Students present ideas for state laws
Originally written by Patrick Defibaugh and published in the Mt. Pleasant Morning Sun. Published: 02/23/2003
Local high school students got a civics lesson Friday afternoon as they presented ideas for state laws to the Michigan House Civics Commission in the Mt. Pleasant High School auditorium.
Students’ ideas covered a variety of areas, such as allowing cell phones in school and banning them in cars, and other issues that don’t affect high schoolers much at all, such as privatizing the state’s prison system.
State Rep. Sandy Caul, R-Mt. Pleasant, and Rep. Doug Hart, R-Rockford, listened to nearly a dozen presentations by Mt. Pleasant high school students who want to change laws in the state. Some of the presentations may be written into bills and brought before the House and Senate.
“ We went and asked what we could do to better civically engage young people in this state,” said Hart, who is co-chair of the Civics Commission. “We formed an ad hoc bipartisan legislative committee to travel and hold public hearings to hear kids’ bill ideas.”
In the seventh of about 20 planned meetings, Caul and Hart listened before an audience of about 300 students from Mt. Pleasant, Alma, Shepherd, Beal City and Sacred Heart schools. Three other legislators were scheduled to appear, but due to illness and time conflicts were forced to cancel.
Hart said that since the committee was formed last year, he has heard ideas from students that he has never heard before. “It’s been an illuminating experience,” the former middle school teacher said. “There seems to be this disconnect between Lansing and what kids think is going on. We think we’ve heard every angle out there. It’s not true.”
Presenters not only made suggestions for changes to state laws, but also had to support their ideas with research and logic and answer questions from Caul and Hart.
Caul was particularly impressed with the presentation on increasing college costs, health clinics in schools. “I’m very impressed that they want a quality education but also are worried how to pay for it, “ Caul said.
She also was impressed with a thorough report on privatizing prisons by Tilmann. Tilmann said that about 17% of the state budget, or $1.6 billion, is spent on corrections. Citing other states’ programs and research, Tilmann calculated that Michigan could easily save $340 million by privatizing about 25% of prisons in the state. According to his research, there were other benefits as well. While he couldn’t say why, research showed that criminals are less likely to be repeat offenders in a private corrections system.
“ (Tilmann) had a very good presentation,” Caul said. “We’re at a point where we’ll really have to address this issue.”
Caul and Hart were even more impressed when civics teacher Kathy Ling told them the students had only about two weeks to prepare their ideas. “The students did a wonderful job. They selected some hot topics,” Caul said. “It was interesting that it wasn’t all things that affect their own lives. It shows maturity and a willingness to look at issues in the future.”
Students will be able to watch the progress of bills they inspired soon on the state Web site, when Hart begins posting legislative updates, he said.
“ I think over the next two years we’ll see some of these ideas end up in bill form and some of them will become law,” Hart said.