________________________________________  THE VERMONT EDUCATION REPORT December 06, 2004 Vol. 4, No. 43 ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯  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: VTBetterEd@aol.com NEWS & ANALYSIS... CONSOLIDATION: THE END OF CHOICE? Last week, the voters of the town of Westford agreed to help finance a study of a possible consolidation with the school districts of Essex and Essex Junction. According to an article in the Burlington Free Press, the study "will explore the benefits of consolidating the school districts." The consolidation would result in one school board and one school administration which could possibly mean the end of school choice in Westford, a tuition town. Westford currently has no high school and thus "tuitions" children to a variety of schools. If it became part of a larger district, however, Westford residents could no longer claim they had no local high school.  HOLIDAY WISHES 'Tis the season...to give. As generosity of spirit overtakes readers during this giving time of year, we would like to make two suggestions for donations. They are as follows: VERMONT STUDENT OPPORTUNITY SCHOLARSHIPS Vermont SOS provides private scholarships to students whose parents can't afford to choose schools for them. In its sixth year of operation, Vermont SOS has been able to provide 112 students attending 43 Vermont schools with scholarships. The parents' reasons for choosing new schools are as varied as the kids themselves. Some have needed more challenge, some have needed more attention, some have needed a smaller class, and some have needed a specialized curriculum. Each one is different.  VTSOS regularly receives letters from parents who are grateful for the help. Here are a just a few samples: "We would like to take this opportunity to thank you so much for helping us to send Jason to a private school for the past three years. Jason has done well with his studies and has been on the Honor Roll most of his time there. Along with his new friends and the wonderful staff, this has been a great educational experience for both Jason and us Thank you again for the opportunity to have a 'choice' in our son's education." And another parents says: "We'd like to take this opportunity to extend a very large and heartfelt thank you. The VT SOS program has made our wish for our children to receive a quality education a reality. We are so grateful for this. The future has broadened for our children and we do not take that for granted. In fact, we take every opportunity to share with people how great VT SOS has been for us and to us." Almost 500 students applied for the 25 new scholarships this year. If you would like to help VTSOS meet the needs of Vermont students, send contributions to: Vermont SOS, 2239 Oak Hill Road, Williston, VT 05495. For more information, call toll-free in Vermont: 888.558.8883. VERMONTERS FOR BETTER EDUCATION VBE, the publisher of this newsletter, has been in existence for five years. During that time, we've done a great deal. We've.... produced several print newsletters; published a booklet on school privatization; published a report on private schools and their contributions to the state; produced "pocket guides" to education reform and distributed them to candidates; printed "tip sheets" for legislators on various education reform topics; published "education experts" cards and circulated them to media;  published and/or broadcast more than a dozen commentaries on education topics; produced the Vermont Education Report, a weekly electronic newsletter which is widely read throughout the state; and testified before the House Education Committee on school choice. A 1999 poll conducted by Vermont Public Radio showed that 55 percent of respondents favored taxpayer-supported voucher programs in Vermont. The State Board of Education passed a resolution in support of public school choice this year, and the governor included public school choice in his State of the State address. Legislators have introduced school choice bills or amendments for the past five years, and VBE has helped in school choice litigation, filing an amicus brief in the successful Cleveland voucher case decided several years ago. There's no question there is still much to do. That's why we need your help! Send donations to VBE at 170 Church Street, Rutland, VT 05701. For more information, call 802.773.5240 or write VTBetterEd@aol.com  *   *   * ELSEWHERE  FROM THE FORDHAM FOUNDATION On the web at: http://www.edexcellence.net/ PROGRESS ON IDEA REAUTHORIZATION by Sara Mead At the end of a 108th Congress plagued by partisan rancor and seemingly more devoted to symbolic than substantive progress on a host of issues, a lame duck session just before Thanksgiving managed to produce an unexpectedly promising bill to reauthorize the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which governs special education. (The text of the bill, which the President is expected to sign, can be found at http://www.nichcy.org/reauth/report11_17_04.pdf.) Enactment of IDEA's antecedent law in 1975 was a landmark for both education and civil rights, promising that children with disabilities could no longer be excluded from public education. Yet a 2001 study by the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) and Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, Rethinking Special Education for a New Century, along with plenty of other research, showed that IDEA has fallen well short of its promise. For example, it suffers from mission creep, serving a rising share of students with an expanding list of ever-less-severe disabilities. Due process protections have fostered adversarial relations between parents and educators and endless litigation. Combined pressures of paperwork, lawsuits, and high-cost placements build a spirit of resentment about the law in many places. While many children clearly benefit from IDEA, many others are ill-served, with negative results for both general and special education. This new reauthorization can't solve all of IDEA's problems, some of which arise from state policies and the incredible challenges faced by many disabled youngsters as well as their families and teachers. But a number of worthy reforms made their way in, albeit many of them in attenuated form. For example: Prevention and Early Intervention: IDEA offers extra resources for students with disabilities, yet many students benefit too late because they are diagnosed with disabilities only after falling far behind. This reauthorization allows up to 15 percent of IDEA funds to be used for prevention and intervention for struggling students before they fall far enough behind to require a disability diagnosis. Redefine Learning Disabilities: IDEA once defined "specific learning disabilities" as gaps between students' overall aptitude and their performance in a specific subject. That approach forced educators to wait for students to fail, "identified" too many children who suffered from poor teaching instead of true disabilities, and overlooked real disabilities in low-performing youngsters. In this reauthorization, Congress eliminated the discrepancy definition, allowing states to substitute their own definitions and encouraging them to focus on how students respond to scientifically-based interventions. Racial Inequities: Persistent racial gaps in special education diagnoses, placements, and discipline have long been troubling. Now Congress has taken a step to understanding--and mitigating--these gaps by requiring states and the U.S. Secretary of Education to monitor racial differences in special education and change policies that perpetuate them. Align IDEA with other reforms: American education increasingly focuses on results-based accountability, but IDEA has concentrated on process more than outcomes for disabled students. The reauthorized version places a needed focus on learning, requiring states to set goals for improving achievement of students with disabilities, and mandating consequences and interventions if states don't improve. Reauthorization also brings special needs children under the banner of NCLB by clarifying how children with special needs are included and accommodated in state accountability systems. Reduce Paperwork and Litigation: Excessive paperwork, litigation and an adversarial atmosphere are enormous burdens on special educators. This reauthorization authorizes a 15-state pilot project to experiment with paperwork reduction, seeking to preserve protections for students while closing some loopholes that allow savvy lawyers to abuse due process. It also encourages mediation before going into due process. End Double Standards: Protections to ensure that disabled youngsters receive the services they need have also inadvertently kept educators from disciplining them to ensure safe and orderly schools. The reworked law still safeguards students from discipline for disability-related behavior but gives administrators more leeway to remove disruptive youngsters from the classroom while continuing to provide services to them. Funding: Congress's 2005 IDEA appropriation, though up by $500 million from 2004, doesn't back up this reform bill as generously as it should. At $10.6 billion, it's $1.76 billion less than the reauthorization allows and less than half what would be required to keep the original (if arbitrary) federal funding commitment for special ed. The need, however, is not just more dollars, but also smarter funding to address district needs and incorporate evidence on effective special ed practice. One positive step in this bill requires states to set aside a percentage of IDEA funds to serve students with exceptionally costly disabilities, freeing local school districts from the burden of absorbing these rare but burdensome costs. This bill was not without contention. PPI and Fordham took plenty of flak for advancing unconventional reform ideas and provisions of the final bill were both cheered and jeered by innumerable advocacy groups. Parent and disability rights interests opposed proposals to streamline due process or make it easier for schools to remove disruptive students. Democrats are disappointed with funding shortfalls. Republicans are disappointed by the absence of special ed vouchers á la Florida's McKay scholarship program. Despite its shortcomings, however, this law's passage offers a refreshing example of adults pushing across party lines and back at interest group pressures, and working together to change the status quo and improve educational opportunities for our most vulnerable children. "Making progress," Washington Post, November 19, 2004 "House approves final special education bill," Committee on Education and the Workforce, November 19, 2004 Rethinking Special Education for a New Century, Chester E. Finn, Jr., Charles R. Hokanson, Jr., and Andrew J. Rotherham, editors, The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation and Progressive Policy Institute, Spring 2001 Sara Mead is a policy analyst with the 21st Century Schools Project at the Progressive Policy Institute. FROM THE U.S. FREEDOM FOUNDATION On the web at: http://www.freedomfoundation.us UNIVERSAL TUITION TAX CREDITS by David W. Kirkpatrick, Senior Education Fellow One of the successful efforts to implement school choice, especially for students from low-income families is the introduction of Universal Tuition Tax Credits in states such as Pennsylvania and Arizona. The idea of direct tuition tax credits, whereby parents could receive credit for tuition payments, has been around for years but has not been widely implemented. This is because it is not useful to parents whose income is so low they pay no or very little income taxes, or to those in states which have no or very low income tax rates. While specifics vary, in general universal tuition tax credits permit contributions to a nonprofit [(501(c)(3)] organization which provides grants to students or public schools. Commonly the universal tax credit applies to personal income taxes but there are exceptions.  In Pennsylvania, where the courts have ruled that tax credits against personal income are not permitted, the original Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) law in 2001 gave credits to corporations. Initially the maximum credit was 75% for a $100,000 contribution or 90% when a two-year commitment is made in advance. Contributions could be made either to scholarship programs, to a maximum cumulative total of $20 million, or for innovative programs in the public schools, to a maximum total of $10 million.  Permissible limits have since been raised to $200,000 for contributions, $27 million for scholarships, and $13 million for innovative programs. By this past May, nearly 35,000 scholarships have been awarded, 20,000 in the past year alone. At that time there were 152 scholarship organizations and 198 education improvement organizations in the state. One result is increasing support from the public school sector. Indicative of this support is that of the Superintendent of the Harrisburg schools in Pennsylvania's state capitol who has noted that more than 500 students in his district have benefited from the EITC program. The state's new Secretary of Education, who also favors charter schools, has said he would like to see the credit programs expanded further. This although he was a public school superintendent prior to assuming his new post, he is serving in the administration of Democratic Governor Ed. Rendell, and that both the tax credit and charter schools programs were initiated by former Republican Governor Tom Ridge. As in Pennsylvania, Arizona's program allows credits for both private ($500) and public ($200) school purposes. This past April the Department of Revenue said the school tuition tax credit program had helped more than 19,000 students in 2003. Not only is this more than predicted but from 2002 to 2003 the number of scholarships awarded grew by 21% and taxpayer donations by more than 11%. The 2003 growth rate was nearly doubled that of 2002. The state may save even more money than had been anticipated.  Such tax credits are, of course, merely a variation of income credits that have been possible for years, such as a credit against gross income for contributions to a nonprofit group and, not least of all, for property taxes. Despite this long history, the two major teacher unions have repeatedly gone to court to have such credits declared unconstitutional, arguing that this is public money that may not be used for religious schools. So far, they are batting .000, losing all the cases that have been decided. The courts have held these are not public dollars since the government never receives the money from which contributions are made. Rather, it allows individuals or businesses to keep the money and decide for themselves how it will be used.  Some of the decisions have been unusually critical of the arguments opponents have presented. In addition, some judges have said that even if the contributions were deemed to be public dollars, they would still be constitutional since the scholarships are generally available for a wide variety of educational opportunities. A few years ago, the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution hosted a meeting of some public school teachers from around the nation, most of whom are or have been members of the teacher unions. Also present were several members of Congress. All those present supported tax credits. It seems clear that, ultimately, the merits of this cause will prevail. David Kirkpatrick is a Bennington native. A former public school teacher and officer of the Pennsylvania NEA, he now lives in Pennsylvania. *   *   * The VERMONT EDUCATION REPORT is published by Vermonters for Better Education 170 Church Street, Rutland, VT 05701, 802.773.5240 Contact VTBetterEd@aol.com for more information.   Subscribe Here SubscribeRemove

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