 2.

"We think this is a just punishment," said Brendon Epker, a banana who'll attend Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich., in the fall. "We broke rules we shouldn't have broken."

Video: Banana Boys

Next Up For Edublogging: Full-Time, Professional, Mainstream

This ditty from This Week in Education:

Hard as it may be to believe, all this education blogging that's going on is still so far part-time and/or amateur (unpaid), and little of it part of mainstream news sites.

But that won't last for much longer, I don't think. Someone will soon get hired to blog about education full-time on a mainstream site.

Things have already gone far beyond the first fulltime mainstream hire in other areas. For example, many of the best bloggers who cover economics have already been hired, writes Megan McArdle on the Atlantic blog (Blogging goes professional). Ditto for politics. It could be ether someone new we've never heard about or someone already on the scene.

McArdle says,

I was at lunch with some blog people today, one of whom wants to recruit an economics blogger and asked for names. I basically drew a blank. All of the high-traffic economics bloggers I read are either professors, in some similarly rewarding profession, or already tied up by a media organization.

I think this is becoming broadly true of the wider blog world: the biggest bloggers are either professionals, or they have an even more lucrative job...

...I'm not sure what this means for the blogging world. It's still largely an amateur medium, but it's hard to see how many new bloggers can compete with someone who gets paid to do it, unless they are independently wealthy or have a job, like journalism or academia, that routinely throws them a lot of bloggable material....

Hummm. Sounds familiar. Show me the money.

Dartmouth professor threatens students with discrimination lawsuit

This from the New York Daily News:

A Dartmouth College writing teacher angered by students who didn't agree with her in class is threatening to sue them for discrimination.

Priya Venkatesan, who taught freshman writing at the Ivy League school from July 2005 until last month, ignited an uproar on campus Sunday after she sent a bizarre e-mail warning students she planned to sue them.

"I regret to inform you that I am pursuing a lawsuit in which I am accusing some of you (whom shall go unmentioned in this e-mail) of violating Title VII of anti-federal discrimination laws," she wrote in a message that contained several typos.

"I am also writing a book detailing my experiences as your instructor, which will 'name names,' so to speak. I have all of your evaluation and these will be reproduced in the book. Have a nice day." ...

Any publishers wanna touch this turkey?

Latest comment from RateMyProfessor.com:
"This woman lives in a delusional fantasy world. She is dictatorial in her views, agree with her or be punished with a lower grade. Has no business being a professor."

Did you Hear the one about the Board of Education that Hired a Search Firm?

This from H-L:

Higher ed panel to hire search firm to find new leader

FRANKFORT, Ky. --The Council on Postsecondary Education is planning to hire a search firm to find a new president following the resignation of its current chief.

The panel made the decision during a special meeting Wednesday that was continuing through the afternoon...

Let's all hope that Ray and Associates doesn't do this kind of search.

Former member of higher ed panel contests her removal

This from H-L:

FRANKFORT — More turmoil engulfed the state Council on Postsecondary Education Wednesday as it appointed a search committee to select a new president.

Virginia G. Fox, the former head of Kentucky Educational Television and the education secretary for former Gov. Ernie Fletcher, has challenged her removal from the state Council on Postsecondary Education.

Gov. Steve Beshear, in an executive action, removed Fox from her council seat after her appointment was not approved by the state House of Representatives in the recently concluded legislative session.

Fox, in an April 29 letter to council chairman John Turner, said the Kentucky Constitution requires only that her appointment be approved by the state Senate.

Fox said the state law requiring approval by both the House and the Senate violates the state Constitution as well as the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

“I believe that I was confirmed, am still a member of the council and that no vacancy exists for my position,” Fox said in her letter.

Turner read the letter as the council’s meeting opened Wednesday morning but made no comment about Fox’s claims...

Bullitt Teachers Fuss over ThinkLink Testing

This from C-J:

New testing program ineffective,

teachers say

"I'm hearing from teachers that three tests in a year are too many," said Brenda Hutchison, president of the Bullitt County Education Association.

The teachers raised concerns about the testing program, called ThinkLink Learning, during a special school board meeting held so administrators could update board members on the district's progress meeting recommendations provided in a scholastic audit released last year...

CATS task force to begin work by July

This from Brad Hughes at KSBA:

Lexington, Ky. -- Kentucky Education Commissioner Jon Draud said Monday that he expects to have his broad-based task force to review all aspects of the state's school assessment and accountability system in place and at work by July.

Speaking in Lexington to superintendents and district finance officers at the Department of Education's annual post-legislative session briefing, Draud said he has set a December deadline for the panel to complete its work...

Pleasant Surprise for Growth Districts

This from Pat Crowley at the Enquirer:

Measure to aid school funding

BURLINGTON - Legislation that a lawmaker says repairs a "glitch" in Kentucky's public education funding formula will mean more money for Northern Kentucky school districts.

Rep. Addia Wuchner, R-Burlington, said components of the legislation she filed - House Bill 752 - are included in the budget lawmakers passed on April 15, the final day of the 2008 General Assembly session.

"I began working on this issue when I was first elected," said Wuchner, elected to Boone County's 66th House District in 2004. "It has been a long process, bringing the various groups together to work on this matter but, finally, we have a solution to the problem of inequity."

Current funding is based on the previous year's information, including the number of students and the value of property in the district.

A recalculation is done after the second month of the school year.

Wuchner said the provisions of House Bill 752 would allow districts to
request a recalculation in January when numbers are still increasing.

That will allow growing districts to receive additional money based on growing enrollments and rising property values, which applies to many area districts...

Jefferson school plan revised to offer more choice

This from C-J:

The revisions, which will be presented to the school board for discussion Monday night, will reduce the number of elementary clusters, putting more schools in each cluster for parents to choose from.

It's the second time this month that officials have changed the student-assignment proposal, which is designed to keep schools diverse in the wake of last year's U.S. Supreme Court ruling striking down the district's old plan...

Interventions Panel to Meet

(FRANKFORT, Ky.) – The Blue Ribbon Panel on Interventions in Low Performing Schools and Districts will meet on Monday, May 5, at 1 p.m. EDT in the ground floor auditorium of the Capital Plaza Tower in Frankfort.

The panel is charged with reviewing intervention strategies that have been successful in improving academic achievement in low-performing schools in Kentucky and other states. The panel will:

· determine the best possible strategies for intervention and make recommendations on findings

· make recommendations for how the Kentucky Department of Education may intervene and provide assistance differently to dramatically improve student achievement in the lowest performing schools and districts

· make recommendations for a legislative package to deal with lowest performing schools and districts

The ultimate goal is to provide a comprehensive listing of replicable programs that can be used by schools across Kentucky. The group will hold periodic meetings throughout the calendar year.

SOURCXE: KDE press release

Cowgill Steps Down

This from Art Jester at H-L:

Brad Cowgill announced Tuesday that he is resigning as president of the state Council on Postsecondary Education.

“I do this for one reason: In the foreseeable future, it would be necessary to devote excessive time and effort to unproductive activities, denying me the satisfaction of fruitful work,” Cowgill said in a statement.

Officially, Cowgill’s eight-month interim term as the council’s president ends Wednesday. The council hired him as its president on April 14, over the objections of Gov. Steve Beshear, who said the council should obey state law by conducting a national search to fill the post.

Council Chariman John Turner praised Cowgill for his work.

“Brad Cowgill took the reigns of the CPE as interim president last fall during a challenging time in the life of the Council.” Turner said. “Brad’s singular energy and intellect, attention to detail, and unique communication skills. He handled each assignment with distinction and aplomb.”

Earlier Tuesday, Turner acknowledged that it is “very possible” the council will revisit in a closed session on Thursday the group’s recent decision to appoint Cowgill as their presidentTurner and council member John R. Hall of Lexington, the former chairman of Ashland Inc., had little else to say after meeting with Gov. Steve Beshear in the Capitol for 38 minutes early Tuesday afternoon...

KBE Suit with Ray and Associates Stagnant

Nothing new regarding the suit between the Kentucky Board of Education and Ray & Associates. Lisa Gross informed KSN&C recently, "...after both parties engaged in some discovery, the case has been inactive for about four months."

Meanwhile, this from the Birmingham News:

School officials criticize

superintendent search firms

Previous superintendent hunts seen as costly

The president of the Birmingham Board of Education and three other board members say they don't want to pay headhunters to find the system's next schools chief.

"We had our search firm last time and it cost us a lot of money, and the search firm was not sensitive to our needs," board President W.J. Maye Jr. said. "They didn't understand the dynamics of the city, and Birmingham is a complicated city."

An Iowa-based search firm brought four semifinalists to the Birmingham school board for interviews in June 2006, including the board's ultimate choice for the post. Stan Mims, who came from O'Fallon, Ill., resigned last month as part of a settlement agreement...

...Board member Virginia Volker said she will not support hiring a search firm again. The school board paid Ray and Associates $20,000 for its work when Mims was hired. It also used a search firm to hire his predecessor in 1997.

"I will raise more heck than you have ever seen me raise," Volker said. "We have been burned two times."

In her experience, Volker said, executive search firms push certain candidates by "stacking the deck" of finalists, including only one person who meets their clients' criteria. They coach candidates for a fee, too, she said...

Court Encourages Adulterous Dads to Walk Away

This from the Courier-Journal:

Defining Fatherhood

An adulterous relationship that leads to pregnancy and a child is a deplorable situation that will lead to troubling results. It also apparently is a pathway to twisted legal reasoning.

To wit, Kentucky's Supreme Court has ruled 4-3 that a man who fathers a baby during an affair with a married woman has no legal claim to fatherhood. Instead, the court said, the woman's husband is the legal male parent.

Justice Bill Cunningham, who wrote one of the majority opinions, made clear that a key concern was to defend the status of marriage. But that is a social policy goal. What about the legal interests of the child?

The majority's view would have made more sense in an earlier time, when paternity was hard to determine. However, DNA testing now allows positive identification of the man who has contributed to half the baby's genetic makeup.

As Justice Lisabeth Hughes Abramson correctly noted in a vigorous dissent, denying "inconvenient truths" about who is really the father accomplishes nothing for families, communities or the justice system.

Indeed, the ruling has the capacity for inflicting great harm. It could be used to deny a child contact with one of his natural parents -- something likely to interest a child far more than the mechanics of her mother's marriage.

Moreover, as far as policy goes, the ruling is at odds with efforts to prod men to play a greater financial and emotional role in their offspring's lives.

The court should take a second look at this turkey.

H-L: Higher-ed needs national search

This from the Herald-Leader:

Panel should seek new leader while Cowgill studies rising tuition

When it costs more to go to community college in Kentucky than in the rest of the country, someone needs to ask questions.

Brad Cowgill is right to shine a bright light on proposed tuition increases. But Cowgill can't be an effective advocate for affordable higher education, or anything else, under the current circumstances...

...Beshear is demanding a national search and correctly says that for the search to be fair, Cowgill cannot be a candidate.

Without the uncertainty of a governor's race looming, the CPE should be able to attract a stronger pool of candidates than last year when it called of the search.

And now that Beshear has drawn a line in the sand, the council, still made up mostly of Fletcher appointees, and its chairman, John Turner, cannot produce a graceful resolution without opening a new search.

Sure, they could duke it out in the courts and media. But to what end? An expensive, protracted fight and ugly rift between the president and the governor he's supposed to advise, with the council's staff and work frozen in the crossfire...

Who's Your Daddy?

This from C-J:

What's a father?

Ky. Supreme Court has its say

In a 4-3 vote, a deeply divided court upheld the presumption that a child born to a married woman living with her husband is a child of the marriage.

"While the legal status of marriage in this early 21st century appears to be on life support, it is not dead," Justice Bill Cunningham wrote in a concurring opinion. He wrote that married couples have a right "to be left alone" from the claims of "interloper adulterers."

The court ruled in favor of a Louisville couple, Julia and Jonathan Ricketts, who had sought to block James Rhoades Jr. from trying to establish paternity of a child he allegedly fathered during an affair with Julia...

Here's Mark Hebert's story at WHAS:



And BioDad has a blog.

Fayette Co. Schools sued by former student

This from H-L:

LEXINGTON, Ky. --The Fayette County Public School system is being sued by a former student who claims school officials did nothing to stop an inappropriate sexual relationship between the student and a former teacher.

The lawsuit alleges the girl endured a pattern of abuse during a two-year relationship with instructor Anthony Graves during her time at Tates Creek Middle and Henry Clay High School.

Graves, who is named as a defendant in the suit, allegedly initiated sexual contact with the student in 2004.

The suit claims the school system is negligent because it failed to intervene...

Jefferson school plan revised to offer more choice

This from C-J:

Parents get more elementary choices

Jefferson County Public Schools is making more changes to its proposed student-assignment plan, reducing the number of elementary school clusters, in part to give parents more choice.

The revisions, which will be presented to the school board for discussion Monday night, will reduce the number of elementary clusters, putting more schools in each cluster for parents to choose from.

It's the second time this month that officials have changed the student-assignment proposal, which is designed to keep schools diverse in the wake of last year's U.S. Supreme Court ruling striking down the district's old plan...

...Berman said the changes would still require between 1,700 and 3,400 elementary students to switch schools.

The district might grandfather in those students, allowing them to stay in their schools. But that would cost between $800,000 and $2.1 million in 2009-10.

"At this point, both the school board and I would like to grandfather all these students in, because it would mean that their lives would not have to be interrupted," Berman said. "But I am very concerned about the cost of grandfathering."

Letting students stay in their schools is extremely important to many parents, said Traci Priddy, president of the 15th District PTA...

Photo by Pam Spaulding.

CPE's Turner Questions Beshear's Motives

This from H-L:

John Turner, chairman of the state Council on Postsecondary Education, sent a letter to council members last week, questioning Gov. Beshear's motives for trying to block their hiring of Brad Cowgill.

Turner speculated in the April 21 letter to council members that the governor might have political motives for questioning Cowgill's hiring.

"I'm wondering if it's possible that the real focus of the governor's attention is us, not Brad," he wrote, noting that a move by Beshear to dissolve the council "would hasten the point (by a couple of years) when the council has mainly people appointed by Governor Beshear."

Turner said it would be "premature" to say how the council will react to Beshear.