Date: Tue, 01 Jul 1997 10:37:15 -0400 From: Maggie Heineman Subject: Pennsylvania Expose -- Issue#19, July 1, 1997 If you live in Pennsylvania and would like to receive (or can distribute) the fax version of Pennsylvania Expose, please send email to Joe Bordo, starwalker@earthlink.net ============================================ Pennsylvania Expose July 1, 1997 Issue 19 In this issue: Parental Rights Legislation Right Kind of Charter Schools - Public Ones ENDA Reintroduced What's Wrong with Gay Bashing? Money, Power, and the Radical Right in Pennsylvania National NOW Conference, July 4-7 Parental Rights Legislation -- By Dave Jaros -- Legislative Assistant, PA ACLU -- Aclulegis@aol.com On June 23, 1997, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives Basic Education Subcommittee held an informational meeting on the topic of parental rights and House Bill 1010 and House Bill 1466. Those two bills take a different approach with regard to the rights of parents in the public education system. At the meeting, legislators heard from the Pennsylvania School Boards Association, the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania State Education Association, the Pennsylvania League of Urban Schools, the Pennsylvania Association of School Administrators, the Pennsylvania Family Institute and the Save our School Network. The ACLU considers House Bill 1466 to be a codification of much of what is already provided under state regulations and federal law. The ACLU believes that House Bill 1466 provides for appropriate access to information about curriculum and instructional materials without permitting parents to unduly interfere with the decision-making authority of school boards. We also believe that House Bill 1466 provides for appropriate privacy protections and confidentiality of student records. On the other hand, the ACLU is very concerned about numerous provisions in House Bill 1010. That legislation would give considerable authority to the state's Attorney General to intervene in educational policy. That legislation would also eliminate many health care services provided in school districts throughout the state. The legislation would also undermine health and sex education programs. Finally, that legislation would sanction lawsuits by parents against school boards. This could lead to an increase in religiously- based challenges to textbooks and curricula. The ACLU recommends that anyone who shares our concerns with House Bill 1010 should be in contact with their state legislators. This legislation may come up for a vote in the fall and now would be a good time to contact your representatives about the legislation. For further information about the bills, the ACLU's position, or how to contact your legislators, please contact Dave Jaros, Legislative Assistant, ACLU, at 215-592-1513 extension 222 or via E-mail -- aclulegis@aol.com. Right Kind Of Charter Schools -- Public Ones -- By Bill Johnson -- Director of Communications, PSEA -- WHJPSEA@aol.com The Pennsylvania General Assembly passed school choice legislation in June when it adopted the Charter Schools legislation. Although the new law could have ushered in the kind of chaos that Arizona is experiencing with its wide-open Charter Schools law, the Pennsylvania version actually includes most of the protections for public schools and public school students that advocates sought. Here, in summary, is what the new law does. * It allows parents, teachers, and community groups to apply for a charter to operate a public school with different specialization's and allows for the waiver of some state rules and regulations that govern other public schools. * It provides flexibility and encourages innovation within the public school system. * It maintains the state's commitment to public schools, rather than abandoning them through schemes such as tuition vouchers that would encourage students to leave public schools. In fact, the legislation provides additional funding to help pay for the anticipated movement of private school students back into the public charter schools. * It promotes parental and community involvement in schools. * It maintains local control of local dollars by not allowing appeals of denied charter applications for two years and then requiring substantial public support before an appeal can be made. * It protects school employees from losing contractual protections by disallowing existing school entities from creating and operating charter schools and by requiring the support of a majority of teachers and parents in existing schools before those schools can convert to charter schools. * It requires that at least 75 percent of teachers employed by charter schools have state certification and requires charter applications to list the qualifications needed to staff any non- certified positions. The legislation requires non-certified professionals to "have demonstrated satisfactorily a combination of experience, achievement and qualifications as defined in the charter school application in basic skills, general knowledge, professional knowledge and practice and subject matter knowledge in the subject area where an individual will teach." * It prohibits private schools from converting to charter schools. * It prohibits religious institutions from operating charter schools. * It prohibits for-profit companies from operating charter schools. The charter schools legislation passed the Senate on a 30-18 vote on June 11 and passed the House on a 137-57 vote early in the morning of June 12. Governor Ridge signed it into law on June 19. On a side note, several tuition voucher supporters in the legislature were upset that the charter school legislation passed, especially with the provisions that guarantee public funds stay with public schools. They stated earlier in June that its passage would hurt their efforts to enact tuition vouchers for private and religious schools. One rumor at the capital suggests that they were promised a vote on vouchers in the fall in exchange for their support of the charter schools legislation. ENDA Reintroduced -- Press Release by the American Civil Liberties Union -- Fowarded to PA Expose by tensegrity.critpath.org Tuesday, June 10, 1997 -- WASHINGTON -- Supported by an unprecedented number of their colleagues, a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers today reintroduced a federal bill banning workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation, saying that every American should have the equal right to be free from bias at their jobs. The Employment Non-Discrimination Act, or ENDA, was reintroduced with 150 cosponsors in the House, led by Republican Rep. Chris Shays of Connecticut and Democratic Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts. The Senate bill has 35 cosponsors, led by Republican Sen. Jim Jeffords of Vermont, and Democratic Senators Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts and Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut. The number of cosponsors in each house is the highest the bill has ever received, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, which helped draft the legislation first introduced in 1976. "We are closer than ever to getting this bill passed," said Matt Coles, director of the ACLU's Lesbian and Gay Rights Project. "This legislation would protect all Americans, gay or straight, from being fired simply because of their sexual orientation. It is the right thing to do." "This bill enjoys widespread popular support, the support of most lawmakers, and the endorsement of our President," Coles said. "Our only obstacle is a handful of fringe politicians who don't share America's vision of a free and equal society." ENDA would add sexual orientation to the current list of federal employment protections that ban discrimination based on race, religion, gender, national origin, age and disability. The bill would prohibit employers with more than 15 employees from using a person's sexual orientation in decisions such as firing, hiring, promotion or compensation. Contrary to claims made by opponents, the bill would exempt religious organizations and the military, and would not establish preferential treatment or quotas. Currently, it is perfectly legal to fire someone because of their sexual orientation in 39 states. In the past month, Maine and New Hampshire joined California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin in outlawing sexual orientation discrimination. What's Wrong With Gay Bashing -- By Laura Montgomery-Rutt, Executive Director -- Alliance for Tolerance and Freedom -- lmrutt@lancnews.infi.net [The following is my statement that was read at the Governor's hearing on Hate in June. Information and statements from this hearing will be passed on to the President's hearing in November.] One of the greatest violations of human dignity today is the verbal, mental and physical assault of those who are gay and lesbian in our community. Verbal intimidation and harassment, refusal to acknowledge the problem, and growing prejudice are just some of the fuels which add to the fire of hatred. When a publicly funded library in Lancaster County, Pa. refuses to continue a display of gay and lesbian authors and poets because of mounting opposition by one small faction of our community, we must stop and take a look within ourselves. How can we, a justice seeking people, allow unfair treatment and bigotry to continue? How can we let our society rob a group of people of their inherent worth and dignity? Is it any wonder that gay youth committee suicide at 3 times the rate of non-gay youth? No support, no role models, and a government that ignores the issue. So deep, so ingrained and so blatant is this hatred, that it is as if someone took a gun and shot one of these young victims. We, the citizens of Pennsylvania and the United States, are to blame for the unacceptable loss of a potential Liberace, or DaVinci, or Martina Navratilova. When our government refuses to acknowledge, through corrective legislative action, that gays and lesbians are being discriminated against in housing, employment and public access, when our government refuses to add gays and lesbians to the Human Relations Bill or the Civil Rights Bill because they will not address the extent of intimidation to all gays and lesbians committed during a gay bashing, we, the citizens of Pennsylvania and the United States are committing a hate crime. By allowing this kind of discrimination to continue, by allowing intimidating acts to be committed without retribution, without redress and without acknowledgment of the devastating affects, we are continuing to commit a hate crime. It is time the government took a stand and addressed this issue. No matter what our opinion of homosexuality, we can agree that a crime that is meant to intimidate a group of people cannot be tolerated in our society and our nation. It is what happened in Germany. We cannot let the forces of the judgmental keep us from seeing the Light. And the Light is getting stronger. Money, Power And The Radical Right In Pennsylvania -- By Liz Hrendra-Roberts, Executive Director -- Planned Parenthood Pennsylvania Advocates "Money, Power and the Radical Right in Pennsylvania" profiles organizations advancing an extremist right-wing agenda in Pennsylvania and their sources of funding, along with background information on religious political extremism and family planning politics in the state. This 63-page report is available free of charge from Planned Parenthood Pennsylvania Advocates. It can be requested by fax at 717-234-3032, or by mail to "Radical Right", PPPA, 1514 North Second Street, Harrisburg PA 17102. Political Activist Training -- By Dr. Morton L. Metersky -- SEPIA PAT Program Director -- Metersky@aol.com The Southeast Pennsylvania Interfaith Alliance (SEPIA) has initiated a program to train people to be Political Activists. The first training session was held in April. We are awaiting the publication of a Political Activist's Training Manual being published by The Interfaith Alliance (TIA) before beginning training sessions. Our plan is to send 10 letters at a time to a cross section of churches and synagogues so we don't get overburdened (I only wish). The letter will be signed by The Reverend Rock Schuler, President of SEPIA. You probably know that the Christian Coalition is in the process of training 20 activists to operate in each of the 175,000 voting districts. They plan to complete this training by the year 2000, so you see they have a large jump on us since they started doing this in 1991. Please volunteer to become a Political Activist Trainer. We hope to extend this program across the state and across the nation with the help of TIA and People for the American Way but we have to prove we can do it here in our area. Send me an E-mail at metersky@aol.com or call me at 215-672-4598 to volunteer for this exceedingly important program. Calendar July August 01 02 03 04 05 01 02 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 27 28 29 30 31 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 NATIONAL NOW CONFERENCE JULY 4-7 -- By Patricia Ireland, President -- National Organization for Women -- now@now.org What do Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun, Rep. Cynthia McKinney, women who have filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Smith Barney, hundreds of feminist activists, and Elvis have in common? We will all be in Memphis July 4-7 at the Peabody Hotel for the National Organization for Women's national conference and we hope you'll join us. NOW conferences are open to members and non-members alike. This year, plenary sessions will feature keynote speeches by Sen. Carol Moseley- Braun (D-IL) and Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA). We will also recognize the women plaintiffs in the sexual harassment lawsuit against Smith Barney as Women of Courage. Plus, what's a conference without a little fun and music? And what better place for music than Memphis, home of the blues? The preliminary list of workshops includes grassroots organizing, feminist resources on the web, NOW's Women- Friendly Workplace Campaign, strategies to end racism, securing lesbian and gay civil rights, ending violence against women, stopping the war on the poor, running political campaigns and young feminist organizing. More information and online registration can be found at: http://www.now.org/conference.html. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to call Vanessa Salinas, the conference coordinator, at 202-331-0066 extension 729 or by E-mail at conference@now.org. * * * Pennsylvania Expose Copyright (c) 1997 Pennsylvania Alliance for Democracy P.O. Box 366, Harrisburg PA 17108 President, Clark Moeller http://www.libertynet.org/~exposepa/ * * * Permission to reproduce, unaltered, in whole or in part, with copyright notice. * * * Editor Joanne Tosti-Vasey t23@email.psu.edu Design-Layout-Editing-Publishing Joseph Bordo starwalker@earthlink.net