April 28, 2008

New Proposed Regulations from the Department of Education

Possible Renewal of the Teacher Expense Deduction

Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Enforcement Act of 2008

Attempts at Early Intervention Prior to Special Education

AT&T to Donate $100 Million to Help Reduce Dropout Rates

School Choice Yearbook 2007

New Proposed Regulations from the Department of Education

On April 22 in Detroit, MI, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings introduced new regulations in the areas of accountability and transparency, uniform and disaggregated graduation rates, and improved parental notification for Supplemental Education Services and public school choice.

In the area of accountability and transparency, the Department has reemphasized that states are able to use multiple question formats such as multiple choice and extended response and may use multiple assessments in subject areas. The Department will also establish the National Technical Advisory Council (National TAC) made up of individuals who have expertise in the areas of education standards, accountability systems, statistics and psychometrics. These individuals will help ensure that state standards and assessments are of the highest technical quality. To ensure greater transparency states and local school districts will be required under the proposed regulation to report the most recent state results from the NAEP reading and math assessments on the same public report card as the results from the state assessment.

In order to secure uniform and disaggregated graduation rates, the Department has proposed using the graduation rate definition agreed to by the National Governors Association (NGA). In this definition the graduation rate would be the number of students who graduate in a given year within the standard number of years, which would be defined by four years, divided by the number of students who entered high school four years earlier. The definition would be adjusted for students who have transferred out. States would also be allowed to request from the department an alternative definition for students that may take longer to graduate from high school as a result of certain conditions. States would be required by 2012-13 to use the NGA graduation rate definition. By the 2012-13 school year states will also be required to disaggregate the graduate rate data by subgroup at the school and district levels.

Another area Secretary Spellings is focusing on in the new regulations is increasing participation in supplemental education services (SES) and public school choice. According to the Department only 14 percent of students take advantage of the SES provisions under NCLB and a smaller percentage of qualified students are taking advantage of public school choice. Often times these low participation rates are a result of parents not being informed that their children are eligible to transfer to a high-performing school. To address this issue the Department is proposing that parents must be notified of public school choice options no later than 14 days before the start of school. Under the new regulations schools would be allowed to use up to 0.2 percent of the district’s Title I, Part A allocation funds to inform parents of public school choice and SES. If funds originally allocated for choice-related transportation and SES are unused by a school district the district will be required under the new regulations to provide satisfactory evidence to the state that they have made efforts to use the funds before they are allowed to reallocate the money.

“I'm proposing new policy tools that will give families lifelines—and empower educators to create dramatic improvement," said Secretary Spellings. “Many are actions that have gained broad support through conversations on how to strengthen No Child Left Behind. While I will continue working with legislators to renew this law, I also realize that students and families and teachers and schools need help now. So, at the President's request, I'm moving forward to empower educators to take actions that families have been waiting for.”

For more information about the new proposed regulations please read the following fact sheets from the Department:
Accountability, assessments and transparency- http://www.ed.gov/policy/elsec/reg/proposal/aat.html;
Public school choice and supplemental educational services- http://www.ed.gov/policy/elsec/reg/proposal/index.html.

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Possible Renewal of the Teacher Expense Deduction

The teacher expense deduction which allows educators to claim up to $250 on their taxes for out-of-pocket classroom expenses incurred during the year had expired at the end of December 2007. To help ensure that educators are able to claim this deduction in the future, the Senate Finance Committee has included in their recently released legislation the “Alternative Minimum Tax Extenders Tax Relief Act of 2008,” an extension of the teacher expense deduction. If the bill is signed into law the deduction will be extended until the end of 2009. AAE will continue to work with the committee to ensure that this deduction is extended.

To read a summary of the bill, please go to http://finance.senate.gov/sitepages/leg/LEG%202008/041808%20Extenders%20Summary.pdf.

To read the bill in its entirety, please go to http://finance.senate.gov/sitepages/leg/LEG%202008/041708%
20AMT&Tax%20Extenders%20Act%202008.pdf.

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Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Enforcement Act of 2008

Under the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 (LMRDA), labor unions are required to file a report with the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) disclosing their finances. However, on average, 35 percent of unions do not file the required reports and the Secretary of Labor currently does not have the ability to impose fines or sanctions on the unions to encourage them to comply. The Secretary of Labor is able seek an injunction in court ordering the unions to comply but it is a lengthy process.

In an effort to help alleviate some of the problems DOL faces in gathering the required financial reports, Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) and Congressman Pete Sessions (R-TX) have sponsored the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Enforcement Act of 2008 in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. Under this bill the Secretary of Labor will be able to impose civil monetary penalties of up to $250 a day when a labor organization violates the LMRDA reporting deadlines. Fines will not exceed $10,000.

“Labor union members deserve fair and open representation,” Congressman Sessions stated. “My legislation will help defend the rights of union members by levying penalties on unions that violate the trust of members by denying member access to financial records, failing to comply with federal reporting laws, or misusing union members’ hard-earned dues.”

For more information on the bill please read the following press release from Congressman Sessions at http://sessions.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=88486.

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Attempts at Early Intervention Prior to Special Education

Schools across the country are making efforts to reduce the number of students that are placed in special education by focusing on early interventions and providing tutoring for some students who previously would have been automatically placed in special education. The early intervention known as “response to intervention” or RTI is helping to reduce “overidentification” of students for special education ─ often times who are poor and minority students.

States and school districts that have started implementing RTI have seen reductions in the number of students that are placed in special education which results in a cost savings. On average it costs $12,000 to educate a child in special education, a cost that is often twice the per student expenditure in many states. Virginia has seen the number of students placed in special education be reduced by 4,000 this year which in part has been attributed to RTI.

Some people, however, are skeptical of the effectiveness of RTI. “There really are no guidelines for how long a child can remain in RTI before they are moved into evaluation, but we hear from some parents that it can take a long, long time,” stated Pat Lillie, Learning Disabilities Association of America board member.

For more information about RTI please read the article titled, “Catching Problems Early, Schools Try to Avoid Special Ed,” at http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5igHliNHv3gYznj5mlMlKQrk7gDrQD906HG4G0.

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AT&T to Donate $100 Million to Help Reduce Dropout Rates

AT&T has recently announced that through a new program, AT&T Aspire, the company will commit $100 million for dropout prevention in United States high schools and efforts to help better prepare students for college and the workforce.

“In the U.S., 1.2 million students drop out of high school every year. This has implications for individuals and for our nation's global economic leadership,” said AT&T Chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson. “AT&T Aspire is about supporting the great work already underway to help our kids succeed in school, and helping students see the connection between education and their best future.”

The $100 million will be dispersed to schools and nonprofits over four years. Grants of $50,000 to $100,000 per year will be given to schools and nonprofits that have “existing successful high-school-retention programs.”

AT&T joins the list of other companies and foundations that are concerned about high dropout rates in the country including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, State Farm Insurance Cos., the Boeing Co., and the G.E. Foundation.

For more information about the donation please go to http://www.att.com/gen/press-room?pid=4800&cdvn=news&newsarticleid=25507.

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School Choice Yearbook 2007

The Alliance for School Choice has released their 2007 School Choice Yearbook that gives readers an overview of what school choice legislation is currently available in their states and what school choice legislation has been introduced in their states or neighboring states. School choice legislation includes a wide array of voucher programs, including special education voucher programs that allow children with special needs to attend a private school of their choice, and scholarship tax credit programs, which allows individuals and/or corporations to receive tax credits for contributions made to charitable scholarship programs that give scholarships to parents so that their children may attend a private school of their choice. Currently 150,000 students are participating in school choice programs across the country with 16 school choice programs operating in nine states and the District of Columbia.

For more information about school choice legislation in your state or to learn more about various school choice programs, please go to http://www.allianceforschoolchoice.org/New/Publications/Yearbook_Final.pdf.

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