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Wednesday, January 20, 1988 / University Daily Kansan
K-NEA wants new program
The Associated Press
TOPEKA — The president of the Kansas-National Education Association said yesterday that the association would request money from the Legislature for a pilot program that would give more of a school's decision-making power to teachers.
Carolyn Schmitt said her group was asking for $5,000 from the state to set up a program at three or four Kansas schools that would bring teachers together to discuss specific problems at each school. K-NEA would provide another $10,000 for the program, she said.
Schmitt said K-NEA wanted to shift the focus of education reforms to individual school buildings because many reforms at the state level already have taken place.
"All too often, we assume that schools are the same and kids are the same," she said.
Teachers at individual schools are the best judges of that school's specific problems and how to solve them, Schmitt said. Although teachers often participate now in decisions about curriculum, they need to address broader questions.
"There's generally not time for faculty to come together and talk about things like that," she said. "We believe our faculty are talented, and with time, support and research, they can come up with solutions."
In similar programs she has seen at schools in Florida and Arizona.
teachers have decided to change things such as discipline or truancy procedures. The faculty at one school decided to do away with corporal punishment, she said.
Schmitt said the programs would not diminish administrators' authority, although in some cases, faculty might decide certain things, such as schedules of events, that previously were decided by assistant principals or counselors.
"We're suggesting that the decisions will be better if more people are involved." Schmitt said.
If disputes arose, school boards would still have local authority, she said.
I there's no question that building reforms would have to take place within the whole network of state and federal regulations and policies," she said.
The state money would pay to bring teachers together, either by paying them on weekends or hiring substitutes, and to hire consultants, Schmitt said.
schmitt said the programs would benefit both students, by improving quality of education, and teachers, by taking them more say in their schools.
"One of the benefits of this is that teacher can exercise more profes-
sional skills."
Legislation to create the program will be presented to the Senate Education Committee this session.
Dan Starling/KANSAN
Faculty art
Tanya Perkins, Kansas City, Kan., senior, and Monica Liston, Kansas City, Mo., senior, take in the untitled work of Brian Fiorentino, their ceramics teacher. The two were looking at one of the many works on display yesterday at the Design Faculty Show.
Center to expand
Restoring space artifacts has become lucrative sideline for tourist attraction
The Associated Press
HUTCHINSON — The Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center will soon form a subsidiary called International Space Works Inc. to handle restoration, reproduction and consulting contracts expected to total nearly $500,000 in 1988.
The Cosmosphere is negotiating, with the help of the Nevada-based Cernan Corp., founded by former astronaut Gene Cernan, to produce exhibits for a 1989 space exhibition in Yokohama.
The Cosmosphere, the state's top tourist attraction, has been non-profit since its inception, but restoring and recreating space artifacts is an expanding and profitable sideline. It had $400,000 worth of such contracts last year, including a $106,667 restoration of an Apollo command module and nearly $300,000 to build displays and simulators for space exhibitions in the Japanese towns of Gifu and Satima.
The corporation will be formed within a week to 10 days, legal adviser Bill Swearer told the Cosmosphere's board of directors Monday. It could be either a non-profit or for-profit corporation.
Max Ary, executive director of the Cosmosphere, said the museum has proposed 70 exhibits to the Japanese, and if even 30 are accepted the
The prospect of that continuing income endangering the Cosmosphere's tax exemptions as a non-profit corporation is the main reason the Space Works is necessary, Ary said.
Cosmosphere will have a multimillion dollar contract on its hands.
But that doesn't mean that another non-profit organization with a different charter and mission statement might not be on clear ground, he said.
He said that when the Cosmosphere was chartered in 1962, it wasn't set up to do some of the activities it's now involved in to the extent that they're being done.
"A lot of the logistics of how it will work we don't know yet," Ary said. "We've got to determine exactly what the organization will be. It's got to be a very clean break between the two agencies.
"The International Space Works' purpose is still to develop educational programs and support educational programs around the world, making people more aware of space," he said.
The Space Works, with a separate budget and board of directors, will probably be based in the new warehouse that the Cosmosphere bought last year, largely through a $100,000 donation from an unidentified private foundation.
New tort reform is possible
The Associated Press
TOPEKA — State Sen. Robert G. Frey, R-Liberal, said yesterday he thinks the Legislature will make another effort to limit the size of claims that victims of medical malpractice can receive.
The Kansas Supreme Court struck down a 1983 law that places a limit on the amount of money a person can receive in a malpractice suit if collateral sources of benefits are available. Such collateral sources of benefits include retirement benefits, workers' compensation payments or insurance.
The Legislature, as part of a tort reform effort, passed the law to limit the settlement sizes injured people can receive in court if they also receive payments from collateral sources, said Frey, who is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Court struck down lawmakers' cap on malpractice claims
The court, in striking down the law, noted that the legislative purpose was to increase the quality and availability of health care but ruled that the measure had the opposite effect.
But the court said the law penalizes certain victims who have other benefits.
"The court determined that the 1985 law impairs a medical malpractice victim's remedy if a jury determines he is not entitled to full compensation due to benefits from collateral sources," Mike Heim of the Legislative Research Department told the Senate Judiciary Committee.
"The court concluded that the burden should be placed on negligent health care providers rather than on victims, their insurers and the general public." Heim said. "The court said the law created unconstitutional classes of both injured plaintiffs and negligent defendants."
State Rep. Robert Wunsch, R-Kingman, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said much of the tort reform legislation passed in the last three years likely would be declared unconstitutional because in the court's eyes the legislation probably would create different classes of litigants.
Bill would allow parks donations
"We have unconstitutional legislation from 85, 86 and 87." Wunsch said.
The Associated Press
TOPEKA - Kansans would be able to donate money to the state's reorganized Department of Wildlife and Parks under a bill now in a House committee.
Robert Meinen, secretary of wildlife and parks, told members of the House Energy and Natural Resources Committee that a private fund could provide up to $4,800 a year in interest revenues for his agency.
"That may not seem like a lot, but for some of these smaller projects, that could be a lot," Meinen said.
Generally, if people donate money to the department, they want it used for a specific project or area of the state. Meinen said. The department wants to track the money to assure donors that their money is going where
they want it to go.
"It is our intent that as those funds come in for special projects, they will be tracked." Meinen said.
Gov. Mike Hayden created the department, effective July 1, by merging the Kansas Fish and Game Commission and the state Park and Resources Authority. Before they merged, each agency had a fund for private donations, but the park authority's fund didn't draw interest. Meinen said.
Meinen said that if the bill were approved, his department probably would try to publicize it more throughout the state.
The committee chairman, Rep. Dennis Spaniol, R-Wichita, said the committee would act on the bill next week.
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