January 11, 2007

Dryden students at mock trial

The Local section of today's Ithaca Journal has photos of the Cornell Law School's mock trials. The online version lacks captions and the accompanying story, but the top photo there is Tompkins County Assistant District Attorney Andrew Bonavia, while the lower photo is Dryden High School students Nick Lange and Lizz Hudler.

Dryden High School and Freeville Elementary were listed by the state as underperforming, though Superintendent Mark Crawford thinks that was a mistake:

The state Education Department and the high school may have different numbers on the percentage of students who took the English Language Arts exam, Crawford said. The state mandates a minimum of 95 percent.

At Freeville, the K-2 elementary school where the children are too young to take the exams, administrators allegedly did not submit a mandatory report.

Ithaca High School and Beverly J. Martin Elementary School were also on the list.

There's an update on the three-year-old victim in the Jacob Carter case, who is still listed in critical condition after surgery but doing better.

The Monitor reports a Dryden man's arrest for DWI and speeding.

In state news, conservative analysts at the Manhattan Institute are all upset over Governor Spitzer's plan to increase the STAR exemption on property taxes, complaining that it's just a shift to income tax. I know they'd prefer to take a chainsaw to state and local government, but the last election demonstrated that not everyone shares that opinion. Moving away from property taxes toward income taxes ensures that taxes are paid by those with the ability to pay them. Those with lots of income may not like that, and that's no doubt why they finance groups like the Manhattan Institute, but it makes a lot more sense.

Posted by simon at January 11, 2007 8:04 AM in , , ,
Note on photos