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CORAS NAMES
RICHARD FISHER AS NEW EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
ATHENS,
Ohio -- Richard Fisher, retired superintendent of the
Perry-Hocking Educational Service Center, has been appointed
Executive Director of the Coalition of Rural and Appalachian
Schools (CORAS), effective January 1, 2000. He succeeds Max
Evans, who has served as Executive Director for the past one
and one-half years. Fisher is a founding member of
CORAS.
The
mission of CORAS, established in 1988 in partnership with
the Ohio University College of Education, is to serve as an
advocate and support the continuous improvement of
educational opportunities available to the region's children
and youth. The organization has 111 member school districts
and higher education institutions in Appalachian Ohio. In
addition to providing and supporting professional
development opportunities for school administrators, CORAS
and the College of Education jointly engage in conducting
research in the schools. The Executive Director also will
teach a class in the College of Education.
A 1990
study commissioned by CORAS revealed great inequities in the
Ohio school funding system and led to the formation of the
statewide Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy of School
Funding. The latter organization brought suit in Perry
County against the state, resulting in a 1997 Ohio Supreme
Court decision that the school funding system was
unconstitutional. The Court gave the General Assembly one
year to fix the system. Judge Linton D. Lewis, Jr., of the
Perry County Court of Common Pleas who heard the original
case, handed down a second decision in February 1999 that
found the system of funding still unconstitutional. The case
is before the Ohio Supreme Court again and a decision on the
constitutional status of the system is expected from that
body by the spring of 2000.
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