InsideSources

Two bills reflecting a staunchly conservative education agenda are among the top-viewed prospective laws in recent weeks—according to a Library of Congress database. While neither bill is expected to become law, Congressional staff, policy wonks, and the public have been requesting information on the measures at an elevated rate over the past month.

H.R.610, or “The Choices in Education Act,” introduced by Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, would replace last year’s landmark Every Student Succeeds Act—an update of a Great Society law that oversees billions in aid to public schools—with a nationwide federal voucher program. The bill would also strike a rule that regulates the content of school lunches.

H.R.899 introduced by Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., is more straightforward. Rep. Massie’s bill consists of one line: “The Department of Education shall terminate on December 31, 2018.”

Both pieces of prospective legislation have dominated the top-ten most-viewed bills on congress.gov, a Library of Congress website, for the past month. Congress.gov is the go-to source in Washington for tracking whether legislation is advancing or stalling in Congress. Interest in the King and Massie’s prospective laws has held steady, even as Congress has debated and passed legislation that is more likely to immediately impact education policy.

Both bills come out of deep-red Congressional districts. According to the Daily Kos’ tracker of election results, President Trump won over 65 percent of the votes cast in Kentucky’s 4th district, represented by Massie, and over 60 percent of the votes in Iowa’s 4th district, represented by King—in both cases far outpacing the 46 percent of the popular vote share won by the president nationally.

Massie’s desire to eliminate the Department of Education is not new. President Reagan campaigned on eliminating the brand new department in 1980, which had been established in the last year of the Carter administration. Even in its infancy, Republicans were unable to succeed in folding the department’s essential functions back into other agencies.

King’s proposal also reflects some strongly held views in the GOP—the new Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is a strong proponent of school choice measures like vouchers. Republicans have also expressed disapproval of the healthy school lunch regulations pushed by former First Lady Michelle Obama, on the grounds that they incur onerous compliance costs and food waste.

However, moderate Senate Republicans from rural states like Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, indicated during DeVos’ contentious confirmation hearings that they are wary of federally-mandated school choice. For various political and procedural reasons, a school choice bill is less likely to look like King’s and more likely to take the form of a federal tax credit.

Blowback from an errant tweet is further complicating King’s efforts to get his legislation enacted. On Sunday, the Iowa congressman tweeted support for a right-wing European nationalist, writing “We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies.” Those comments were met with bewilderment from within the congressman’s own caucus, including Cuban-American Rep. Carlos Curbelo, R-Fla. Republicans were distancing themselves from King even before he doubled down on his controversial statements twice.

Nevertheless, and despite one Republican expert’s analysis that King’s more moderate bill has a “.000000001%” chance of becoming law, Democratic staffers on Capitol Hill have reported receiving a high volume of calls and letters asking about the measures.

Typically, “messaging bills” like H.R.610 and H.R.899 are a way for members of Congress to send press releases to their supporters, demonstrate that a representative cares about an issue, and rally support for ideas that might eventually be co-opted into larger reforms when the political climate is more favorable. Both King and Massie issued press releases when their respective proposals were formally introduced.

In these specific cases, however, the bills have also served to rally progressive activists. The grassroots “Badass Teachers Association,” a group of educators which originally organized in opposition to the expansion of the Common Core, has rallied its members against King’s proposal on Facebook. MoveOn.org, another liberal advocacy organization has collected nearly 8,000 digital signatures opposing the same bill. (For comparison, a MoveOn.org petition opposing a repeal of Obama-era teacher preparation regulations that recently passed the House and Senate only received 68 signatures.)

The high volume of calls that Democrats have received on both measures—neither of which have any plausible hope of overcoming a Senate filibuster—could indicate that left-leaning educational interests are working to strategically prolong an unusually partisan atmosphere in the education policy world.

Notably, liberal groups aren’t the only activists crying foul over King’s proposal. Parents who home school their children have reportedly objected to the measure because they worry the legislation could increase federal involvement over how they teach their children.

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While nothing is official, smart money says that the Trump administration is likely to use tax breaks to try to fund a $20 billion school choice campaign promise.

Which states have the most robust school choice programs? What can those state initiatives tell us about what a prospective federal school choice tax-incentive would look like?

Before digging into case studies, it’s worth distinguishing between tax credit scholarships, education savings accounts, and old-fashioned vouchers—all programs that are sometimes sloppily jumbled together as school choice.

Josh Cunningham is a senior education policy specialist for the National Conference of State Legislatures, a non-partisan group that tracks state level legislation. He explained the differences between the school choice terms in a telephone interview with InsideSources.

When a state grants parents of a school-aged child a voucher, they give those parents a credit for a certain tuition value that those parents can use to enroll their child in a private school.

An education savings account, or an ESA, is similar, but offers more flexibility to the parents. When parents get an education savings account, they are awarded a yearly sum that can be mixed and matched to address their children’s educational needs. Those funds can be used all at once for private school tuition like a voucher, or a part can be used for private tutoring, another part for online courseware, and the rest saved for a later expense—like college.

A tax credit scholarship is a different animal, though tax credits can be used to fund education savings accounts or vouchers. In states that have a tax credit scholarship system, companies or individuals are given tax-incentives to donate money to nonprofits that award K-12 scholarships to students who meet certain specifications.

The scholarships awarded by those nonprofits can either be used as vouchers or education savings accounts—depending on state law or the nonprofit’s rules—but the critical distinction is that the scholarship money is distributed by nonprofits, rather than through state appropriations.

Among school choice advocates, “the ESA idea is replacing the idea of traditional vouchers” said Cunningham. Proponents of choice like giving parents more flexibility in cobbling together education services for their children.

So far, however, in states where ESAs have been adopted, parents tend to use the accounts in a similar way to how they use vouchers—for private school tuition—said Cunningham. This dynamic has led some school choice opponents, like the teachers unions, to argue that education savings accounts and vouchers are actually one in the same.

Indiana is viewed as an exemplar for those who back traditional voucher programs. First enacted in 2011, the state’s voucher system was expanded to allow access to many in the state’s middle class under former Republican Governor, and current U.S. Vice President Mike Pence.

Arizona has long been a pioneer of school choice—the state first allowed public charter schools in 1994. Arizona has both a tax-credit scholarship program that is available to a broad number of students, as well as an education savings account system that has restrictions, such as being limited to at-risk students in low-performing schools, or those who come from military families.

Unlike other state tax-credit scholarship programs, Arizona’s does not limit the total statewide size of the program, but it does cap how much credit individuals and companies can receive for giving to scholarship-awarding nonprofits per year.

Nevada has the largest education savings account program in the country—on paper. Republicans in the legislature had passed a measure that would give every student in the state an ESA worth at least 90 percent of the per pupil funding ordinarily distributed to public schools.

A state Supreme Court decision last year ruled that the way the program was funded violated the state constitution, effectively freezing the program. The ESA’s themselves remain on the books, but Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval faces an uphill climb in getting new appropriations for the program through what is now a Democratic legislature, said Cunningham.

Finally, Florida has one of the nation’s largest tax-credit scholarship systems in the nation. Critically, students who use the scholarships to attend private schools must sit for state assessments or a state approved alternatives to avail themselves of the program. If lawmakers try to take tax-credit scholarships or tax-credit funded ESAs national, expect some private schools and home-schooling advocates to resist similar accountability riders, said Cunningham.

The Sunshine State’s tax credit scholarships came up during Sec. of Education Betsy DeVos’ confirmation hearing. Democrats expressed concerns that students participating in programs like Florida’s tax-credit scholarship have been asked to waive their federal IDEA disability protections. Republicans have called for making IDEA funds “portable” to make it easier for private schools accepting scholarships or vouchers to enroll students with disabilities.

One recipient of Florida’s tax credit scholarships, Denisha Merriweather, has been an outspoken proponent of DeVos’s school choice agenda, and recently authored an op-ed explaining her reasoning.

The topic is likely to come up Tuesday during President Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress. Merriweather was announced yesterday as one of the President’s special guests.

Cunningham and his team at the National Council of State Legislatures have put together a website where one can see school choice policy in every state.

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The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York announced Monday that it would shutter five schools at the end of the academic year, and drastically reduce the operations of a sixth.

A press release issued by the Office of the Superintendent of Schools of the Archdiocese of New York cited declining enrollment and financial stressors as reasons for the decision.

The Archdiocese oversees one of the largest and most visible Catholic school systems in the country, with nearly 70,000 students in 215 schools. In addition to its large presence in three of New York City’s boroughs—Staten Island, Manhattan and the Bronx—the Archdiocese operates schools in the upper counties, as far north as Kingston, halfway to Albany.

This is not the first time the system has downsized. In 2011, 30 schools were closed, followed by an additional 25 in 2013.

All but one of the schools affected by the latest round of closings are in the Bronx or Manhattan. The Archdiocese said every affected student will be “guaranteed a seat” in another school in the system.

 

Systemic Struggles

Catholic school systems are facing a confluence of structural problems nationally, said Joe McTighe, the director of the Council for American Private Education. His organization, which is based in Germantown, Md., represents a coalition of private school interests and promotes school choice.

Some macro-level trends Catholic school systems, like the New York’s, are facing include population shifts among the faithful, staffing shortages, crumbling facilities, rising tuition costs, competition from charter schools, and halting outreach efforts to immigrant—particularly Hispanic—families, said McTighe.

In big cities, many Catholic schools date back to the late 19^th century or early 20^th century, when waves immigrants from Catholic countries like Ireland and Italy supported their efforts. In many cases those original school-buildings are in dire need of renovations and refurbishments.

In many places the descendants of those white Catholic immigrant families have moved to the suburbs, and McTighe said the Church has struggled at times to open in new locations that mirror those demographic movements.

In the inner city schools that have been left behind, the systems have had to adapt and enroll non-Catholics willing to pay tuition. In New York, 23 percent of the archdiocese’s students are non-Catholic.

Though the urban schools in particular have also become more racially diverse—the majority of students in the New York system are of a racial minority—McTighe suggested the Church could do more outreach in Hispanic communities, which is the fastest growing Catholic demographic nationally.

A 2016 Boston College report, Catholic Schools in an Increasingly Hispanic Church, explained why the Church has struggled to tap into the Hispanic and Spanish-speaking community, and how it could improve.

Another problem, said McTighe, is staffing expenses. Where parishes have traditionally relied on members of religious orders to teach students, the number of people taking vows “has dwindled dramatically.”

A smaller pool of educators has forced Catholic systems to hire laypersons on the competitive open market, further driving up costs and tuition.

Furthermore, the rise of charter schools has drawn tens of thousands of students away from New York’s Catholic schools alone, according to some estimates. Charter schools, while still public, are seen as a cost-free alternative to the traditional school system, making them attractive to some of the lower-income families the religious schools serve.

The charter movement’s impact on Catholic school systems has been reported in other states as well, and in some cases the Church has closed a school and then rented the building to the charter replacing it.

As a result, many Catholic schools are dealing with enrollment struggles and higher tuition fees that cause a “vicious cycle” where more students leave and costs are driven even higher.

“Before you know it,” said McTighe, “there is a total collapse because of a mass exodus” from the system.

Despite these struggles, McTighe argues the schools are academically sound. With the major caveat that Catholic school student bodies can be selective or are at least self-selected, those students tend to perform as well or better than their public school counterparts at a lower cost to the institution.

 

Labor Problems

The Federation of Catholic Teachers, a branch of the AFL-CIO and the teacher’s union that represents almost all of the system’s 2,700 staff, came out against the New York Archdiocese’s decision to downsize.

Julia Pignataro, the union president, said in an interview that she was not consulted by the administration and that the decision came as “a shock.” She expressed concern for the 76 teachers and “hundreds” of students the closings will impact.

Pignataro, who taught in Staten Island Catholic primary schools for decades, claimed the archdiocese botched their 2010 strategic “Pathways to Excellence” plan.

She said the first waves of cuts in 2011 and 2013, and regional consolidation of the system, were meant to ensure the long-term viability of the archdiocese’s schools. But, Monday’s news, she said, is proof that the Archdiocese still does not have its house in order.

Many of the schools, particularly in the Bronx, service economically downtrodden areas. Those schools are “havens” for their students, said Pignataro, and nearly all of the teachers are “certified catechists” spreading the faith to those communities.

She said the Church is wrong to cut services to young people in the Bronx and other areas, in part because she worries their presence will be missed in the pews in the coming decades.

Though officials at the Archdiocese were unavailable to grant an immediate interview, local reports suggest that tenured teachers will keep their jobs, while the status of untenured teachers at the affected schools is uncertain.

 

Vouchers to the Rescue?

Despite its struggles, the New York system does not appear to be in imminent free-fall yet, and the greater Catholic Church is not expected to go bankrupt anytime soon. However, the third announcement of school closings this decade doesn’t bode well for the system’s future.

A possible light at the end of the tunnel for Catholic school systems has taken the form of an emboldened “school choice” movement that recently saw the elevation of its champion, U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

While McTighe, who supports DeVos, recognizes that choice policies are most likely to originate at the state and local levels, he suggested that such initiatives could help beleaguered Catholic schools.

McTighe argued that wealthy parents regularly exercise choice when choosing whether to buy a home in one district or another, or in weighing private options. “Not a lot of people are opposed to it when it comes to their own children,” he said.

He added the federal government has long had school choice programs in place at the higher education level—including offering federal loans to students attending religious institutions—and “nobody has a problem with that.”

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Some local headlines of the Betsy DeVos confirmation hearing showed Sen. Maggie Hassan making her mark early in her first term.

“Hassan emerges as fierce critic of Trump’s Cabinet nominees,” reads an article from the Associated Press. Hassan’s questioning of President Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of education earned her 15 minutes in the national spotlight after she hammered DeVos on the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and school vouchers.

But a look at Hassan’s record shows she has taken advantage of school choice, despite questioning DeVos about it.

Hassan sits on the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions (HELP) and voted against DeVos’s nomination on Tuesday in a committee vote. The freshman senator, whose son has cerebral palsy, is an expert on public education for students with disabilities. Her son, Ben, went to public high school.

But DeVos has received a significant amount of criticism from Senate Democrats and the media due to her lack of experience in the public school system and for being in favor of school choice and school vouchers. The National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) are also against her nomination.

However, six of the 10 Senate Democrats on the HELP committee attended private or parochial schools, or have children and grandchildren attending them, according to information obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group.

Sens. Robert Casey Jr. of Pennsylvania, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, and Michael Bennet of Colorado sit on the committee and have never attended public school, according to the investigation.

For Hassan, her husband Tom, served as the principal of the elite Phillips Exeter Academy, where their daughter, Margaret, attended, as well. Tom was censured last year for failing to disclose sexual misconduct charges against a faculty member.

Hassan received approximately $10,000 from the NEA during her Senate campaign and the union also spent $1.5 million against her opponent, incumbent Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte. AFT also spent $4,400 against Ayotte.

“It’s just bizarre to see people who have exercised those school options suggesting that it’s somehow problematic or malicious to extend those options to all families,” said Frederick Hess, executive editor of Education Next, to the Daily Caller.

Hassan’s record on school choice is also revealing. While she was a supporter of public charter schools as governor, she did veto a bill that would enable small school districts to pay tuition, at public or private schools, for students of any grade level if it is not available within their resident district.

On a recent interview with NPR, Hassan reiterated her support for charter schools, but she took issue with DeVos position of a voucher system.

“I am a proud supporter of public charter schools here in New Hampshire, as well,” she said. “But there is a real difference between public charter schools, which can be established working with local communities and educators to fill a particular need in the public school system and provide more alternatives and more choice for learning styles and families – than a voucher system, which diverts money from the public school system, generally and often doesn’t cover the full cost of the private school that the student is attending.”

During DeVos’s confirmation hearing, Hassan also questioned her on her role in her family’s foundation, the Edgar and Elsa Prince Foundation. While it’s being debated if DeVos was accurate with statements during the hearing about having a role or not, she is also being charged that she and her family have donated extensively to groups which promote the idea that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) students must undergo “conversion therapy.”

The claim comes from Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., who cites their large donations to the Focus on the Family group as evidence. Politifact found his claim to be “Mostly False” saying they found indications that the group supports conversion therapy, but there was no evidence that they believe that LGBT students must undergo it.

A recent report by The New York Times, highlights another side of DeVos not seen in public. She has supported her gay friends and advocated for LGBT rights as far back as the 1990s. This shows her coming out in support significantly earlier than a lot of Democrats who are questioning her on these beliefs.

“At that time, two colleagues recalled, she made accommodations for a transgender woman to use the women’s restroom at a Michigan Republican Party call center,” the article states. She also used her political connections to help persuade other Michigan Republicans to sign a brief urging the Supreme Court to legalize same-sex marriage in 2015, though she did not sign it herself.”

“This aspect of Ms. DeVos’s personal story is not only at odds with the public image of her and her family as prominent financiers of conservative causes, but it also stands out in a nascent administration with a number of members who have a history of opposing gay rights,” the report continued.

Hassan has been a champion for LGBT rights in New Hampshire, dating back to her time in the state Legislature. In June 2016, she issued an executive order that banned discrimination in state government based on gender identity.  

However, her colleague, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, hasn’t always been supportive of LGBT rights. Shaheen has announced that she will vote “no” on DeVos’s nomination.

As governor, Shaheen initially opposed same-sex marriage. After Vermont signed into law a “civil union” bill in 2000, Shaheen said she didn’t support it.

“I believe that marital unions should exist between men and women,” she said at the time.

However, she came out in favor of marriage for same-sex couples in 2009 and became a sponsor of the Respect for Marriage Act in the U.S. Senate. She also voted in favor of the repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy in the military and supported government recognition of same-sex spouses of military members and other government personnel.

Although Hassan and Shaheen didn’t mention DeVos’s stance on LGBT student rights when they said they wouldn’t vote in favor of her nomination, it is interesting to note the differences in time of support between them of LGBT causes.

Shaheen agrees with Hassan, saying that DeVos is “unqualified” to be the next secretary of education. The full Senate is expected to vote on DeVos’s nomination on Thursday.

During the seven-hour hearing for Frank Edelblut’s nomination as the state education commissioner, there were several comparisons of the former state representative to Betsy DeVos, President Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of education.

Edelblut is to NH as DeVos is to US. We can do so much better on both levels. #nhpolitics

— Gerald W.R. Ward (@wardports) January 31, 2017

Both DeVos and Edelblut have little experience with the public school system. They are both strong supporters of school choice.

While Edelblut is a product of public schools himself, he and his wife homeschooled their seven children. Edelblut did receive his bachelor’s degree in business at a public institution, the University of Rhode Island, and eventually received a master’s in theological studies at the Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology.

Since 2009, Edelblut has served on the board of the Patrick Henry College Foundation, which is partnered with the evangelical Christian college in Virginia. This affiliation became a contentious point during his hearing between Edelblut and Democratic Executive Councilor Andru Volinsky of Concord. According to the college website, affiliates of the school must attest to a “Statement of Biblical Worldview” and follow “God’s Creative Works,” which is the belief that God created humanity and started with Adam and Eve as the basis for human ancestry.

“You will be the chief educator to whom all of the science teachers in our state will report,” Volinsky said. “Do you subscribe to this such that the science teachers need to worry about whether you will require creationism to be taught alongside evolution?”

Edelblut said he believes “there are other understandings of human origins.”

“And finally, as the commissioner of education, I will not have jurisdiction or responsibility for the development of curricula,” he said. “That I believe remains in the domain of the science teachers and the local school boards.”

And that’s where advocates for Edelblut believe that his lack of public education experience could be one of his biggest strengths.

With Gov. Chris Sununu’s nomination of his former Republican gubernatorial primary rival (Edelblut came in a close second, only losing by about 800 votes), it signals a departure from previous state education commissioners, who all had some sort of public education experience. It was a point Volinsky wanted to make, by reading the resumes of every education commissioner for the past 40 years.

But Sununu doesn’t want another career educator in the driver’s seat. He wants Edelblut, a businessman, to be in charge of this billion dollar industry. Many opponents don’t like that he’s against Common Core and is pro-charter schools. And they say he’s looking to “destroy public education.”

“Nothing could be further from the truth,” he said. “I want to see public education work well for all students. My job will be to implement the policies of the state board of education.”

The state board of education sets policy, curriculum, and standards for the public schools in the state. While the state education commissioner plays a role in the process, it’s ultimately not up to him to make those decisions.

Edelblut said he supported outgoing education commissioner Virginia Barry’s focus on “personalized learning.”

“Home education is personalized learning,” he said. “It recognizes that each individual student is unique, that they develop differently and at different paces.”

The same sentiments could be found in DeVos’s confirmation hearing earlier this month.

“Parents no longer believe that a one-size-fits-all model of learning meets the needs of every child,” she told the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. “And they know other options exist, whether magnet, virtual, charter, home, faith-based or any other combination.”

DeVos attended a private high school in Michigan and also received a bachelor’s in business from Calvin College. Her four children all went to private school and although she has never worked in a school, she is very philanthropic toward school systems that she personally supports. She backs school choice and school vouchers, allowing students to attend private schools with taxpayer support.

DeVos has been one of the most contentious cabinet nominees for Trump. But it can be argued that Trump and Sununu are looking at education in a similar manner. Trump sees DeVos as a strong advocate for school choice and able to use the budget for the education department to make education better for all students.

Both DeVos and Edelblut don’t necessarily have that much power when it comes to changing policy in the positions they will likely hold. They help set the agenda, but ultimately, any changes go through Congress and the states, and in New Hampshire, that means through the state board of education and the Legislature.

It’s no surprise that Trump and Sununu are facing a lot pushback on their respective nominees for education. After all, Sununu was one of Trump’s supporters during the presidential race, his support never wavering. But many supporters of the two politicians appreciate the comparison of Edelblut and DeVos. They both symbolize change and a departure from the Democratic “status-quo,” they have felt for the past eight years in D.C. and 12 years in the Granite State.

The people of New Hampshire should expect more similarities between the federal government and New Hampshire (or with Sununu and Trump) to pop up during the next two years.

 

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“Betsy DeVos would single-handedly decimate our public education system if she were confirmed,” read a widely circulated tweet issued by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY.

Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., fired back in his comments on Tuesday morning during an executive session of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee that saw the DeVos nomination referred to the Senate floor on a 12-11 party-line vote.

In his discussions over the DeVos nomination with teachers in his state, Scott said he came to realize that “we were not having the right conversation.” The assertion that DeVos would have the power to fundamentally alter the American public school system is “patently false,” he said.

So the question lingers, should DeVos be the next education secretary, how much power over the nation’s school systems would she actually have? Even if she wanted to, could she “single-handedly decimate” traditional public schooling as Schumer and her other opponents have suggested?

The short answer: “if she wants to have a major impact, she has to have [new] legislation,” said Jack Jennings, who spent 27 years from 1967 to 1994 as a lead staffer and then general counsel for the education branch of the House committee that oversees education and labor.

Without legislation or major increases in appropriations, DeVos would be left with wielding a softer type of power.

“The main influence the secretary has is in setting the agenda,” said Jennings in an interview with InsideSources. Her priorities could end up influencing national, state, and local education policy debates over her entire tenure, he said.

Since leaving his perch on the Hill, Jennings founded the influential and non-partisan Center on Education Policy, and authored a book, Presidents, Congress, and the Public Schools.

While Jennings spent decades working for Democrats on the Hill and has returned to progressive advocacy since leaving the Center on Education Policy in 2012, he is well respected in education policy circles for his lengthy experience at the heart of education policy debates. In an adversarial profile of Jennings, the right-leaning group Education Next referred to him as “a one-time king of Capitol Hill education policy.”

Jennings has been around for long enough to see the “waxing and waning” of the federal government’s role in local education policy. And, under the recently passed Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), the powers assigned to the Department of Education (DoED) are at an ebb.

Stalled progress under the ambitious federal interventions of the Bush and Obama administrations led to a backlash and a major devolution of department powers. Sen. Lamar Alexander, the chairman of HELP, has repeatedly vowed to defend these legislative interdictions.

Therefore, for signature No Child Left Behind issues such as testing, accountability, teacher evaluations, and school turnaround, Congress has “closed the barn door” on direct federal mandates, said Jennings.

 

$20 Billion to Support Choice

DeVos and the new administration, however, appears uninterested in re-litigating the fights that precipitated ESSA. DeVos has voiced support for the devolutionary principles behind ESSA.

Instead, the bulk of the new administration’s impact on local schools is likely to depend on whether President Trump is successful in getting congressional support for a proposed $20 billion block grant to promote school choice, including charters and vouchers.

“Reprioritizing” existing federal funds, from the education department’s $70 billion-plus budget, as Trump advocated during the campaign, would be difficult for the administration to accomplish unilaterally. Under ESSA, there are statutory restrictions on how many of the department’s grant programs allocate funding.

The education committees in Congress also have other big-ticket items on their plates, including the reauthorization of legislation that regulates higher education, career and technical training funds, and child nutrition.

There is some support for advancing the choice proposal, however. In a closed panel with the National School Boards Association on Monday, the chairwoman of the House Education and Workforce committee, Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., expressed her commitment to expanding school choice for parents, though its too early to divine what the particulars of such legislation would look like.

If Foxx is successful in getting a bill to the Senate, then the key question would be whether Democrats rally to filibuster or block the legislation.

Traditionally, school choice proposals have made for strange bedfellows. According to Jennings, some Democratic black lawmakers from inner cities have historically reflected their constituents’ support for increasing school choice, while white suburban Republican voters satisfied with their traditional public school offerings have previously bucked their party on choice initiatives.

It remains to be seen, however, how the current climate of stridently partisan national focus on education policy colors legislative efforts moving forward.

 

Ed Department by the Numbers

In an emailed statement, a spokesperson for the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a right-leaning education policy think tank run by former DoED employee Michael Petrilli, concurred with Jennings that most of the education secretary’s power comes from agenda setting—most of which would likely revolve around school choice under DeVos.

“But the Department, at the end of the day, is largely responsible for the successful administration of large-scale grant programs,” read the statement. “Much of the actual power—and responsibility, particularly under ESSA—is left up to the states.”

The education secretary oversees a department staff of over 4,000 employees, the fewest of any cabinet level appointee, and tens-of billions in aid and federal grants to support primary, secondary, and post-secondary education systems. The DoED also has a healthy budget for research.

Notably, Head Start, the federal government’s largest pre-K program, is not run by the DoED, but is overseen by Health and Human Services instead.

The biggest K-12 programs include (in 2015 appropriations) over $14 billion in ESEA Title I grants that are targeted to students who come from low-income families. And over $12.5 billion in IDEA grants aimed at supplementing the cost of providing personalized disability services to all students who need them.

For higher education, the department oversees the disbursement of $28 billion in Pell Grants, which serve as the basis of financial aid packages for disadvantaged students pursuing higher education.

The DoED also oversees a massive student-loan program, which has over $1 trillion outstanding on the books. Under Obama administration reforms, the DoED is the lender, rather than any intermediate private bank or financial institution.

Some on the left, including Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren questioned DeVos’s fitness to run such a large loan program, given her lack of experience in finance. Neither of Obama’s education secretaries had major financial experience prior to assuming their roles either.

From a policy perspective, the education secretary oversees the office for civil rights, which is tasked with forbidding discrimination in institutions that take federal money—in other words, the vast majority of American K-12 and higher education schools.

Deciding how aggressively to protect civil rights protections, therefore, is one area where a Sec. DeVos and the Trump administration would have considerable unilateral influence, if confirmed.

 

Unprecedented Rancor

Historically, the nomination and confirmation of an education secretary is typically a low-key and routine affair. Not so under the new Trump administration.

Since the creation of the Department of Education under President Carter, the most closely contested confirmation vote was in 2016 during the elevation of Sec. John King Jr., Obama’s second Education Secretary.

A Republican Senate that was by then openly critical of the outgoing administration, in an election year, smoothly confirmed King by a vote of 49-40.

As the landscape in the Senate stands now, DeVos, has yet to receive a single endorsement from across the aisle in the Senate.

If confirmed, DeVos’s legacy will be determined in large part by what she accomplishes from a position whose authority has been severely curtailed.

The long and controversial tenure of Sec. Arne Duncan, who served for many years in the Obama administration and oversaw huge amounts of federal stimulus funds, “was the time when the U.S. Secretary of Education had the most power and money” since the department was established, said Jennings.

Duncan eventually “reaped what he sewed,” he said, which included a major grassroots backlash against federal involvement in education.

Unless Trump and his eventual education secretary can pass legislation to alter the status quo, it appears unlikely that systematic educational reform, including a mandate to expand choice for public school parents, will originate directly from Washington.

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Not only is it National School Choice Week, it’s also New Hampshire School Choice Week. Gov. Chris Sununu signed the proclamation on Tuesday. So naturally, the discussion of school choice in the Granite State is bound to come up. And the Legislature has a slew of bills related to charter schools, public versus private schools, and parent involvement in their children’s education.

With a Republican-controlled State House, expect to see several school choice bills make it through and end up on the governor’s desk. Education reform is definitely a priority for the Sununu administration.

“We’re not trying to blow up education, or battle public education,” he said at an event for National School Choice Week in Manchester on Tuesday. “I love public education. It’s just about actually taking the system that we have, the fundamental structure that we have — and it’s not bad; it’s a good structure — but providing some leadership to really implement those innovations that we always talk about.”

Here are NH Journal’s top school choice issues to keep an eye on at the State House as lawmakers begin to debate these bills:

 

CHARTER SCHOOLS

There are about 10 bills dealing with charter schools, which is still a contentious topic in the world of education. Here’s a quick run-down of what they are:

• Charter schools are publicly-funded independent schools that are not subject to the same regulations as traditional public schools.
• They do not charge tuition.
• They must accept all students who apply, but if the number of applications exceeds the school’s capacity, a lottery must be held to select students who will be offered a place.
• They are considered part of the state school system and are accountable to state and federal authorities for compliance with the terms of their founding charter, which often includes achievement-based standards (read: testing).
• All charter schools must apply for authorization and receive approval from a local school district, a town vote, or the state board of education. Charters are valid for a term of five years, at which point a school must apply for renewal.

There are currently 25 charter schools operating in New Hampshire, with another one slated to open in fall 2017, according to data from the NH Department of Education. There were 3,011 students enrolled in charter schools, or about 1 percent of the state’s total student population, as of October 1, 2015.

Most charter schools receive funding directly from the state, at a rate of about $6,500 per pupil, which is a lower than average per-pupil expenditure at traditional public schools, which averaged approximately $14,375 in 2015. Data from the current academic year is not available yet.

So why are charter schools so divisive? Charter school advocates want more funding and to raise the cap on admittance. They say the schools create new educational models of teaching and learning that appeal to students who might not learn best in a traditional school setting and give parents more choices in their children’s education.

Opponents say charter schools take away state money that could go to improve traditional schools, and they lack equal proportions of disabled or special needs students, who then are forced into the traditional public school system.

And the argument that charter school students perform better on standardized tests is a moot point. While statewide assessment results generally show that trend, the comparisons can be misleading since charter schools and traditional public schools do not have equivalent student populations in terms of learning ability and special needs.

Out of the 10 bills filed for the current legislative session, seven of them seek to place limits on charter schools or give the state more control of them. They are sponsored by Democrats. Three of the bills look to provide more funding or give charter schools more authority — all sponsored by Republicans. So you can see that this issue largely falls on party lines.

Rep. Timothy Horrigan, D-Durham, appears to be charter schools’ biggest opponent by being the prime sponsor on most of the “anti-charter” legislation. But with a Republican governor and a GOP-controlled Legislature, it’s difficult to see a scenario where any of the Democrat’s legislation makes it far. Especially with a pro-charter school governor who wants to increase funding.

And Sununu’s nominee for education commissioner, former state Rep. Frank Edelblut, is also a school choice, pro-charter supporter. It seems unlikely that any of the limiting charter school legislation will make it out of the House Education Committee.

 

THE ‘CROYDON’ BILL

For those unfamiliar with the story of the town of Croydon and school choice, let me fill you in.

The town has been in an ongoing legal battle with the courts and state Department of Education over its decision to send some of its students to a nearby Montessori school at taxpayer expense.

Many small communities in the state do not have a local K-12 school district and they contract with larger nearby districts to send their students to school there, usually though a per-student tuition contract paid for by the town where the students come from.

So, the Croydon School District had a tuition agreement with the town of Newport, but that contact ended in 2014. Croydon gave parents the option of choosing public and private schools to send their children, which would be funded by taxpayers.

The state and courts have ruled that the town cannot use public funds to pay for private school. But the school district says there is nothing in state law that prohibits it from using private schools if it’s in the best interest of the students.

Now, school choice advocates are rallying behind House Bill 557, which would allow a school district to send a child to a private school, even a religious one, if there is not a public school for the child’s grade in their home district.

The first hearing for the bill was held on Wednesday and the state Department of Justice said the bill violates the N.H. Constitution for allowing taxpayer money to be used for religious schools and could lead to other court cases in towns where parents are paying for private schools out-of-pocket.

It’s a tricky bill, but if it makes it out of committee and goes through the Legislature, Sununu is expected to sign it. In an op-ed published in the New Hampshire Union Leader during his gubernatorial run, he said, “the issue in Croydon is a clear example of government overreach.”

“Too often, special interests and unelected bureaucrats act as if they know what is right for children over the judgment of parents,” he wrote. “Instead of expanding options for families, the state has unfortunately been working to reduce them.”

And assuming Edelblut is approved by the Republican-controlled Executive Council, he has also indicated that he supports the Croydon School District, so he could make this bill a priority and work with members of the Legislature to get it passed.

 

COMMON CORE

While not directly about school choice, the issue of Common Core State Standards will be a dividing issue in the Legislature. School choice is all about giving parents a greater role in their child’s education and with Common Core, many parents feel the federal government and state are mandating what their children should learn — even if they don’t believe it’s in their best interests.

Bills in the House and Senate seek to make clear that school districts are not required to implement the standards if they don’t want to.

NH Journal has previously reported on the issue of Common Core in the state and how the state board of education gave towns and cities the flexibility and local control to implement the standards how they saw fit.

Sununu and Edelblut have both said they want to “repeal Common Core.” What exactly that means, is still unclear, but if these bills make it to Sununu’s desk, it’s also likely that he would sign them.

 

HONORABLE MENTION:

Here are some other bills relating to school choice (or parental involvement) that will appear in during the current legislative session:

• Constitutional Amendment Concurrent Resolution 7: “The general court shall have the authority to define standards of accountability, mitigate local disparities in educational opportunity and fiscal capacity, and have full discretion to determine the amount of state funding for education.”
• House Bill 395: “This bill repeals state board of education rulemaking authority for home education programs and inserts the duties and procedures related to membership in the home education advisory council statute.”
• House Bill 103: “This bill requires school districts to provide advance notice to parents and legal guardians of course material involving discussion of human sexuality or human sexual education.” Here is NH Journal’s story on how that bill came to fruition.

 

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