Recent editorials from Kentucky newspapers:
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March 1
The Courier-Journal on the legislature’s “neighborhood schools” proposal in House Bill 151:
The legislature’s “neighborhood schools” proposal in House Bill 151 is a logistical house of cards.
Make no mistake, it is engineered to fail.
The bill’s sponsor, Kevin Bratcher, R-Louisville, says it’s a “common-sense bill.”
That’s an easy phrase to throw around. Snap your fingers, pass a law and poof, we’re back to Mayberry with Opie walking to school.
The quaint idea that you can simply draw circles around a school to create the attendance district defies logic and common sense. There is no guarantee a child will attend the closest school - unless maybe they live next door to the school. And that’s no guarantee.
It’s then a crapshoot if you don’t make it into your neighborhood school. If the school is full, your child will move on down the line to the next closest school. So much for your neighborhood.
Look at examples in three systems: Oldham, Bullitt and Jefferson.
OLDHAM: Three elementary schools near Crestwood are in a one-mile radius - Kenwood Station, Camden Station and Crestwood. Lori McDowell, director of Oldham County Schools, said it would be “extremely difficult” to create effective neighborhood boundaries, and “we believe this is an overreach from the state that doesn’t account for the nuances of how a district draws school attendance zones.”
In other words, common sense is lacking.
Looking at Oldham, what’s fair when designating a neighborhood school? Certainly, students in remote areas won’t have a neighborhood school.
BULLITT: Superintendent Keith Davis uses the phrase “eroding local control” in a letter to the Senate Education Committee. In that letter, he outlined numerous issues from increased transportation costs to uncertainty and complications when eventually choosing a location for a new school.
That’s not common sense.
JEFFERSON: The district has logistical issues that are similar but are further compounded when factoring in unique and successful educational choices offered through magnet schools and programs.
When magnets are added to the equation, the calculus of shuffling students and drawing lines for student assignment areas become as complicated as any current system, but without the benefit of creating valued diversity within the system.
Will the successful magnet schools and programs eventually be jettisoned for the sake of offering “neighborhood schools?”
Common sense, again, proves it is just not that simple.
In all three examples, students unable to attend their nearby neighborhood school will be pushed to another nearby school. For some students, they will end up far from their neighborhood.
At a recent community forum, Bratcher summed up the inherent problem with the thinking behind his legislation: “Well, I don’t know how to run a school district.”
Well said, Mr. Bratcher.
Class dismissed.
Online:
https://www.courier-journal.com/
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March 1
The Daily News of Bowling Green on halting youth drug use:
Fewer high school seniors in Bowling Green and Warren County report using alcohol, tobacco and marijuana now than in 2005.
That decrease is due in large part to the teamwork of The Save Our Kids Coalition, our two local school districts and public policy over the last 10 years. That teamwork is leading to a greater number of healthier children here who are entering young adulthood with a clear mind.
The coalition began in 2004 and learned within one year that the use of alcohol at least once during a 12-month period tripled for children between the sixth and seventh grades. Armed with that information, our schools, the coalition and public policy makers were able to set in motion a plan of attack that in 2016 showed triumphant results.
From 2005 to 2016, the percentage of seniors who self-reported using alcohol in a 12-month period prior to taking the coalition’s drug use survey dropped from 38.9 percent to 9.9 percent. Marijuana use for the same age group and time period dropped from 30.7 percent to 19.8 percent. Tobacco use dropped from 43.8 percent to 14.7 percent.
Before that first survey, conventional thinking was that the biggest transition for initial drug use occurred between middle and high school. But information gleaned from the coalition’s first drug survey helped schools and the coalition learn that prevention strategies needed to be in place much sooner because that critical transition period between no use and first use occurs most often between elementary school and middle school.
Prevention has to start in the fourth- and fifth-grade age range, and the coalition developed a curriculum to address those children. The coalition’s annual drug use surveys show the strides made and the steps that still need taking.
“While we’ve had to address specific needs with substances when they arise - synthetic marijuana, prescription drugs, et cetera - we have maintained a focus on concentrating on addressing the underage drinking issue. Very rarely do you see someone with a needle in their arm that did not begin by taking that first drink years before,” coalition Executive Director Eric Gregory said. “Prior to our existence, no one was really digging through the data.”
Without an organization such as The Save Our Kids Coalition, which is a nonprofit dedicated to evidence-based drug prevention strategies, it’s possible that no one would have discovered that critical transition period. The coalition operates on an annual budget of $145,000 and recently lost $125,000 of its grant funding that timed out. Gregory remains dedicated to the cause and continues to work crunching numbers for the good of the children. However, without a funding source the coalition could dissolve. We hope that doesn’t happen.
The coalition’s work is important for the well-being of our children and the overall health of our community.
Online:
https://www.bgdailynews.com/
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Feb. 23
The Lexington Herald-Leader on clearing criminal records:
Last year the General Assembly took an important step toward allowing people who had been convicted of certain low-level felonies to rebuild their lives by clearing their criminal records.
But at the same time they threw up a barrier by setting the fee to apply for a felony expungement at $500, a huge amount for someone struggling with limited job opportunities.
The expungement process permitted through House Bill 40 allows those who have served their time and stayed out of trouble for five more years a chance to clear their records of the felony charges. A clean record means better access to, among other things, jobs.
That’s why the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce and other business interests pushed for HB 40. In need of workers, they were frustrated by the thousands eliminated from the legitimate labor market because of felony records.
So, it’s troubling that, in an odd Catch-22, they set such a high fee, one of the highest in the nation. Even more disturbing, the bulk of that fee, $450, is not allocated to defray the costs of processing expungement requests but goes directly into the General Fund that pays most of state government’s bills.
Expungements as a profit center? It’s punitive and bad policy.
People who get decent jobs in the legitimate workforce pay taxes and, generally, stay out of trouble. That’s worth far more over time than a one-time $450 gain for state coffers.
There are lot of former felons who could get jobs and pay those taxes - perhaps as many as 60,000. But in the first six months the law was in effect, only about 350 people had cleared their records through felony expungement, according to data requested by the Department of Public Advocacy.
More are interested, as evidenced by the turnout at a free expungement information session in Lexington this week. Organizers expected a few dozen but about 200 people showed up to get help in clearing their records. Attorneys were on hand to help those interested.
But even with free professional help, the $500 fee dampened the hopes of many who came.
This session Senate Bill 16, sponsored by Sen. Jimmy Higdon, R-Lebanon, expands felonies eligible for expungement but does not address the fee. On a Kentucky Tonight segment about criminal justice legislation this week, Sen. Whitney Westerfield, R-Hopkinsville, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee and a leader in criminal-justice reform, said he doesn’t see “a huge appetite” for more expungement legislation. Westerfield explained, “some folks think we do too many things that are pro-defendant.”
It’s a broad brush, one that unfairly and unproductively stigmatizes people who have served their time and peacefully waited five additional years as lifetime “defendants.”
The fee is not the expungement law’s only problem but it is easily fixed. Higdon’s bill should be amended to reduce it and include provisions to waive it for those who can’t pay. And lawmakers should pass SB 16.
It’s past time to get more Kentuckians back to work.
Online:
https://www.kentucky.com/
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