Boardbuzz

NSBA in the news

In a sign of the times, parents and others who volunteer in today’s schools are more often finding themselves subject to security or background checks as an extra step in protecting school children. In today’s New York Times, NSBA’s General Counsel Julie Underwood says, “Fingerprinting parents who want to be involved in the school may create a chilly environment, one where parents are discouraged from getting involved. But you do want to do what you can to keep children safe.” Also today, the front page of USA TODAY’s Money section features a long report on the influence of the millions of dollars spent by the Walton Family Foundation to promote the school voucher and charter school movement. Marc Egan, NSBA’s Voucher Strategy Center director, calls the prospect of the foundation spending as much as $1 billion a year to promote private school vouchers “alarming.”

To date, voters have always rejected voucher proposals despite the tens of millions of dollars invested by the voucher lobby on ad campaigns and suspect studies. But the expenditure of a billion dollars a year to promote the concept would be tough to dismiss. And finally, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports on one of NSBA’s upcoming Education Technology site visits to Forsyth County, Ga. Look here for more information about that visit and one in March in Montgomery County, Md.

admin|March 11th, 2004|Categories: Boardbuzz, Governance|

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