Introduction and Note from John Holmes, ACSI Director for Government Affairs
“The White House and the Department of Education have announced a new Race to the Top High School Commencement Challenge and are inviting public schools across the country to compete to have President Obama speak at their graduation….
Applications must be completed by students and submitted by a high school’s Principal using the Commencement Challenge Application Form no later than Monday, March 15th, at 11:59 pm EST.”
So reads a White House Web page titled “Race to the Top High School Commencement Challenge.”
Isn’t it interesting that the Obama administration seems to have decided that private- and religious-school students are not important? Eleven percent of the nation’s students attend private schools, but they are not allowed to participate in hosting the president. I thought that President Obama attended a private school in Hawaii and that his daughters now attend a private religious school in DC? Now only government schools can have the honor of a presidential speech!
Please join me, and, while displaying a Christlike spirit, send the White House a request for a participation form. If the person you speak to says that your school is not eligible, kindly ask why, or send a letter of protest to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. Do be kind, but don’t let the government do this to American religious-school students!
From Capitol Hill
Regulation of private schools. Below is the text of a February 9 news update from the website of CAPE (Council for American Private Education):
The U.S. House of Representatives is set to vote soon on legislation governing elements of a school’s disciplinary policy and practice…. HR 4247, which deals with the seclusion and restrain of students, would affect all public schools as well as private schools whose students or teachers benefit from any federal education program (about 80 percent of Catholic schools, for example). Here are a few of the measure’s troubling provisions:
- establishes detailed conditions surrounding the use of physical restrain and seclusion in schools that, ironically, could ultimately serve to harm students (see CAPE’s letter on the bill);
- relates to activities as commonplace as holding back two students in a schoolyard scuffle;
- requires an undetermined number of private school teachers to have special training and certification in the use of physical restraint and seclusion;
- requires annual disaggregated demographic reports on the instances of the use of physical restraint and seclusion in a school. (CAPE News, February 9, 2010)
Senator Chris Dodd has also introduced the same bill in the Senate. Senate bill 2860 currently has no cosponsors. This bill has the same content and would regulate private schools also.
For more details, visit ACSI’s Legal/Legislative Alerts Web page and select Federal Legislation Alert—HR 4247.
President’s proposal to cap the rate at which high-income households can itemize deductions. The following is reprinted from the ECFA (Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability) website:
Currently the value of a deduction is equal to the deductible amount multiplied by one’s top income tax rate, which can range well above 28%. So deductions will be worth less to a high-income tax filer under the president’s proposal.
Capping itemized deductions is a proposal [President Obama] made last year and it went nowhere. That’s in part because many in Congress said it would seriously curb charitable giving, even though that is not a foregone conclusion. If the measure gains any traction this year, it’s likely Congress would limit the cap to only certain types of deductions, thereby muting its revenue-raising effect.
The White House estimates that capping the rate on deductions could raise $291 billion over 10 years.
… The President proposed several other “Upper-Income Tax Provisions.” …
… The President again called for a permanent extension of the 2009 Estate Tax Levels—a 45% rate and $3.5 million per-spouse exemption…. Because Congress did not act on this issue last year, the current estate tax level is 0% and is scheduled to rise to 55% in 2011. (Association for Charitable Reform, January 29, 2010)
ESEA (Elementary and Secondary Education Act) bipartisan push. The House has begun a bipartisan drive to rewrite the “No Child Left Behind” law. The plan to hold a series of hearings and then to invite stakeholders to submit comments via e-mail comes when lawmakers from both parties agree that the law needs to be rewritten. The current version of the law (Public Law 107-110) was enacted with bipartisan fanfare early in the George W. Bush administration. But its focus on standardized testing to measure student achievement—and on the federal government’s expanded role in an area traditionally left to local authorities—has drawn criticism across the ideological spectrum.
“Today, we’re announcing a bipartisan, open and transparent effort to rewrite No Child Left Behind—a law that we all agree is in need of major reform,” said the chairman of the House Committee on Education & Labor, Rep. George Miller (D-CA); the ranking Republican, Rep. John Kline (R-MN); the chairman of the Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education Subcommittee, Rep. Dale E. Kildee (D-MI); and the subcommittee’s ranking Republican, Rep. Michael N. Castle (R-DE). —“Lawmakers Announce Plan for a Bipartisan Overhaul of Education Law,” House Committee on Education & Labor press release, February 18, 2010
Education Secretary Arne Duncan led off the administration’s push with a bipartisan, bicameral meeting last month that involved the eight House and Senate committee and subcommittee chairpersons who would shepherd the reauthorization. Staff-level meetings between the education department, the White House, and congressional aides have continued since. Though the administration has yet to disseminate a detailed proposal widely, it is well known that the Obama administration wants to shift emphasis away from annual progress.
News You Can Use
IRS and cell phones. The IRS is suspending any update of rules for taxing employer-provided cell phones and other mobile devices. Doug Shulman, the IRS commissioner, is hopeful that Congress will act soon to change the 1989 law that categorizes employer-provided cell phones as taxable fringe benefits.
ACSI’s friends at the Institute for Justice (IJ) asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision in Winn v. Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization, which declared unconstitutional a 13-year-old Arizona school choice program that now provides private school scholarships to more than 28,000 children each year. Filed 10 years ago by the ACLU of Arizona, the case involves an Arizona tax credit for individuals who donate to nonprofit organizations known as School Tuition Organizations that issue scholarships to enable low- and middle-income parents to send their children to private schools.
As a dissent in the case written by 9th Circuit Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain explains, unless the U.S. Supreme Court intervenes, the decision “jeopardizes the educational opportunities of thousands of children who enjoy the benefits of [the Arizona program] and related programs across the nation.” The Institute’s petition asks the Supreme Court not only to grant review in Winn but also to immediately reverse the decision without any further briefing or oral argument. For your convenience, a copy of the Institute’s petition to the U.S. Supreme Court is available….
… Arizona’s program is clearly constitutional because it is controlled entirely by private decisions and private actors with no governmental influence or control. (Institute for Justice Web release,February 18, 2010)
Public high schools to offer early graduation. Public high schools in eight states will soon allow 10th graders to take a battery of tests and get a diploma two years early. The testing would include math, English, history, and science. This testing would eliminate the need of some 10th graders to attend their junior and senior years at the local public high school. Through this process they could enroll in a local community college.
In contrast to this, ACSI’s Dr. Tom Cathey developed a better plan at the Christian high school he served in Florida. He struck an agreement with the local community college so that his upper-level students could remain in the school, participate in its sports and other extracurricular programs, and graduate with their class. As a result, many of the high school students had already completed their first two years of college without leaving the Christian high school. Dr. Cathey arranged for his teachers who had advanced degrees to teach the classes for these students who needed a challenge.
In the forthcoming—yet to be fully designed—public program, students who fail the 10th-grade tests, known as board exams, will be able to try again at the end of their 11th- and 12th-grade years. The new courses will begin in the fall of 2011 and will include high school students in Connecticut, Kentucky, Maine, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont in pilot projects of 10–20 schools per state. Learn more from Sam Dillon’s February 17 article in the New York Times.
National Notes March 2010