Rutgers Dorm Spying Trial Begins With Questions of Motivation

This from the New York Times:

Drawing starkly different visions of the boundary between boorish immaturity and criminal malice, prosecution and defense lawyers on Friday opened the trial of a former Rutgers University freshman who spied on his roommate in an intimate encounter with another man, days before the roommate killed himself. 

The trial of Dharun Ravi promises to turn less on what happened between him and Tyler Clementi in September 2010 — there is general agreement about most of the events — than on why. The most serious charge against Mr. Ravi is bias intimidation, carrying a potential 10-year prison sentence, which raises crucial questions about whether he had been motivated by antigay bias and whether Mr. Clementi had felt intimidated or had believed that his roommate was mistreating him because of his sexual orientation. 

Seventeen months after Mr. Clementi, an 18-year-old from Ridgewood, jumped from the George Washington Bridge, the case still commands national interest, attested to by a crowd of journalists who were packed into a courtroom here or were watching on monitors in adjoining rooms. The case has been used by the news media, politicians and interest groups to illustrate themes that include the abuse of gay youths, teenage suicide, cyberbullying and the loss of privacy in the Internet age, and it prompted New Jersey lawmakers to adopt one of the nation’s toughest civil antibullying laws....

H-L agrees Stumbo too harsh on UPike dissent

This from H-L:

It's not surprising that Morehead State University's Board of Regents has spoken out against a proposal to make the University of Pikeville a state university, since the change would cost Morehead a chunk of its service area and perhaps some students.

What is surprising is the harshness of House Speaker Greg Stumbo's response to the resolution approved by Morehead's regents on Friday.

"When all of the facts are brought out, I wouldn't be surprised if most of the board will resign or be asked to resign for how poorly they have served the people of this region," Stumbo said of Morehead's regents.
"By making this type of decision without all of the facts, it only makes them look small and petty...

Increasing education attainment in Eastern Kentucky (and other under-educated areas of the state) should be a top priority for the legislature.

We agree with Stumbo and Patton that there is no better use for mineral severance tax monies set aside for economic development than raising education levels in coal counties.

But this session is already past the halfway mark, and there simply is not time to make a thoughtful, fact-driven decision based on a thorough evaluation of the alternatives.

Muscling through a decision of this importance on pure political power would be a big step backward for education planning in Kentucky and, like the Morehead regents said, a blow to the higher education reform law of 1997.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2012/02/22/2078576/stumbo-too-harsh-on-upike-dissent.html#storylink=rss#storylink=cpy

Senate Education Committee passes bill for needed tribunal reform

This from the KyChamberBlog:

SB 132 (McGaha) passed the Senate Education Committee this week. The bill would reform the system by which teachers are given due process to appeal termination, suspension or reprimand. The current system to review cases of misconduct and inadequate job performance for school employees is both complicated and inefficient. Superintendents are reluctant to suspend or fire an employee no matter what the employee’s indiscretion, due to the cost, complexity and likelihood that their decision will be overturned.

Currently, when disciplinary action is taken against a teacher or public school employee, they can appeal the action via tribunal. The tribunal is set up similarly to an actual court proceeding, though instead of one judge, the issue is heard before a panel; one lay person, one teacher and one superintendent from a different district. The tribunal hears the facts of the case and then has the opportunity to uphold the disciplinary action taken by the school system, overturn it in its entirety or take alternative action.

SB 132 would make the process more consistent by requiring the same thorough case-review training for all tribunal jurors. It would also delineate between types of cases; ensuring that cases of professional misconduct (i.e. – insubordination or immoral character) would be handled by a hearing officer appointed by the commissioner of education, while cases of poor teacher performance would be handled by an administrator and teacher with teacher evaluation training and an unspecified third person. Though the tribunal process would not change significantly for performance-based cases, the tribunal participants would receive improved training and would no longer be able to create alternative disciplinary actions, only overturn or uphold the school system’s action.

The Chamber joins the Kentucky School Boards Association, Kentucky Association of School Administrators and the Kentucky Association of School Superintendents in supporting the legislation. The Kentucky Education Association opposed the bill. The bill will now move to the full Senate for a vote.

Hawpe Sees UPike as UPay

Ramrodding UPike plan a bad move for Ky.

ead more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2012/02/24/2081613/ky-voices-ramrodding-upike-plan.html#storylink=cpy

This from H-L:

The audacity of rushing the University of Pikeville into the state higher education system, past every sensible objection, is breathtaking.

Yes, it would allow former Gov. Paul Patton to organize one final, open-ended money dump for his city, at taxpayer expense.

However, it also would dump decades worth of carefully considered, and presumably settled, strategic higher education policy, adopted to prevent costly duplication of services and programs.

Using coal severance tax money to lower UPike's tuition to public campus levels is nothing more than an opening ante. Patton, or one of his successors as the institution's president, will come to Frankfort every two years, demanding more cash for more people, programs and facilities, in order to achieve "parity" with the rest of the state system.

The argument will be that mountain kids deserve no less than students elsewhere. Never mind that every other institution in an already-underfunded state system will pay the bill for this budgetary blackjacking...

[House Speaker Greg ] Stumbo is in a position to take legislative and budgetary umbrage at any dissent. For merely expressing itself, carefully and thoughtfully, the Morehead State University board was vilified as "petty" and "small."

I speak for myself — not for that board, on which I serve — when I say that Stumbo, whose skill and insight I long have admired and applauded, was unfair in his criticism.

I'm also disappointed that Patton's use of statistics to make the UPike case requires such close scrutiny, as Bell County Judge-Executive Albey Brock proved in a KET debate this week.

Stumbo and Patton are exceptional public servants, but, like all of us, they are capable of mistakes. That's what turning UPike into You Pay would be — a costly mistake with broad and enduring consequences.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2012/02/24/2081613/ky-voices-ramrodding-upike-plan.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2012/02/24/2081613/ky-voices-ramrodding-upike-plan.html#storylink=cpy