How Funding Cuts to Public Schools Hurt Private and Parochial Students with Special Needs

How Funding Cuts to Public Schools Hurt Private and Parochial Students with Special Needs

How Funding Cuts to Public Schools Hurt Private and Parochial Students with Special Needs

Should public school districts be responsible for special education services of students in private and parochial schools? How do they manage this when they have financial problems serving the students who need special education services in public schools?

I am not referring to special education vouchers which some states provide students when the special education services in their public schools are supposedly lacking. Vouchers are controversial and seen as a tactic to privatize public schools. They have not always been used as intended.

What I’m discussing here has to do with a variety of amenities that have been funded by public schools to support students with disabilities in their private or parochial schools.

Recently, controversy arose about this in Omaha. Omaha Public Schools (OPS) funded special education services for a student with auditory disabilities attending a Catholic school. The school district paid for a speech therapist and the hearing aid and microphone system that amplified the teacher’s voice in the child’s classroom.

This year OPS declined to pay for the services, citing problematic budget cuts. This has upset parents in the Catholic school and other private and parochial schools. Administrators from Christian and Jewish schools also expressed concerns.

Most school districts provide some services to private schools under IDEA. How much funding is usually a decision negotiated within the school district and the private and Continue reading: How Funding Cuts to Public Schools Hurt Private and Parochial Students with Special Needs

CURMUDGUCATION: Was GOP Defeated For Not Being Reformy Enough

CURMUDGUCATION: Was GOP Defeated For Not Being Reformy Enough

Was GOP Defeated For Not Being Reformy Enough

You can say many things about Jeanne Allen of the Center for Education Reform (CER), but you can't say that she's not seriously devoted to the cause of privatizing education through charters, vouchers, and any other reformy tools you care to mention. And while folks have many theories about why, exactly, the Democrats took control of the House, Allen has her own theory--

They weren't reformy enough.

Her theory ran in the Washington Examiner, and it reads like a dispatch from an alternate dimension. But, she says, she has proof. Well, then- proceed. Let's learn a little more about the business of selling reform.


Allen has conducted hundreds of meetings in the 115th Congress with "members, staff and anyone seemingly with authority," so I suppose we could also call her a lobbyist for reforminess. She says she has had three goals "embraced in principle by the majority party and some in the minority."


This is, in fact, one technique for selling reform-- cloak your product in an appealing principle. Over the past few decades, we've had a parade of reformster ideas that sound great in principle-- it's only when people have had to face the specifics that they've noticed how bad the ideas are. No Child Left Behind sounds noble. Common Core sounds swell. Nowadays, competency based education and personalized learning sound like super ideas. Until you have to deal with how, exactly, these things look on the ground. Reformsters understand this-- the personalized learning folks figured out right away that they needed to downplay the "plunk your kid in front of a computer screen" side of the biz. And here comes an excellent example from Allen.

This is "education goal" number one:

The least controversial is the idea that infrastructure dollars, once moving as a package, should include incentives for rural communities to complete or expand their digital footprint. To get additional funds, schools and districts would be required to adopt innovative approaches to delivering education, even if the instructor lives outside the district, the state, or the country.

Doesn't that sound more appealing than "bribe rural districts to promote cyber schools"?

Her second goal is, in fact, to promote competency based and personalized education, two ideas that sound great. Hell, they've always sounded great, because while their fans want to promote Continue reading: CURMUDGUCATION: Was GOP Defeated For Not Being Reformy Enough

Week in Review: Troubled school faces closure, possible criminal investigation over board mismanagement | The Lens

Week in Review: Troubled school faces closure, possible criminal investigation over board mismanagement | The Lens

Week in Review: Troubled school faces closure, possible criminal investigation over board mismanagement

Orleans Parish school district Superintendent Henderson Lewis Jr. told Edgar P. Harney Spirit of Excellence Academy parents and staff crammed into the Central City charter school Monday night that it will close at the end of school year.

He also called for all members of the embattled charter school board to step down. Lewis said the district discovered matters it has referred to the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office, which handles criminal investigations. Lewis said the school district has also alerted the Louisiana Legislative Auditor about the school.

“We didn’t just get here last week or this month,” district administrator Amanda Aiken said. “There have been ongoing compliance issues with Harney.”

Later in the week, the school moved to expand its legal team.

Big Education Ape: What Should We Really Learn From New Orleans After the Storm? A Q&A With NEPC Fellow Bruce Baker | National Education Policy Center - https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2018/11/what-should-we-really-learn-from-new.html

THE LENS ELECTION MAP: SEE HOW LOUISIANA VOTED

Amendment 2, which will repeal the state’s non-unanimous jury law, passed with overwhelming support: 64% for to 36% against. Gaining even greater support, though, was Amendment 1, which will prohibit people from running for public office for five years after completing a felony sentence. Amendment 6, the property tax increase “phase in,” passed as well.

Interim Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin, who took over the office after former SOS Tom Schedler resigned following a sexual harassment allegation, will get a chance at winning the office in his own right in December, when he’ll face Democrat Gwen Collins in the runoff.

In Orleans Parish, Omar Mason and Marie Williams are also going to a runoff in the race for Civil District Court, Div. E, judge.

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COMPARE 2018 NEW ORLEANS SCHOOL RATINGS

The Louisiana Department of Education released school ratings Thursday. The A-F letter grades help parents gauge school performance, and the nearly all-charter Orleans Parish school district uses the ratings to decide which charter schools will remain open.

The Orleans Parish school district received a C letter grade for the third year in a row.

Only seven city schools earned A letter grades. They are Benjamin Franklin High School, Edna Karr High School, Edward Hynes Charter School, Lake Forest Elementary Charter School, Lusher Charter School, New Orleans Center for Creative Arts and Warren Easton Senior High School.

Fifteen schools were rated F, and 18 were rated D.

The state has curved letter grades for the last four school years as harder standardized tests were introduced, in effect freezing the number of schools that received A’s and F’s.

But this year, the state is using a new calculation. It’s uncurved, but it takes year to year progress into account, which will likely benefit schools with low-achieving students who show growth.

CANTRELL ADMINISTRATION ADMITS TO INACCURACIES IN 2019 BUDGET PROPOSAL

Longtime city Budget Director Cary Grant admitted on Friday that Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s first budget proposal, sent to the City Council on Nov. 1, contained glaring inaccuracies in the listed revenues from prior years. These numbers are necessary for the council to see whether various city revenue sources are rising or falling.

Grant apologized to the council on Friday — during the first hearing for the 2019 city budget — and adding that he had “never seen this happen before.”

While the inaccuracies caused confusion among the council, Councilman Jared Brossett said that it didn’t significantly impede the process.

“We caught it in time,” he said.

ORLEANS PARISH WILL OUTSOURCE LAST DIRECT-RUN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

Taking another step toward becoming an all-charter district, the Orleans Parish school district informed Cypress Academy parents it will hand the school over to an outside operator next year, in spite of the district’s promises to run the school directly through the 2019-2020 school year.

On Monday, Cypress parents will learn who the small school’s new charter operator will be, according to a letter district Chief of Schools Rene’ Lewis-Carter sent them this week. On Thursday, some Cypress parents attended a district public hearing to express their frustration.

“You may be asking, ‘Why now?’ And, ‘Why have we decided not to run the school for the 2019-20 school year as we initially committed?’” Lewis-Carter wrote in the letter.

BEHIND THE LENS EPISODE 6: ‘WHY AM I LOSING MY NEIGHBORHOOD SCHOOL?’

This week on the podcast, host and producer Tom Wright talks to education reporter Marta Jewson about the impending closure of Harney charter school.

Marta also discusses this year’s state ratings for Orleans Parish public schools.

Tom also interviews state Sen. J.P. Morrell about state Constitutional Amendment 2, which repeals Louisiana’s non-unanimous jury law, and Amendment 6, which will allow large property tax increases to be phased in over several years. Louisiana voters passed both measures this week.

And reporter Michael Isaac Stein talks about the New Orleans city budget process, which got off to a late start this year.

OPINION: WE’VE NORMALIZED TRUMP, BUT TUESDAY NIGHT’S ‘VICTORY’ MAY BE HIS UNDOING

Opinion editor Jed Horne wraps up the 2018 midterms:

“Blue wave? Let’s get real. It didn’t happen, except in the Northeast where voters turned away from Trump in a wave of revulsion.

“But neither was it quite the stirring victory that Trump declared on Wednesday as — with his trademark mix of self-delusion and outright lying — he tried to paper over a major, potentially fatal, setback: losing control of the House of Representatives.”

OPINION: JUSTICE REFORM HOBBLED BY UNHEALTHY DEPENDENCE ON BAIL, FINES AND COURT FEES

Opinion columnist Vern Baxter:

“It’s time for the City of New Orleans to step up the pace of criminal justice reform. Too many citizens are still incarcerated for too long under harsh conditions, often for non-violent offenses.

“But there’s a much more shocking violation of the U.S. Constitution at play in the Orleans Justice Center (OJC): over half of all detainees are stuck in jail for months on end—sometimes years—before they have even been tried. And many of these citizens are held simply because they are too poor to pay bail, fines, and fees.”

Week in Review: Troubled school faces closure, possible criminal investigation over board mismanagement | The Lens

More Than 1,000 Educators Won Elections On Tuesday, Teachers Union Says | HuffPost

More Than 1,000 Educators Won Elections On Tuesday, Teachers Union Says | HuffPost

More Than 1,000 Educators Won Elections On Tuesday, Teachers Union Says
“We saw wins up and down the ballot, and we are on fire,” the head of the National Education Association said of the midterms.

More than 1,000 teachers and other education professionals won state legislative seats across the country in Tuesday’s elections, the nation’s largest teachers union said Friday.

More than 1,500 current and former teachers and education professionals sought office in the 2018 elections, the National Education Association announced in October. Teacher-led protests swept states from West Virginia to Arizona last winter and spring, leading to an exceptional influx of candidates.

The group said the final tally before Election Day numbered more than 1,800 such candidates. Of those, the union said, 1,081 won their races for state legislative seats on Tuesday.

That success means teachers and educators will hold roughly 15 percent of all state legislative positions nationwide next year, based on the number of such positions counted by the National State Legislative Council. An additional 42 races have yet to be called, the NEA said.

A lack of historical data makes it hard to compare this year’s numbers or success rates to previous elections, or to draw a direct connection between those victories and the earlier protest movements.

But the NEA and the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, the Democratic Party’s state legislative campaign arm, said before Tuesday’s vote that the number of teachers pursuing office had increased from previous electoral cycles. A DLCC spokesperson said before the election that it had counted more than 1,200 educators running for office as Democrats in 2018, an increase of roughly 200 from two years ago. 

Not all of those included in the NEA or DLCC counts are teachers. The union used a broad definition to compile the numbers, counting current and former classroom teachers and professors at the K-12 and postsecondary levels, as well as candidates who had worked as administrative or support staff in schools, districts and universities. Many of Continue reaiding: More Than 1,000 Educators Won Elections On Tuesday, Teachers Union Says | HuffPost

'We're Bringing Education Back': Takeaways From The Election : NPR

'We're Bringing Education Back': Takeaways From The Election : NPR

'We're Bringing Education Back': Takeaways From The Election

Hello! We know there's a lot of news out there, but we're bringing you an education-centric take on the midterms, with big results in some key states.

Arizona

Arizona is one of five states that saw teacher walkouts this past spring. After a grassroots group of public school supporters put it on the ballot, what would have been the nation's broadest school voucher expansion was overturned Tuesday 2-to-1 by popular referendum.

Arizona has been considered a model state by school choice advocates, so the rebuke is a notable shift.

NATIONAL

3 Ways Education Is Influencing Arizona's Midterms

Republican Doug Ducey, a school choice advocate, retained the governorship. He helped end the walkout with a pledge to boost educators' salaries by 20 percent by 2020. But Ducey has also promised a tax cut, so it's unclear where the money will come from.

Colorado

Another teacher walkout state; still, voters nixed a $1.6 billion tax hike for public education.

Jared Polis, the new Democratic governor, founded two charter schools. He's proposed the that Colorado needs to "end decades of shameful underinvestment in our public schools" and wants to stabilize and equalize school funding in the state.

Polis, who has two children with his partner, is also the country's first openly gay governor.

Connecticut

Jahana Hayes, the 2016 National Teacher of the Year, became the first black woman to represent the Nutmeg State in Congress. "This history teacher is making history," she told reporters on Tuesday.

Illinois

Democrat J.B. Pritzker, a wealthy venture capitalist, won a resounding 15-point victory over incumbent Republican Bruce Rauner. Pritzker's resume includes philanthropic support of early education, like the First Five Years Fund.

Rauner was an original plaintiff in the Supreme Court case Janus v. AFSCME, which dealt a heavy blow to public employee unions.

EDUCATION

Is This Supreme Court Decision The End Of Teachers Unions?

He also took heat from teacher unions for his support of school choice and for relaxing teacher certification rules to address a teacher shortage.

Education is a big ongoing political issue here; a new school funding formula is intended to direct more money to poor districts.

Kansas

The State Supreme Court says school funding in Kansas is unconstitutionally "inadequate." A school shut down is possible if the legislature can't agree on a fix.

THE TWO-WAY

Kansas Isn't Spending Enough On Its Schools, State's High Court Says

During the campaign, Democrat Laura Kelly dubbed herself the "education governor." Gov. Kelly now says she will work to ensure that schools are fully funded.

Maryland

Half a billion dollars' worth of gambling money is headed for Maryland public schools. The ballot measure passed by almost 90 percent.

Michigan

Democrat Gretchen Whitmer, a teacher union member with children in public schools, is moving to the governor's residence here.

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said in a a statement: "Gretchen Whitmer walks the walk for kids, for teachers and for working families because she's one of us." All of this in Education Secretary Betsy DeVos's home state, where the Republican DeVos family has spent millions of dollars in support of school choice.

On Whitmer's docket is expanding access to pre-K and rebuilding Detroit's public schools.

New Jersey

A half-billion chunk of change via bonds will go toward vocational, career and technical education, as well as school water infrastructure and school security.

New Mexico

Democratic Governor-elect Michelle Lujan Grisham campaigned on remaking the school accountability system and ditching the state PARCC test in favor of less testing time.

She backed more money for teachers, more preK and career education, more attention to Native education, and promised to improve the state's high school graduation rate, currently in 49th place. School funding bond issues passed here Tuesday as well.

Oklahoma

In another walkout state, Republican Kevin Stitt, who painted himself as a friend to schools and promised a bump in teacher pay in the next year's budget, won the governorship.

Wisconsin

The state's Superintendent of Public Instruction, Democrat Tony Evers, beat incumbent Scott Walker, attacking him for weakening public sector unions and cutting K12 and higher ed budgets. Evers' schools agenda is to restore investment across the board.

His running mate, former state Rep. Mandela Barnes, told the crowd on election night: "We are bringing education back to the state of Wisconsin."

'We're Bringing Education Back': Takeaways From The Election : NPR

With Democratic Wins, Charter Schools Face a Backlash in N.Y. and Other States - The New York Times

With Democratic Wins, Charter Schools Face a Backlash in N.Y. and Other States - The New York Times

With Democratic Wins, Charter Schools Face a Backlash in N.Y. and Other States

Over the last decade, the charter school movement gained a significant foothold in New York, demonstrating along the way that it could build fruitful alliances with Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and other prominent Democrats. The movement hoped to set a national example — if charter schools could make it in a deep blue state like New York, they could make it anywhere.

But the election on Tuesday strongly suggested that the golden era of charter schools is over in New York. The insurgent Democrats who were at the forefront of the party’s successful effort to take over the State Senate have repeatedly expressed hostility to the movement.

John Liu, a newly elected Democratic state senator from Queens, has said New York City should “get rid of” large charter school networks. Robert Jackson, a Democrat who will represent a Manhattan district in the State Senate, promised during his campaign to support charter schools only if they have unionized teachers.

And another incoming Democratic state senator, Julia Salazar of Brooklyn, recently broadcast a simple message about charter schools: “I’m not interested in privatizing our public schools.”

No one is saying that existing charter schools will have to close. And in fact, New York City, which is the nation’s largest school system and home to the vast majority of the state’s charter schools, has many that are excelling.

Over 100,000 students in hundreds of the city’s charter schools are doing well on state tests, and tens of thousands of children are on waiting lists for spots. New York State has been mostly spared the scandals that have plagued states with weaker regulations.

But it seems highly likely that a New York Legislature entirely under Democratic control will restrict the number of new charter schools that can open, and tighten regulations on existing ones.

The defeat is magnified because Mr. Cuomo, a shrewd observer of national political trends with an eye toward a potential White House bid, recently softened his support for charter schools. Mayor Bill de Blasio is a longtime charter opponent with his own national aspirations.

And New York is not the only state where the charter school movement is facing fierce headwinds because of the election.

Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, an enemy of public sector unions, was unseated by a Democrat, Tony Evers, a former teacher who ran on a promise to boost funding to traditional public schools.

In neighboring Illinois, J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat who promised to curb charter school growth, beat the incumbent Republican, Gov. Bruce Rauner, a supporter of charter schools. And in Michigan, a Democrat, Gretchen Whitmer, promised to “put an end to the DeVos agenda.”

Ms. Whitmer won her race for governor decisively against the state’s Republican attorney general, Bill Schuette, who is an ally of Betsy DeVos, Continue reading: With Democratic Wins, Charter Schools Face a Backlash in N.Y. and Other States - The New York Times