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Another $60 Billion Proposed for Public Education
 In his speech before a joint session of Congress last week, President Barack Obama urged legislators to pass what will amount to a second round of stimulus funding bearing an estimated price tag of $447 billion. On the heels of the $100 billion alloted to K-12 education as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the new legislation will call for an additional $55 billion, to be provided for two purposes: renovating school facilities, and saving public school jobs. Private schools, which educate approximately 10 percent of the nation's students in grades K-12, are included for consideration in the portion of the bill relating to school modernization, renovation and repair. The private school provisions appear in Section 227 of the bill, which can be viewed in its entirety, here. The full text of the President's speech can be found, here.
Of the total proposed for K-12 education, $25 billion will be designated for K-12 school repairs and upgrading. Funds will be allocated to state departments of education based on a need formula. However, the nation's largest 100 public school districts will receive direct grants. Half of the funds received by the states are to be awarded to districts using a competitive grants process, and the remaining half will be allocated by formula. An additional $5 billion will be made available for the renovation of community college facilities, with all construction and renovation funds to be designated for use prior to September 30, 2012.
The remaining $30 billion is intended to save public school educators' jobs, but districts will also be permitted to use the federal funds to pay existing teacher benefits and/or to hire additional faculty.
The President was emphatic in announcing that "...everything in this bill will be paid for. Everything." It remains unclear, however, exactly how Mr. Obama plans to do so. Presumably, the $447 billion in new federal expenditures is to be balanced by corresponding deficit reductions. A Congressional Deficit Reduction Committee consisting of six Democrats and six Republicans has been tasked with the responsibility of proposing reductions totaling at least $1.5 trillion over the course of the next decade (exclusive of the $447 jobs bill). If the bipartisan body fails to agree on such recommendations, or if Congress fails to pass them, automatic reductions in discretionary spending will be automatically triggered. (The automatic reductions will not generate the $447 billion associated with the President's jobs bill.)
Since education spending is discretionary, federal education funds are "at risk" for proposed reductions. Should such funds be designated as offsets against the newly proposed stimulus, critics are certain to argue that the government is "robbing Peter to pay Paul."
Reaction to the President's education spending proposals drew partisan reactions. Democratic Senator Tom Harkin, who chairs the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, praised the measure, saying, "The president's call to renovate our schools is a win-win for our economy and for our children. Kids cannot be expected to reach their full potential if the school they attend is crumbling around them." But Republican Representative John Kline, who presides over the House Committee on Education and the Workforce took an opposing view: "More stimulus spending is not the right solution to our nation's job crisis. Common sense tells us that putting the federal government in the business of school construction will only lead to higher costs and more regulations. It also tells us that another teacher union bailout will not ensure a quality education for our children."
According to this Politics K-12 article, passage of the education spending components of the new jobs package faces an uphill battle. As Alyson Klein writes: "There's almost no chance that Republicans-who generally think the $100 billion for education in the stimulus was a giant waste of money-will rush to support this. Remember, the administration had a very tough time getting Congress to approve $10 billion for the Education Jobs Fund back in the summer of 2010, when Democrats had healthy majorities in both chambers." According to Ms. Klein, while other components of the newly proposed legislation are likely to garner broad bipartisan support, "the education piece seems more like a re-election campaign promise than a serious legislative proposal."
Stay tuned! |
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California Seeks Relief from NCLB Sanctions
 California State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson (shown at left) has penned a letter to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan in which the Golden State's chief education officer calls for immediate relief from various accountability mandates imposed by current federal law. "We project that a significant number of California's schools, approximately 4,600, or nearly 80 percent of our schools that receive Title I funds, will be in improvement status for the 2011-12 school year," wrote Mr. Torlakson. ("Improvement status" designates schools that have failed to make "adequate yearly progress" for a successive number of years.) A copy of Mr. Torlakson's letter may be viewed, here.
Calling the federal education law "outdated and ineffective," Mr. Torlakson requested that sanctions be frozen at the 2010-2011 level, and urged the Secretary to support "individual state-determined accountability initiatives," ostensibly, in lieu of current federal provisions which were to have been rewritten four years ago, but remain intact.
Mr. Duncan has indicated his willingness to grant waivers, but only on condition that states agree to various reforms that include tying teacher evaluations - at least in part - to the results of student achievement tests. Mr. Torlakson's letter expressed distaste for the carrot and stick approach, noting that "the conditional nature of the waivers presents problems for California." Invoking sterner language, the State Superintendent clearly implied that the Secretary was overstepping the bounds of his legitimate authority, writing, "The appropriate forum for consideration of any new legal mandates is through the reauthorization process involving transparency and Congressional democratic debate." (Mr. Torlakson obviously has no similar question concerning the legitimacy of granting a waiver from requirements established by Congress.)
Fiscal considerations play a significant role in California's request for relief. With increasing numbers of schools designated as being in need of improvement, slated for corrective action, or required to undergo reorganization, the associated costs borne by the state continue to mount, impacting the allocation of resources. As Mr. Torlakson notes, the federal mandates "...impose huge burdens on the schools of California, which have already experienced $18 billion in cuts in state and local funding over the last four years and face looming triggered cuts for the upcoming year." The story is reported by Capitol Weekly, here. |
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Quick Takes
 Read the CAPE Outlook!
Did you know that a recent study found that, "
"the presence of a Catholic school in a police beat appears to suppress crime and the presence of a charter school does not"? You can learn more about the research behind this finding, along with articles on the current school choice boom, the U.S. Department of Education's Early Education version of Race to the Top, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan's view of school vouchers, and more in this month's edition of the CAPE Outlook newsletter. CAPE Outlook, a publication of the Council for American Private Education, is published monthly throughout the school year, and is available in PDF format at no cost, here. Low-cost hard copy editions can be obtained, here.
In the "Dog House"
If you've ever visited the State Capitol in Sacramento, you may have been struck by the disparity in the size of the offices assigned to legislators. If you'd paid a call to the office of an Assembly Member or Senator who chairs a prestigious committee, you'd have stepped into a waiting area leading to a large suite of offices. Others are assigned to more moderate sized office suites with waiting areas holding little more than a couple of chairs. The average office of a Democratic member of the State Assembly occupies 1,171 square feet, while Republican assembly members' offices consume 746 square feet, on average.
And then there's the "Dog House," a two-room "suite" occupying a total of 391 square feet, to which the Speaker of the Assembly - the official responsible for making office assignments - dispatches an out-of-favor colleague. The "honor" of occupying Room 5126 currently goes to Assembly Member Beth Gaines, a first-term Republican from Roseville.
Interested readers can learn more about the "Dog House," here. A recent article addressing the manner in which more than $250 million is allocated to administer the Legislature can be viewed, here.
New NAEP Tool
You've likely heard of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, also known as The Nation's Report Card. Over the years, the NAEP, which endeavors to gauge what America's students know and can do in various subject matter areas, has amassed a vast database of test questions. This repository is now available to the public in the form of a suite of online tools that can be accessed, here. The tools "...can be used to supplement classroom instruction, provide additional insight into the content of the assessment, and show what students nationally or in your state or district know and can do." If you feel inclined to subject yourself to some sample NAEP questions, click here and select a content area. Good luck! |
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In it Together
 Spend enough time reading education policy-related posts in the blogosphere or twitterverse, and one can quickly come to the conclusion that public and private education exist in disparate universes. Sadly, the politicization of education has produced a lamentable degree of mutual "othering" that, at times, borders on outright hostility. Lest we fall victim to such views, it is necessary to take occasional pause to remind ourselves that the strident voices are - and ought to remain - in the minority. Even more importantly, it behooves us to occasionally reiterate an alternative view.
I often think of public and private education as a series of trains running on parallel tracks toward the same destination: better lives for kids, fulfilled hopes for their families, and a better future for our communities and nation. Though the trains may be appointed differently, vary in terms of the types and levels of service provided en route, and rely upon differing means of financing, their basic elements remain largely interchangeable.
Private schools are partners in the education of the public. As citizens and taxpayers, public schools are our schools, too. The children that attend them, and the teachers and administrators from whom they receive their education are our neighbors, our friends, our family members.
It works the other way, too. Relative to the general population, public school teachers send their children to private schools in disproportionately greater numbers. They are our parents - parents who are strongly and meaningfully invested in helping our schools realize their distinctive missions and visions. They rightfully view our schools as theirs.
In 1925, the United States Supreme Court established a legal tradeoff that has endured for more than three-quarters of a century. In its landmark Pierce v. Society of Sisters decision, a unanimous Court gave expression to two complementary principles. On the one hand, it declared that: "The child is not the mere creature of the State; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations." In other words, the primary responsibility for directing the upbringing of a child resides with that child's parents.
At the same time, the High Court declared the following: "No question is raised concerning the power of the State reasonably to regulate all schools, to inspect, supervise and examine them, their teachers and pupils; to require that all children of proper age attend some school, that teachers shall be of good moral character and patriotic disposition, that certain studies plainly essential to good citizenship must be taught, and that nothing be taught which is manifestly inimical to the public welfare."
That tradeoff assures ongoing interaction between our schools and the state, or, if you will, a convergence of public and private interests. In more practical terms, the legal framework in which private schools exist assures that representatives of the private and public spheres remain in dynamic relationship. The connection may be nearly invisible to many, but I have the privilege of being party to the relationship on a daily basis.
Whether it takes the form of obtaining a school safety and security plan from a public school district, receiving health advisories from a county Department of Health, working with the California Department of Education to provide relevant professional development programs funded by federal dollars, or participating in webinars organized by the U.S. Department of Education, I frequently interact with publicly employed colleagues at every level of educational governance.
Over the course of my nine years as CAPSO's executive director, I have had occasion to work with hundreds of public education officials. I would be less than honest were I not to say that some possess a negative mindset with respect to private education. By the same token, I have had occasion to deal with denizens of private education who harbor much the same sort of suspicion and skepticism with respect to public education. Happily, such persons constitute a small minority on both sides. The vast majority of public officials with whom I have worked are wonderful, committed, hard working people with whom I share a common purpose: to understand and apply the law for the ultimate benefit of students, regardless of the schools they happen to attend. I regard these fine public servants as esteemed colleagues, and consider many of them friends.
And that's how it ought to be.
Ron Reynolds |
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Publication Note
The next edition of the CAPSO Midweek E-Mailer will be published on September 28, 2011. |
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