Gov. Joan Finney of Kansas has vetoed a measure that would have allowed school districts to contract with outside groups to provide remedial-education programs to students outside of normal operating hours, arguing that it was an attempt to subvert equity provisions of the state’s school-finance law.
The “extraordinary school’’ program would have permitted school boards to enter into cooperative agreements with groups to allow students a chance to strengthen basic skills, undertake special projects, or take remedial instruction.
Ms. Finney argued that the measure was “directly contrary to the philosophical underpinnings’’ of the school-finance law, which centralized tax collection and school spending at the state level.
Lottery Funds: The Illinois Senate has approved a bill aimed at protecting schools from loss of funding from year to year and ending the practice of shifting general-fund revenues out of the education budget as earmarked lottery funds became available. (See Education Week, April 6, 1994.)
The Senate killed, however, a plan to give local voters a chance to approve a local income tax to benefit school districts if, at the same time, property taxes were reduced.
Parental Notification: In a defeat for Gov. George F. Allen, the Virginia Senate last week refused to approve a parental-notification amendment that requires doctors to notify a parent before performing an abortion on a minor.
Instead, the Senate voted 21 to 19 to adopt a measure allowing doctors to inform an adult sibling or grandparent.
