| Federal Update 08.04.06 |
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FEDERAL UPDATE Week of July 31 – August 4, 2006 Subscribe to the Federal Update or any of several other NASBE free e-mail updates on education related issues by visiting www.nasbe.org/E_Mail.html. CONGRESS REACHES COMPROMISE ON PERKINS VOC-ED REFORMS House and Senate leaders reconciled the differences between their two bills reforming the Perkins vocational education program, a move that would conclude a two-year long stalemate and reauthorize the federal program for five years, the first extension since 1999. Indeed, the full House endorsed the compromise bill by a near unanimous vote of 399-1 (the lone dissent was Rep. Floyd Flake (D-NY). The Senate is expected to similarly approve the measure sometime this week before the chamber adjourns for the August recess. The President also appears poised to add his approval by signing the bill into law. While most of the program’s activities remain consistent with existing law, there are a number of compromises of particular interest to state boards of education: • State level funds: The amount that states can use for expenses administering the program is maintained at 5% or $250,000, whichever is greater. • Tech-prep: Is maintained as a separately funded program, though states will have the option of combining Tech-prep funds with their basic Perkins state grant. Tech-prep funds that are merged would then be subject to all basic state grant requirements (i.e., distribution formula, use of funds, etc.) States will be required to submit a single state plan to federal officials detailing their basic grant and Tech-prep activities. • Accountability: Provisions add to the existing accountability system that gauges student performance in academic, vocational, and technical areas. Importantly, while the new criteria are aligned with the No Child Left Behind Act’s accountability measures, adequate yearly progress (AYP) calculations are not the sole determinant of a vocational education student’s performance. Speaking of performance goals, states that fall short of their targets by more than 10% on a performance indicator for three or more consecutive years will be subject to financial sanctions by the Secretary of Education (states will be similarly able to sanction local districts for poor performance). • Language: The term “vocational education” is replaced by “career and technical education” in the law. • State oversight agency: The bill maintains the state agency responsible for overseeing the Perkins programs as “a State board designated or created consistent with State law as the sole State agency responsible for the administration of career and technical education in the State or for the supervision of the administration of career and technical education in the State.” SENATE COMMITTEE PASSES FY07 EDUCATION BUDGET The Senate Appropriations Committee approval an FY07 education budget that provides few if any funding increases save Education Technology State Grants. And save the ed tech program the Senate Appropriations Committee did, as it fully restored the $272 million to the program that the Bush Administration and the House spending bill had eliminated from its FY07 spending bill. Unfortunately, other than that bright note, there was little encouraging funding news among the major K-12 programs. The Senate bill provides no increase for Title I’s basic grants and earmarked only $100 million for the new state capacity grants proposed by the Bush Administration to help states assist low-performing schools and districts identified by the No Child Left Behind Act ($100 million less than is being sought by the President and approved in the House spending bill). The Senate committee included no increase for special education funding, maintaining spending at $10.58 billion—an amount that is less than was provided in FY05. Thus, special education funding appears to be on the verge of decreasing after enjoying a run of substantial increases in the early 2000’s. The Senate bill would cut $29 million from the Reading First program ($1 billion total), $140 million from Teacher Quality State Grants ($2.74 billion total), and completely eliminate funding for the Title V innovative state grants program (-$99 million). The Senate committee did maintain funding ($310 million) for the Safe and Drug-free Schools program, which the Bush Administration has been seeking to zero out. Like the House bill, the Senate bill will be considered by the full chamber when Congress reconvenes this fall. Below are FY06 and pending FY07 spending levels for major K-12 programs. Program FY06 FY07 FY07 FY07 Admin. Request House Comm. Senate Comm. Title I $12.7 billion $12.7 billion $12.7 billion $12.7 billion Special education $10.58 billion $10.68 billion $10.73 billion $10.58 billion Reading First $1.03 billion $1.03 billion $1.03 billion $1 billion Perkins voc-ed $1.2 billion 0 $1.2 billion $1.2 billion Tech prep $105 million 0 $105 million $105 million State capacity grants n/a $200 million $200 million $100 million Teacher quality grants $2.9 billion $2.9 billion $2.6 billion $2.7 billion 21st Century Learning $981 million $981 million $981 million $981 million Title V $99 million $99 million $150 million 0 Safe Drug-Free Schools $347 million 0 $310 million $310 million Tech. state grants $272 million 0 0 $272 million English lang. grants $669 million $669 million $669 million $669 million State assessments $407 million $407 million $407 million $407 million FIVE STATES SELECTED FOR NCLB SANCTIONS PILOT PROGRAM The U.S. Department of Education has announced an expansion of four states to a pilot program that reverses the order of corrective actions required of low-performing schools per the No Child Left Behind Act. For the 2006-07 school year, specific districts in Alaska, Delaware, Indiana, and North Carolina will join Virginia in being able to offer students supplemental services in year one of corrective action and public school choice transfers in year two, the reverse of the current chronology. As part of the pilot, the five participating states “have committed to increasing the number of eligible students participating in supplemental education services (SES) (i.e., tutoring), extending enrollment periods, expanding options for parents, and providing achievement data on students in the SES pilot districts,” according to the Department of Education. In addition, the Anchorage (Alaska) and Memphis (Tennessee) school districts will be allow ed to be supplemental service providers in their own right, even though both districts are identified as in need of improvement per NCLB accountability measures. They join Chicago and Boston as the only school districts able to exercise this opportunity. Except for these four, federal officials have maintained that districts in need of improvement not be allowed to provide tutoring services. TOM LUCE LEAVING ED Tom Luce, the assistant secretary for planning, evaluation, and policy at the U.S. Department of Education, is leaving his post on September 1st for health reasons and will return to his home in Dallas, Texas. Luce, a long-time advocate of standards-based reforms and influential policymaker in the development of the No Child Left Behind Act, said the demand of his job had continued to interfere with his ongoing physical therapy needed to manage a pain affliction. He will continue to serve as a part-time adviser to Secretary Spellings. Luce described his time in Washington as “probably been the most rewarding experience of my life.” “Tom Luce has spent a lifetime putting kids first, and his service to the Department of Education has been no exception,” said Margaret Spellings, “Tom will continue to be one of my primary and trusted advisers on education policy.” In other Department leadership news, Troy Justesen was confirmed by the Senate as Assistant Secretary for the Office of Vocational and Adult Education and Kevin Sullivan, the Department’s Director of Communications, is leaving to take a job at the White House. SPECIAL EDUCATION REGULATION RELEASED The long-awaited rules governing the reforms made to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) have been released by the U.S. Department of Education, nearly two years after the law was enacted in December 2004. The 1,700 pages of regulations are currently posted on the Department’s website atwww.ed.gov/policy/speced/guid/idea/idea2004.html, but will be formally published in the Federal Register in the coming weeks. VOUCHER BILL INTRODUCED IN CONGRESS Republican lawmakers introduced a $100 million pilot school voucher bill last week for students in chronically low-performing schools to transfer to private or religious school with federal funds paying the tuition. The proposal was first included in the President’s FY07 budget plan, but until now contained few specifics. Under the plan, up to 28,000 low-income children who attended a public school that failed to meet for five consecutive years the adequate yearly progress (AYP) goals set by the No Child Left Behind Act would be eligible to receive a federally subsidized “scholarship” to attend a private or religious school. The federal funds would be distributed to states, school districts, non-profits, and/or faith-based organizations based on a competitive grant process. The legislation was introduced by Senator and former Education Secretary Lamar Alexander and House Education Committee chairman Buck McKeon. In a striking display of unfortunate timing and juxtapositioning, a report released by the U.S. Department of Education four days before the introduction of the private school voucher bill indicates that public schools are performing as well as or better in reading and mathematics than comparable children in private schools. The study also concluded that students in conservative Christian schools performed well below their public counterparts. However, the report cautions against drawing conclusions based on the type of school versus unknown factors. For example, the study confirmed that private school students typically score higher than those in public schools, though, as the report continues, it shows that when students of like racial, economic, and social backgrounds are compared, the private school advantage dissipates, except in eighth-grade reading. A spokesperson for the Council for American Private Education, a not-for-profit organization that represents 80 percent of the nation’s private schools, said that statistical analysis has little to do with how parents chose to educate their children. The report was released on Friday afternoon without a news conference or public comment from the Department of Education. QUOTE OF THE WEEK “It was not an evaluation of how school vouchers, how scholarship programs, how additional resources work for low-income families trapped in chronically low-performing schools. I do see them as . . . apples and oranges issues.” Secretary Spellings, downplaying the significance of the findings of the Department’s public versus private school performance report at the press conference announcing voucher legislation. Congress has adjourned for its summer recess. The Federal Update will resume when legislators return in September.
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