Home-schooled students and their parents, along with private school pupils, flooded the halls of the General Assembly on Wednesday to oppose legislation that would impose public school testing requirements on all school-age children.
"Why are we so determined to put some issues on the ballot, but we're selective about what we put on the ballot?"
"Changes in the accountability system we know from experience can be extremely disruptive to teaching and learning," said Bob Sexton, president of the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence, a school-advocacy group based in Lexington.
"Shut your mouth you stupid whore or else you are going to pay."
This is a terrible system we have in Kentucky, where a governor takes office in December and less than a month later is expected to have a staff assembled, a budget prepared, and be ready with proposals for correcting major problems and advancing the state.
Limiting the scope of legislative sessions, for example, is the subject of two bills filed by Senate Republicans and one filed by a House Republican.
The bills are here, here, and here.
This means that Kentucky students (some as young as 9-years old) will be asked to do one thing...but will be assessed on something else - some secret rubric. How is a student to know which questions have a secret rubric, and which do not? What are the ethics of penalizing students for following instructions?
CATS SUFFER WORST LOSS IN SERIES HISTORY
Kentucky mimicked a night of political landslides. Alas, the Cats played the role of Hillary Clinton buried in defeat in the Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C., primaries.
"I think it's 50-50 now that casino gambling will get out of the legislature this year."
"Put in simpler and conservative terms, smokeless use carries less than 2 percent of the health risk of smoking. A rational tobacco tax policy would set taxes accordingly. If lawmakers raise the cigarette tax to $1, the tax on smokeless tobacco should be two cents."
“Right now, I don’t have any sick or vacation time,” Draud said. “I don’t anticipate anything, but if I were to get sick, I would have nothing to fall back on.”
Notwithstanding any statute to the contrary, the executive branch of government shall accept from the Kentucky Teachers' Retirement System all accrued annual and sick leave balances and service credits of employees leaving the Kentucky Teachers' Retirement System and accepting appointments within the executive branch.
"Basically I want it in every public and private school in Kentucky," he said. "They should have AEDs and sporting practices and events."
"I think it should be a law because there are a lot of kids that like them; they think it gets them up but it doesn't," Tate Clements said.
The fifth grader at Brodhead Elementary drank part of his sister's energy drink after hearing friends talk about the rush of energy the beverages can give.
"It was good at first but after a few minutes you start feeling all jumpy," Clements said.
Whenever a committee fails or refuses to report within a reasonable time a bill submitted to it, a member may sponsor and file with the Clerk a written request, signed by twenty-five or more members, to call the same up for consideration on the next succeeding legislative day after the filing of the request. The effect of this petition shall be to bring before the House the question of whether the committee to which the bill has been assigned has held the bill for an unreasonable time.
Upon the motion of the member sponsoring the request, and if a majority of the members elected to the House concur that the bill has been held an unreasonable time, the bill shall be considered as though it had been regularly reported, and sent to the Rules Committee.
All bills and resolutions having been reported out of the committee to which referred and having received their second reading shall be referred to the Rules Committee. The Rules Committee may refer any bill or resolution before it back to a standing committee...
No bill or resolution shall be referred back by the Rules Committee on more than one occasion...
No bill may be kept in Rules Committee for longer than five legislative days. Within that time, each bill must be reported to the floor or referred back to a standing committee.
Clinton has not always specified the enforcement measures she would embrace, but when pressed on ABC's "This Week," she said: "I think there are a number of mechanisms" that are possible, including "going after people's wages, automatic enrollment."
Last year, for the first time in the 29-year history of legalized gambling in Atlantic City, the casinos won less money than they did the year before, figures released yesterday show.
The 5.7 percent decline to $4.9 billion was hardly a surprise. For month after month in 2007, the gaming halls reported wins that were down from 2006 levels -- all attributed to new competition from slots parlors in Pennsylvania and New York, and new smoking restrictions on Atlantic City casino floors. (emphasis added)
Still, the first year-to-year decline provided a marker that the gambling mecca did not want. It also deprived the people of New Jersey of about $24 million in gambling tax revenue, which the state uses to benefit senior citizens and people with disabilities.
"It is a shock -- a slap on the side of the head for anyone who owns a casino in town," said Carlos Tolosa, president of the Eastern Division of Harrah's Entertainment Inc., which owns the Harrah's Marina, Showboat, Caesars and Bally's casinos in Atlantic City. Collectively, the four casinos made up 44 percent of last year's total revenue.
"This was a wake-up call for everybody that we have to continue to build nongaming attractions and convert this resort town into a destination," Tolosa said, "and that we have a long way to go."