Blog — Events

Posted 6/5/13

Common Good Online Forum on Risk in Schools

JOIN COMMON GOOD’S ONLINE FORUM: RISK AND LEGAL FEAR IN SCHOOLS
We entrust our children to teachers and principals with the expectation that they will be both educated and protected from harm. When, inevitably, incidents happen—especially when those incidents are tragic and well-publicized—communities often press for stricter rules and procedures. But are all of the rules and procedures wise? Do they truly make schools and children safer and better? One school, for example, suspended a six-year-old for "pointing his finger like a gun and saying 'pow,'" while another suspended two boys for playing cops and robbers.

To shield themselves from legal exposure, schools have attempted to eliminate every conceivable risk—no tire swings, no dodgeball, no monkey bars. Field trips require complex liability waivers. Every activity requires paperwork—documentation, permissions, waivers. Our schools must be safe, but are some of the steps taken to protect against every possible lawsuit and risk doing more harm than good?

Common Good is hosting an online forum to address this question, with experts on education, parenting, and the law, including:

• Lenore Skenazy, author and founder of Free Range Kids
• Frederick Hess, Director of Education Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute
• Nancy McDermott, writer and former chair of the advisory board for Park Slope Parents
• Walter Olson, senior fellow at the Cato Institute
• Megan Rosker, teacher and founder of Let Children Play

These experts have already started talking about how to address risk and legal fear in schools.

Add your ideas to the conversation here.

Find out what our panelists think and contribute your comments and questions below.

Posted 5/7/12

Making New York Work: What Gets in the Way? (A Common Good forum)

On May 7th, 2012, Common Good co-hosted a forum with the Manhattan Institute and the Citizens Budget Commission entitled “Making New York Work: What Gets in the Way?” The event, which focused on the bureaucratic and legal impediments to sensible government in New York City and State, was the first in a series of planned forums exploring the structural challenges facing New York; future events will focus on, among other things, the business climate and education reform.

Common Good founder and chair Philip K. Howard made the opening remarks, calling attention the myriad ways in which sensible government decision-making is thwarted by open-ended mandates, byzantine bureaucratic requirements and the proliferation of overly-specific and inflexible rules. Next came a panel discussion, moderated by Howard Husock of the Manhattan Institute, and featuring Howard, Port Authority President Patrick Foye, New York City Human Resources Commissioner Robert Doar, and City Operations Director Elizabeth Weinstein.

Each panelist brought a unique perspective to the debate.  Foye derided the counterintuitive environmental review requirements that massively delay eco-friendly upgrades to the Bayonne Bridge.  Commissioner Doar spoke about the City’s rigid civil service system, which ties managers’ hands by preventing sensible hiring and firing decisions.  Weinstein concluded by describing the astonishing complexity of City government, and the unwieldy and inefficient ways in which it interacts with itself.  Following their talks, the panelists answered questions from the audience, and the evening concluded with a brief reception.