House kills charter school bill

Quoting from classic literature didn't help Rep. James Ferrin on Tuesday. The House killed his charter school bill anyway.

Ferrin, R-Orem, amended his HB189 so that the current state-mandated TLC classes in public junior high schools could be waived only in charter schools. Earlier this session representatives killed a version that would have made TLC classes optional in all schools.

The technology, life and career classes have been much-praised by some and criticized by others. Ferrin said it is wrong to force small, often underfunded charter schools to hire three different teachers to teach the TLC class if an elementary charter school wants to expand to the seventh-, eighth- or ninth-grade classes.

But a coalition of Democrats and rural Republicans combined to defeat the even-narrower HB189, with several legislators saying TLC classes are important even in charter schools and that the school board overseeing charter schools hadn't approved Ferrin's idea.