Fast Report

05/09/06 — Plan would promote healthier beverages

• Health advocates and the soft drink industry announced new guidelines May 3 to limit portion sizes and reduce the number of calories available to children during the school day.

The Alliance for a Healthier Generation, a joint initiative of former President Bill Clinton’s foundation and the American Heart Association, worked with Cadbury Schweppes, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and the American Beverage Association, to develop the new guidelines, which would call for only lower-calorie and nutritional beverages to be sold in schools.

The beverage industry will try to get 75 percent of the nation’s schools to adopt these guidelines by the 2008-09 school year and get all schools to adopt them by 2009-10.

Milwaukee voucher program expanded

• After months of heated debate, Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle signed legislation in March expanding the school voucher program in Milwaukee.

The new law allows an additional 7,500 students to receive vouchers to attend private schools. This would raise the number of participating students from about 15,000 to 22,500.

All schools participating in the voucher program will have to be accredited. The law allows six organizations to provide accreditation, including the pro-voucher Institute for the Transformation of Learning at Marquette University and Partners Advancing Values in Education. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, about 50 of the 122 schools in the voucher program are not accredited.

Voucher schools also will have to administer “nationally normed standardized tests,” such as the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. The results will be reported to the legislature and researchers. But those schools will not have to comply with the testing and sanction provisions in the No Child Left Behind Act.

The new law eliminates the requirement that only students who previously attended a Milwaukee public school can receive a voucher. And it allows children currently in the program to remain eligible even if their family’s income rises above the current limit.

Board members could lose immunity

• South Dakota school officials are concerned about a constitutional amendment that will appear on the state ballot in November to do away with the concept of judicial immunity.

The so-called Judicial Accountability Initiated Law (JAIL), supported by groups opposed to activist judges, would hold judges personally liable for their actions. But the amendment is so broad, it could potentially apply to all citizen boards, including schools boards, says Brian Aust, communications director for the Associated School Boards of South Dakota (ASBSD).

The measure would allow anyone who feels that a judge acted wrongly to request that a “special grand jury” be convened. If the jury agrees, it could allow civil action to be taken against the person who passed judgment.

Since no public dollars could be used to defend a judge, Aust says, “there is a potential for drastic personal liability.” He says the special grand jury amounts to a “fourth branch of government.”

ASBSD is urging voters to reject JAIL. If the measure passes, fewer people would want to become school board members, Aust says.

The JAIL initiative is being spearheaded by a group called Jail 4 Judges, which tried and failed to get the measure on the California ballot and is pursuing South Dakota, which requires relatively few signatures to get a measure on the ballot, as a first step in a national campaign.

School policies can curb bullying

The network’s 2005 National School Climate Survey also finds that clear inclusive policies, supportive school staff, and student clubs, like Gay-Straight Alliances, lead to less harassment.

Among the findings:

• Three quarters (75.4 percent) of students who identify themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT), heard derogatory remarks, such as “faggot” or “dyke,” frequently or often at school.

• More than a third (37.8 percent) of LGBT students experienced physical harassment at school, and nearly one-fifth (17.6 percent) had been physically assaulted on the basis of sexual orientation.

• LGBT students were five times more likely to report having skipped school in the last month because of safety concerns than the general population of students.

Pa. school board test appears dead

• Thanks to strong opposition from the Pennsylvania School Boards Association (PSBA) and other supporters of school board governance, state Sen. Jim Rhodes, chair of the education committee, is expected to drop a proposal that would have required local school board members to pass a test.

The measure would have required board members to resign if they fail to take a 40-hour course and pass a test on such subjects as budgets, collective bargaining, and No Child Left Behind. A district could have lost a portion of state funding if a board member refused to resign.