BetterDonkey.org - Education

Seattle Teachers Union Wants to Skirt State Law to Raise Money for Schools

Mon, 10 Apr 2006 20:42:16 -0700

Washington State has a law that limits the amount of money a school district can raise through property taxes. The Seattle School District has already hit this lid, but the Seattle Teachers Unions is considering Running a city wide initiative to raise more money anyway.

What the teachers hope to do is avoid the law by raising the money through the city and then having the city transfer the money to the school district.

At this point, it sounds like the politicians seem a little skeptical, but it will be interesting to see what happens.

Pentagon Creating Student Database

Thu, 23 Jun 2005 15:36:41 -0700

It looks as the war drags on, and military recruitment continues to slump, that the Military is now going to build a database of high school and college students (as young as 16 years old) to help identify possible recruits.

I guess filling out the paperwork that prevents recruiters from going through you school records may no longer be enough.

And if you don't like privacy, you'll really like this, the Washington Post is reporting,

The system also gives the Pentagon the right, without notifying citizens, to share the data for numerous uses outside the military, including with law enforcement, state tax authorities and Congress.

Maybe that’s why the Republicans are to cutting student aid and get rid of affirmative action, its not that Republicans want to keep people down, its just

No Child Left Unrecruited

Thu, 19 May 2005 10:11:58 -0700

As part of the No Child Left Behind Act, all schools recieving federal funds are required to allow military recruiters access to their student's personal information. Since there has been a surge in unethinical behavior by recruiters, I wonder what educational merits the miltary has in this new landscape of "America at War".

Leading the fight against recruitment in public schools is our very own Garfield High. Go Bulldogs! And today the Seattle PI has a good article on Garfield's PTSA who came out yesterday with their fists up to debate with recruiters.

As today marks the day when recruitment is brought to a one day hault in order to train all 7,500 recruiters on proper conduct, I think we should talk about how we can help Garfield and other schools continue this fight.

End school levy supermajority

Tue, 01 Mar 2005 14:36:25 -0800

Tell our legislators education is important to Washingtonians. Tell them to support Senate Bill 5786 and House Bill 1484.

These bills would allow voters to invest more in local schools via permanent countywide school levies that could be approved with a simple majority vote rather than the current supermajority vote.

Right now, HB 1484 seems to have bipartisan support in the House, but support in the Senate for SB 5786 is less certain. Our legislators need to hear from us.