________________________________________  THE VERMONT EDUCATION REPORT May 14, 2001 Vol. 1, No. 9 ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯  Covering education news in Vermont and beyond... Informative, provocative, unique... Published by Vermonters for Better Education  VBE is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization whose mission is to enlist parents and the public at large in achieving quality educational opportunities for all the children of Vermont by monitoring the state of education in Vermont; promoting the value of educational freedoms for all parents; and giving parents the evaluative tools with which to identify excellence. Libby Sternberg, executive director: MAILTO:LSternberg@aol.com STATE NEWS... JEFFORDS'S SPECIAL EDUCATION PLANS GET MIXED REVIEWS For years, U.S. Senator Jim Jeffords has been beating the drum for more federal spending on special education. This year, however, he got a bigger drum. As a liberal Republican in an evenly-split Senate, he could threaten to withhold support for Administration initiatives that would otherwise pass unless his special education funding comes through.  The money spigot hasn't yet been turned on, but Jeffords's special education funding ideas are receiving more attention, some of it probably unwelcome, from both liberal and conservative pundits.  In Sunday's Rutland Herald/Barre Times Argus, for example, Vermont Press Bureau Chief Jack Hoffman rightly points out that, even though Vermont would benefit from more special ed monies (who wouldn't?), "there seems to be a broad misunderstanding of what Congress actually promised 26 years ago."  Hoffman explains that Congress initially promised to contribute only "40 percent of the national average per-pupil expenditure for non-special education" to states' special education students. So, if a state's average per-pupil cost is $10,000 (to use Hoffman's example), the feds will pony up $4,000 per special ed student - not 40 percent of the actual costs per special education student.  Hoffman goes on to write that "If the federal government were paying its full commitment, Vermont's share would rise to about $39 million (from $13 million). That would be a help, but not a long-term solution."  Hoffman's point is that special education costs are growing so quickly that Jeffords's solution would be a quick-fix at best, hardly more than a band-aid.  The Wall Street Journal also questioned the fiscal feasibility of Jeffords's plan in a recent editorial:  "Mr. Jeffords demanded that Mr. Bush increase spending by some 300 percent over 10 years, to about $24 billion a year. That's $180 billion in new spending over 10 years, or 11.25 percent of Mr. Bush's entire tax cut proposal--for one program! And that's assuming only 1 percent annual growth in the number of children who qualify," wrote the Journal editorialists. "That's also without considering the moral hazard from making any program an entitlement, which means that spending is no longer capped each year. Instead it rises automatically to cover each student who qualifies. And when federal spending is automatic, local school districts have an incentive to grab more dollars by defining more kids as 'learning disabled.'"  The rush to define more children as "learning disabled" if more money is made available was also the topic of an article in the conservative magazine Insight this week.  Insight Magazine points out that "Education experts close to Bush (say) that too many children already are referred to special-ed programs after being labeled 'learning disabled' because they haven't been taught properly, and that the referral does not assure they will catch up. The Bush people say the lure of more federal funds without reforms may tempt schools to put even more kids in special-ed programs without authentic focus on individual needs. 'You want kids who genuinely have special needs to receive the funding,' a White House aide tells Insight. But 'if a child is labeled 'IDA' [Individuals with Disabilities] or 'special ed' because they weren't given the right reading instruction, that's a travesty. We don't want that to occur.'"  The article quotes several education experts who point out that poor reading instruction often accounts for children being shunted into special education programs. This has led at least one Vermont education expert to talk of such children as "instructionally disabled" instead of "learning disabled."  This was also the focus of a May 13 New York Times article. In it, reporter Kate Zernicke looked at Greenwich, Connecticut where special education costs were threatening to overwhelm the budget. When town leaders finally said, "Enough!" she writes, the district looked for ways to change. The result? They've lowered their special education population from 17 percent to 13 percent by defining "normalcy" less narrowly and by focusing on early reading skills.  "... more and more, states, school districts and policy makers are saying that what is needed is not just more money, but wholesale reform of special education," writes Zernicke. "...Republican and Democratic policy groups made a rare joint call for change, saying special education itself was 'disabled,' and, in a report, calling for many of the reforms that Greenwich embraced to reduce its special education numbers.  "These include emphasizing early reading skills, keeping children who are not disabled from being referred to the program in the first place, and focusing on whether children are learning rather than on whether schools are filling out the required paperwork. The hope is that these changes will have an influence as Congress prepares to reauthorize the special education law next year.  "The talk of reform comes just as Congress appears poised for the first time to pay the full share of special education costs that the federal government promised - but never provided - when the law was enacted in 1975. Senator James M. Jeffords, a Republican of Vermont, held the Bush tax cut hostage last month to a pledge that the full share be paid.  "Those proposing change say that money is important, but that it is not enough, and may actually aggravate the problems by masking them for a few more years. They say the system must be reformed."  For the full New York Times article, go to: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/13/nyregion/13EDUC.html   SPEAKING OF JEFFORDS: NO RESPONSE TO SCHOOL CHOICE REQUEST The editor of this newsletter, Libby Sternberg, has contacted Sen. Jeffords's office three times in the past month (on April 12, April 23, and May 11) requesting an appointment to discuss the Senator's objections to school choice programs and to provide information he might find useful. As of this writing, staffers have not offered any possible dates for an appointment.  FL AND PA PASS CHOICE BILLS  From Children First America http://childrenfirstamerica.org/avfc/050901.html  Both the Florida and the Pennsylvania legislatures have significantly expanded options for parents and children. First, Florida has passed a 100 percent dollar-for-dollar corporate tax credit for funds contributed to a qualifying SFO (student funding organization), with up to $50 million per year in credits allowed. SFO organizations will distribute vouchers not to exceed $3500 per child to qualifying children. For a child to qualify, he/she must be classified as "economically disadvantaged"; have applied and been accepted by an SFO; and been accepted by a participating private/parochial school...  Meanwhile, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge had his relentless efforts on behalf of children rewarded when the Pennsylvania legislature passed legislation creating a tax credit for corporations to donate money to Scholarship Organizations. A corporation will receive a 75 percent tax credit for their donation. However, if a corporation provides a two-year commitment for equal or greater funding the second year, the tax credit will be 90 percent. Scholarship Organizations will provide scholarships for public and non-public school children to attend the school of their choice. The cap on this program is $30 million, with 66 percent ($20 million) guaranteed for scholarships. Scholarship organizations must be a non-profit, IRS registered 501C3 and distribute 80 percent of their funds for K-12 scholarships. In addition, the legislature created a tuition fund for children in grades 3 through 6 in need of remedial education. ELSEWHERE... THE EFFECTS OF SCHOOL CHOICE A fascinating discussion of the effects of school choice is available from the National Bureau of Economic Research and posted on their web site at: http://www.nber.org/books/schools/index.html  "The Economics of School Choice" contains papers (formatted for Adobe Acrobat Reader) on subjects such as "Does Public School Competition Effect Teacher Quality?", "School Vouchers: Results from Randomized Experiments," "The Role of Special Education in School Choice," and more. Each paper is authored by an expert researcher and was presented at a February 22-24 conference. The papers will eventually be included in a conference volume published by The University of Chicago Press. QUOTABLE... "When workers at General Motors go on strike, they are too honest to try the public's patience with self-serving claims that they are really only trying to improve the quality of Chevrolets.... If there is really no conflict of interest between teachers' unions and children, we should expect to see a new willingness by unions to be judged by the performance of their students."     -- Boston University Chancellor John Silber. (Read the whole article in The Lowell Sun, April 30) *    *    * "I don't know the reason. I'm just telling you it doesn't work." -- South Dakota Secretary of Education Ray Christensen, explaining to a state task force why teachers cannot be paid based on performance. (Associated Press, May 7)     --from Mike Antonucci's education intelligence agency. On the Web at: http://members.aol.com/educintel/eia *    *    * The VERMONT EDUCATION REPORT is published by Vermonters for Better Education 170 Church Street, Rutland, VT 05701, 802.773.5240 Contact Lsternberg@aol.com for more information.