Legislation to revamp how academic standards are set in public elementary, middle and high schools could be taken up by the full state Senate as early as next week.
Senate President Robert Stivers II, R-Manchester, made the comment after the legislation, given the designation of Senate Bill 1, was passed out of the Senate Standing Committee on Education by a 9-3 vote on Thursday.
“This has been a long process of working on this bill all throughout the interim, making sure we were talking to all stake holders in regards to Senate Bill 1,” said Sen. Mike Wilson, R-Bowling Green, who is a sponsor of SB 1 and chairman of the Senate Education Committee.
A key component of SB 1 outlines a process to review, and possibly change, what students are taught – and how they’re tested – in key subjects such as English, mathematics and science.
“Our testing does not align with our standards,” Wilson said.
First, SB 1 calls for public input on what the academic standards should be. Then, individual panels for each subject at the elementary, middle and high school levels would review the academic standards. The panels would be made up of six teachers and at least one professor from a state university.
The panels’ recommendations would be forwarded to a 10-person standards and assessments recommendation committee. That committee would include three members appointed by the governor, three senators appointed by the Senate President and three state representatives appointed by the Speaker of the state House of Representatives. The state education commissioner would be a non-voting member.
The final recommendation would be forwarded to the Kentucky Department of Education. Under SB 1, the standards and assessments would be reviewed every six years starting in fiscal year 2017-’18 but could be staggered among subjects.
Sen. Gerald Neal said he liked workforce development and early intervention components of SB 1 but he had concerns over the appointments to the standards and assessments committee.
“The fact of the matter is you know and I know that is a political process,” Neal said. “When appointments come through those processes, whether we like it or not, it becomes a political piece.
“ … If you have individuals that are appointed that carry a certain ideological or philosophical positions as opposed to a pure education perspective, and that happens throughout our systems, I’m not sure that is a good thing. That gives me concern.”
‘Revenge porn’ bill approved by the House
Malicious distribution of sexually-explicit photos or videos that were intended to be kept private by a person depicted in the images — a practice known as “revenge porn”— would be against the law under a bill now on its way to the state Senate.
House Bill 110, sponsored by Reps. Joni Jenkins, D-Shively, and Tom Riner, D-Louisville, would make sharing such images a misdemeanor if they show an identifiable person and are shared with intent to harass, intimidate or otherwise harm without a person’s consent. Sharing the same images maliciously for profit or gain would be a felony.
The bill was amended by the House to clarify that written consent for distribution of such images must be given by those photographed, and that consent to the creation of an image does not inherently mean consent to its distribution.
Jenkins said revenge porn is a tactic often used to humiliate a former romantic partner when a relationship fails. There are cases where former partners have “sent these photos to (their former partner’s) friends, their minister, their mother, their grandmother in a way that is very harmful and humiliating,” said Jenkins.
Rep. James Tipton, R-Taylorsville, said in context of the discussion on HB 110 that “personal decisions have consequences.”
“Your choices have consequences. I know… people fall in love, they do things, but situations like this can impact people for the rest of their life. And I’d just like us to take the opportunity to encourage people to be responsible for your actions and consequences and think about what you’re doing,” said Tipton.
HB 110 passed the House by a vote of 92-0.
Anti-bullying legislation sent to Senate
A bill intended to add a clear definition to state law books of what constitutes bullying passed in the state House of Representatives Friday.
House Bill 316, sponsored by Rep. Rita Smart, D- Richmond, would define bullying as “any unwanted verbal, physical, or social behavior among students that involves a real or perceived power imbalance and is repeated or has the potential to be repeated” if it occurs at school, on school busses, at school-sponsored events, or disrupts the educational process in some other way.
“To vote against this bill would be a travesty,” said Rep. Derrick Graham, D-Frankfort, during the discussion of the bill on the House floor. “This bill is for the good of the whole, for our most prized possession: our children.”
Rep. Regina Bunch, R-Williamsburg, who served on the Youth Bullying Prevention Task Force in 2015, stressed the importance of passing HB 316.
“As a teacher of special needs students for over 20 years, I have witnessed what the detriment of bully can cause students,” said Bunch. “We need to be swift, we need to be just in our attention to this and we cannot be complacent.”
HB 316 passed the House by a vote of 94-1 and now goes to the Senate for consideration.
From LRC Public Information