Fast Report
National summit focuses on children's health
• A national summit on improving children's health by encouraging schools to promote good nutrition and physical activity will be held Oct. 7-8 in Washington, D.C.
More than 30 national organizations, including NSBA, are collaborating on the summit. Former U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher will chair the summit, and first lady Laura Bush will be the honorary chair.
"Overweight and obesity have reached epidemic proportions in the United States," Satcher says. "Today there are nearly twice as many overweight children and almost three times as many overweight adolescents as there were in 1980. The public and personal ramifications are staggering."
Tuition tax credit bill proposed
• When Congress returns from its August recess, the House Ways and Means Committee is expected to take up a bill that would extend the tax deduction for qualified tuition and expenses at colleges and universities to cover tuition, fees, transportation, and other costs at private elementary and secondary schools.
The Back to School Tax Relief Act of 2002 (H.R.5193) was introduced by Rep. Bob Schaeffer (R-Colo.). There is no comparable Senate bill.
The maximum deduction allowed to taxpayers annually is $3,000. The measure is estimated to cost $4.9 billion over four years.
NSBA opposes the measure as a "backdoor voucher" that ignores the needs of the 47 million children enrolled in public schools.
NSBA supports a substitute amendment to create $25 billion in interest-free school construction bonds to help school boards build and modernize schools.
The America's Better Classrooms Act of 2002, sponsored by Reps. Nancy L. Johnson (R-Conn.) and Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.), would cost significantly less than the tuition tax deduction bill–$1.7 billion over five years–while benefiting significantly more schoolchildren.
Lawyer appointed NYC chancellor
• New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced the appointment July 29 of Joel I. Klein, a longtime Washington, D.C., attorney, as schools chancellor.
Klein, who will succeed Harold O. Levy, will become the first chancellor appointed under a state law passed July 1 giving the mayor control of New York City's 1.1 million-student public school system. Klein will report directly to the mayor.
The city's board of education has been replaced with an advisory committee with no real authority. The school system's central office is being moved out of its Brooklyn headquarters into the historic and newly renovated Tweed Courthouse, located next to City Hall.
Since January 2001, Klein was the chairman and CEO of Bertelsmann Inc., one of the world's largest media companies.
Before that, he was assistant attorney general in charge of the Department of Justice's Antitrust Division, where he led the prosecution of Microsoft.
Klein attended New York City public schools. During a leave of absence from law school in 1969, he studied at New York University's School of Education and then briefly taught math to sixth graders at a public school in Queens.
Bloomberg says "Klein embodies the exact qualities we need in a schools chancellor: integrity, dynamism, the ability to bring diverse constituencies together, and an unwavering commitment to results."
Abstinence program overly religious
• A federal judge in Louisiana ruled July 25 that the state illegally used federal money to promote religion in abstinence-only sex education programs.
Judge G. Thomas Porteous Jr. of the Eastern District Court of Louisiana said many of the groups that received federal money under the Governor's Program on Abstinence were violating the Constitution by "furthering religious objectives."
Among the activities cited were distributing Bibles, staging prayer rallies outside clinics that perform abortions, and performing skits that preach Christianity. Porteous ordered an immediate injunction to stop the state from giving federal money to these groups.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed suit against the program in May. It was the first such suit challenging federally funded abstinence-only programs, which were authorized as part of the welfare reform legislation in 1996.
Youths are optimistic about the future
• More than two-thirds of U.S. teenagers feel closer to their families since the Sept. 11 attacks and remain hopeful about the country's future, reports the "State of Our Nation's Youth" survey released Aug. 6. "Coming out of Sept. 11, these kids recognize that the world is different–it's smaller and more challenging," says Peter Hart, whose company conducted the survey for the Horatio Alger Association.
Two-thirds of the teens surveyed said Sept. 11 was the most significant event of their lives. One-fifth said the attacks directly affected their lives a great deal, and nearly a third said the attacks gave them new ideas or changed their plans for life after high school.
Eighty-nine percent plan to attend some type of college after graduation. Nearly six in 10 expect to see required military service in their life times.