The good thing about living in a constitutional republic is that our God given rights as individuals are protected by our constitution.
In other words, if special interests want lawmakers to pass a law that results in the violation of our individual rights, then they are not supposed to do it. Period.
This is something that appears to be really hard for today's elected officials to understand, as once again we are faced in the LA House of Representatives with a bill that attacks our children's right to privacy:
SB 270, sponsored by Sen. Boudreaux, is the latest in a long line of bills designed as an attack on Act 837 of the 2014 legislative session. If passed, this bill will allow students' personally identifiable data to be shared between type 2 charter schools and the districts. The districts claim to need the information in order to verify the amount of MFP funds that are being taken from them and funneled to the privately operated charter schools. Sen. Boudreaux and the special interests that are pushing this legislation claim that the problem arose from the passage of the data privacy bill.
Folks, let's get this straight right here and right now - public school students (which includes those attending charter schools) have always had a fundamental right to privacy. The only thing that the Student Data Privacy Law does is require that the state and the districts respect that right; and, if they decide to trample on that right, they will face criminal penalties. Seems quite reasonable except that the state and the districts have been operating as if THEY have a RIGHT to students' private information.
The real problem is that special interests are trying to fit their square peg (charter schools) into our round hole (constitutional republic). The charter school model just doesn't fit in with our representative form of government. Therefore, people like Sen. Boudreaux must continue trying to find ways to work "around the law".
There are several possible solutions to the problems the districts are complaining about without violating the students' right to privacy; however, it seems that those who think they have more of a "stake" than we in our children's futures would rather misrepresent the law; exaggerate the problems they claim stem from the law; and, minimize the importance of protecting the fundamental right to privacy of children.
Today, we will all get to witness where our representatives' allegiances fall: special interests or protecting the rights of children. If they are committed to representing us by protecting our fundamental rights, they will vote NO to HB 270 and speak up on the House floor to tell the districts and charters to find a way to fix their "problems" without involving the violation of the rights of CHILDREN!
Please, take action now and ask your contacts to do the same:
--Copy & paste the email list below and ask that they vote NO to SB 270 (Boudreaux). Let them know that you will be watching. We provide the link at the bottom of this post to the livestream which will begin sometime around 2:00 today.
--Call the Capitol Switchboard (225-342-6945) and leave a message for as many Representatives as they will allow.
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Link to livestream: http://www.legis.la.gov/Legis/Agenda.aspx?c=H&g=BODY (The screen should appear on this page when meeting starts.)