Fast Report
D.C. voucher vote delayed
• The U.S. House of Representatives was scheduled to vote on an appropriations bill for the District of Columbia July 24 that included $10 million for a D.C. voucher program, but the House has delayed the vote until after the August recess.
A Senate Appropriations Committee vote on a $13 million D.C. voucher program also was postponed until September. Several amendments are expected to be introduced to strike the program.
Earlier in July, the House Government Reform Committee approved a D.C. voucher program by a one-vote margin. That measure would allow lower-income parents to receive vouchers up to $7,500 to send their children to private schools.
NSBA urged Congress to oppose the bill. NSBA believes Congress should not create a new federally funded program that funnels public money to private schools while, at the same time, fails to adequately fund existing mandates, such as the No Child Left Behind Act and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
Charter school students said to be racially isolated
• Many charter schools are places of racial isolation, particularly for minority students, concludes a study released July 12 by the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University.
According to Charter Schools and Race: A Lost Opportunity for Integrated Education, 70 percent of black charter school students attend intensely segregated schools, compared with 34 percent of black students in public schools.
In almost every state studied, the average black charter school student attends school with a higher percentage of black students and a lower percentage of white students, report authors Erica Frankenberg and Chungmei Lee.
The study also found pockets of white segregation, where white charter students are often as isolated as black charter students.
Voucher school has terrorist ties
• The Islamic Academy of Florida, a 300-student private school in Tampa that has received state support from a corporate voucher program, has been found to have ties with an organization that supports terrorism in the Middle East.
The school received an estimated $350,000 last year -- more than 50 percent of its revenue -- from Florida PRIDE, an organization that accepts corporate donations for poor students to attend private schools. The corporations receive a dollar-for-dollar tax break on donations, thus diverting money from Florida's budget and its public schools.
Former South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian founded the academy in 1992 and served as its director and chairman of its board at least through June 2002.
In February, Al-Arian and Sameeh Hammoudeh, the school's treasurer at the time, were indicted for alleged ties to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a Syrian-based group that has sponsored suicide bombers who have killed more than 100 people in Israel and maimed hundreds more. Both men are in jail.
The indictment alleges that Al-Arain and Hammoudeh encouraged people who wanted to send money to Palestinians to write checks to the academy, and that school supplies and equipment were used to support terrorism.
Florida PRIDE stopped sending voucher dollars to the academy in July.
An estimated 1,029 private schools in Florida are eligible for the tax-credit vouchers. The Department of Education does not monitor the curriculum or student test scores at these schools and does not check to see if teachers are certified or have passed criminal background checks.
"While this case certainly is a startling and unusual example, it points to the larger issue of the lack of public oversight and accountability that continues to dog voucher programs," says Marc Egan, director of NSBA's Voucher Strategy Center.
Last year, corporations in Florida donated nearly $50 million, allowing 14,000 students to attend private schools with vouchers. This year, despite growing concerns about the accountability of the schools and funding organizations, lawmakers increased the amount that can be donated to $88 million.
Superintendents feel powerless
• Nine out of 10 urban school superintendents say they need more authority to improve schools and raise student achievement, reports a study released in July by the Center for Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington.
According to the study, an overwhelming majority of superintendents of the 100 largest school districts say they have little chance of significantly improving student performance without clearer executive authority to hire, fire, and move teachers; reconfigure poorly performing schools; and adjust the curriculum.
"The consensus of urban school superintendents is that many of their job conditions set them up to fail," says co-author Howard Fuller, a former superintendent in Milwaukee.
The report charges that reform efforts are stymied by the way power is divvied up among school boards, teacher unions, and pressure groups. Six in 10 of the superintendents found micromanagement by boards to be at least a moderate problem.