7/13/04 -- Colorado vouchers unconstitutional
• The Colorado Supreme Court has found the state's voucher program unconstitutional because it strips local school boards of their authority. The high court's 4-3 decision, announced June 27, upholds a December ruling by a Denver district judge.
Colorado was the first state to approve a voucher program after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Cleveland voucher program in 2002. The Colorado program required districts with eight or more low-performing schools to provide vouchers for private schools to low-income students and allowed other districts to establish voucher programs.
The Colorado Supreme Court said the state Constitution gives locally elected school boards control over any instruction paid for with locally raised funds. The voucher program required school districts to turn over a portion of their funds to private schools that school boards had no control over.
The Colorado legislature is expected to approve a new voucher law to bypass the local control problem.
Feds urge states: Spend money or lose it
• The U.S. Department of Education has sent warning letters to states saying if they don't make plans to spend some $2 billion by the end of the fiscal year, they could lose it.
The funds include money appropriated under Title I, IDEA, and bilingual education. States have to earmark the funds for specific purposes by Sept. 30 but have more time to actually spend the money.
The Bush Administration and Republican members of Congress are pointing to the unspent funds as proof that education is not underfunded. House Education and the Workforce Committee Chair John Boehner (R-Ohio) says, "We've literally flooded the system with cash."
Dan Fuller, director of federal programs at NSBA, says, "Any member of Congress who thinks schools are awash in money, federal or not, is clearly out of touch with how schools operate."
"States have as long as five years to spend federal funds, and unspent balances are normal as money makes its way through the pipeline," he says.
San Francisco plan would let illegals vote
• City officials in San Francisco are considering a proposal to allow non-citizens, including illegal immigrants, to vote for school board members if they have children in public schools. The proposal, spearheaded by Matt Gonzalez, president of the board of supervisors, would be placed on the November ballot if approved by the board.
Proponents say the practice would encourage non-citizens to become more involved in education issues.
San Francisco school board President Dan Kelly opposes the measure. "Voting is a function of citizenship. It is the essence of what it means to be a citizen," he says.
The school district strongly supports outreach programs for immigrants, Kelly says, and non-citizens, including illegals, have plenty of opportunities to participate in hearings and advisory groups. "Their views are certainly solicited and welcomed. Their testimony is given equal weight as that of a fifth-generation Californian."
A dramatic decline in youth smoking
• Cigarette smoking rates among high school youth have declined by 40 percent since 1997, reports a study published in the June 18 issue of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention journal, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
The study, based on information collected in 2003 from a nationally representative sample of students in grades 912, found that the rate of cigarette smoking among U.S. high school students is at the lowest level since the national Youth Risk Behavior Survey was initiated in 1991.
According to the report, 21.9 percent of high school students in the United States currently smoke, down from 36.4 percent in 1997.
Lifetime cigarette use also declined. In 1999, CDC reported that 70.4 percent of high school students had tried cigarette smoking during their lives. By 2003, that number had fallen to 58.4 percent.
The report says that if prevention efforts are sustained and this pattern continues, the United States could achieve the 2010 national health objective of reducing current smoking rates among high school students to 16 percent or less.
Public supports equitable funding
• A majority of Americans recognize there are significant differences in the quality of schools in high and low-income areas and believe there is an overreliance on property taxes to fund schools, reports a survey released June 30 by the Educational Testing Service.
Thirty percent of Americans believe schools need major changes to get on track, and 15 percent say they need a complete overhaul, says Equity and Adequacy: Americans Speak on Public School Funding.
While parents say their children's schools are doing well, 60 percent of the public say schools in low-income areas are either inadequate or in crisis.
Half of Americans would prefer to increase the amount of school funding that comes from states, even if it means an increase in state taxes, because it will provide more equitable and stable funding.
Sixty-five percent believe it is appropriate to reallocate tax revenues to support schools in low-income areas.