But wait...another wrinkle to the Hatch story

Posted at 10:30 AM on August 16, 2006 by Mike Mulcahy (1 Comments)

John Croman from KARE 11 sent this:

Reference your piece on Mike Hatch, we determined Tuesday after numerous calls to Legislative Research Reference Library that Hatch is technically correct -- the statute he reviewed (120b.36) has NOT been amended.

Of course this all is on a level of detail we can never approach on TV. Every other journalist seems to accept the "law was changed" version. -- John

Comments (1)

Dear Mike,

An important source called to say he was disappointed by my earlier message, regarding statute 120b.36. He felt it created the impression I'm taking sides in the Hatch/Seagren debate. I'm not.

I didn't intend to slam our Commissioner of Education or in any way build up our Attorney General. I'm just a stickler about details. When I'm told a law has been "amended" I want to know with certainty it has been.

In this case the prevailing statute wasn't amended. Rather, it's being replaced temporarily by another law created when Governor Pawlenty signed Senate Bill 2994.

Am I being a nerd about this? Guilty as charged. Taking sides? Absolutely not.

Commissioner Seagren clearly has the legal authority from the Legislature to change the publication/appeals timetable for test results. But that authority comes from a session law, and not via a change in the permanent statute (120b.36).

So to say the 120b.36 "was amended" in the letter to the Attorney General's deputy wasn't the correct choice of words. However the "law" -- in the broad sense -- does allow the Department to keep a district's performance data "report card" private until November.

The deputy attorney general's first letter to the Commissioner didn't touch on that new session law, so the Department of Education asserted the AG's staff based its entire argument on outdated information.

The AG apparently didn't have the session law info in hand at the time his deputy wrote to the Commissioner. The Commissioner stated the AG could have avoided the entire episode had he contacted her first and learned what section of law created this new appeals timetable.

However, once armed with the correct legal citation, the AG continued to insist the process is being distorted. He argued the appeals process is designed to be used by individual districts, not for all districts to appeal en masse and delay publication of all results.

The Commissioner pointed out this bill was passed with wide support in May, and that most superintendents favored it. She said there was nothing political about the November 15th date.

With 14 new tests implemented this year the schools and the Ed Dept expected new wrinkles. Alice Seagren told us she didn't want any districts harmed by the premature publication of preliminary or incomplete test results. We used those quotes on TV.

If you want to write that "Mike Hatch was wrong" that's obviously entirely up to you. I'm not taking sides.

I'm merely pointing out that the basic statute 120b.36 was never amended. It was just temporarily replaced by a session law.

In retrospect I probably shouldn't have tried to provide that clarification, because it caused someone to question my neutrality.

I also offer my apologies to the Associated Press's Brian Bakst about my "other journalists" comment. Brian also chased down the loose ends regarding 120b.36 and the difference between statutes and session laws.

Posted by John at KARE | August 16, 2006 6:31 PM

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