Letter to the Editor:
I was pleased to see Glenn Cordelli’s response to my letter to the editor. He has rarely responded to my letters - even those sent directly to him. Interestingly, he says the bills wouldn’t be ‘beyond belief’ if I “presented what the bills actually propose”. Yet the only error he points out I made was reversing the last two numbers in one of his bills. Otherwise, when he summarizes the bills it is similar to my summary; and when he references my points he does not show how they are incorrect or not true. Unfortunately, he does not answer the questions I did raise: Why more unfunded mandates or why aren’t state mandates not included in the definition of an adequate education? Who is going to pay for this extra work or how does he justify increasing local property taxes with these state rules/regs? What happened to local control since some of these bills diminish local control? His answers would have been informative.
HB1619 defines an adequate education. Why does the state define an adequate education? Because the courts have said it needs to In order to determine how much funding it needs to provide to schools/school districts. You see, the cost of an adequate education, as required by our state constitution, is the responsibility of state government. Beyond the academics he outlines, the state mandates building/facilities requirements, transportation etc. Given the state requires these they must be integral to education. Yet, they are not included in the definition of an adequate education. He does not explain why those costs are not included. HB1616, Mr. Cordelli explains the situation for reimbursement by Medicaid for services and then explains in the same way I explained that parents have to provide consent for this. His bill is asking for consent on each different service which I also explained. So what is it that I did not understand Mr. Cordelli? He does bring up an extraneous group and a point supposedly made by them — but this was not in my letter and does not pertain to my issue with this bill. As well, he does not answer the question why this added burden to local taxpayers to do this extra work and pay for this extra cost?
HB1419, I stand by my statement “harmful to minors” is vague and broad. But I can now add to the confusion Mr. Cordell’s letter which states “legislation provide for parents to make sure that age-inappropriate material are not being made available to children or be moved to an upper grade level school.” So being age appropriate is key to the review of the material. But it is wrong to move the material to an upper grade level — even when it would be age appropriate? Huh?
HB1695 I noted was redundant with existing federal legislation. I included what the federal legislation covers which includes “…the right to have control over the disclosure of personally identifiable information from [the child’s] education records.” He vaguely refers to ‘certain exceptions’ which I cannot find in the legislation. Mr. Cordelli’s legislation according to his letter “requires the school to notify the parents when disclosing their child’s confidential information.” My point stands, what is demonstrably different from the federal legislation. And why are we burdening local taxpayers with the time and cost associated with this redundancy? He does not address this. Interestingly, the bills I discussed were all related to education but Mr Cordelli, who is Vice Chair of the House Education Committee, does not speak to any of the other bills before his committee. He must have an opinion on the business of his committee — but we still don’t know what they are.
Karen Burnett-Kurie
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