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Their new plan to impose spending caps on school budgets might help accomplish that goal

The cap means officials could not present to voters any budget plan that resulted in a more than 2 percent increase in per-pupil costs. And it’s this language that teachers object to the most. Allen says it’s a blunt policy instrument that will inflict serious harm on public schools.

If a vote for a community exceeds 2 percent per pupil in expenditures, it’s deemed to have failed,” Sharpe says

But the most contentious provision in the bill calls for a hard cap on per-pupil spending increases.

But even diehard proponents of education funding reform say the House Education Committee’s approach could do more harm than good.

“It’s unfortunate, taking away more authority from local school boards and local decision makers and local voters,” Scheuermann says.

The House Committee on Ways and Means will d

bate the proposed spending cap when lawmakers return to Montpelier next week. Sh

arpe says the version of the cap in the education committee’s bill is admittedly flawed, insofar as it fails to recognize various factors that might make a per-pupil spending increases of more than 2 percent necessary for some districts.

At the end of the day, public schools can be the saviors of a nation. As the only institution in America that routinely sees 50 million young people a day, we have a chance to redefine our future. But instead of leading the way, we have lost our way and our mission, once clear as a bright sunny day, has become muddied and incoherent. Business and politics have so polluted our ranks that it has become increasingly difficult to distinguish among educational, political and business leaders

We give lip service to what is best for kids, but operationally, we don’t follow through. We are not allowed to. If we did what was best for kids, we would enforce behavioral codes uniformly, restructure our secondary schools to create a relationship rich culture, reform funding structures to ensure equality in opportunity, build strong home school partnerships and reestablish the teaching profession as the expert in all matters educational.

Until we regain our leadership role, public education will continue to be bullied and dragged into the mud. Teachers’ unions at all levels must reinvent themselves as leaders in best practices, and until that occurs, they will continue to loose footing with both the public and legal infrastructures of our country. Education leaders have embraced the conversation about single data point testing, instead of fighting against the flawed logic driving it. In backroom conversations, we all talk about the absurdity of it, but in public view, we refuse to take the lead, instead ignoring common sense and the legions of evidence that undermine its credibility.

But in most situations, school administrators and teachers cannot prevent you from saying something just because it is controversial.

true threat A defamatory statement Obscene

True Threats Whether you are in school or not, online or in-person, the right to free speech does not protect speech that a reasonable person would interpret as a serious expression of your desire and ability to harm him/her.

Defamatory Statements The right to free speech also does not protect false personal attacks against another person that are untrue, that harm someone's reputation, and that you knew, or should have known, were untrue when you said or wrote it.

Obscene Speech The right to free speech does not protect speech that deals with sex in a manner appealing to purely lustful interests in a patently offensive manner, and without serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

For speech to be considered a "true threat," it must be something that a reasonable person would interpret as a serious expression of an intention to harm him/her.

If the school provides students with an e-mail address, it can impose rules on its use. For example, it can require that the address be used only for school-related purposes and can prohibit using the account in a way that interferes with another student's learning, such as sending flames or bullying messag

It may also monitor what you view, send, or receive on school-provided computers or e-mail account

Your school may prohibit all access to the Internet on any computer. Or your school may prohibit using school computers to access the Internet, including sites such as Facebook or YouTube, or using Hotmail or Gmail accounts, if school officials believe access is disruptive to the schoo

When you are using the school's computer and Internet access, school officials can see what you are sending and receiving onlin

Check your personal e-mail or non-school-related websites outside of school, on your own time, with a computer that does not belong to the school.

But merely because you are off campus, you are not free to say just anything. Remember, state and federal laws make it illegal to post threats of violence against a person or to advocate certain illegal action

Posting information on the Internet can be like publishing it in the newspaper. If the website is public, anyone can look at i

Keep in mind that school officials, college admissions officers, and potential employers are free to look at it.

Other people could take your posting and copy it to another website where you can't delete it

What's more, what you put on a public website may stay on the Internet foreve