Fast Report

• Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano has vetoed budget legislation that included several proposals to divert public money to private schools.

One measure would have allowed parents to get an annual voucher of up to $3,500 to send their children to private and religious schools up to grade 8 and $4,500 for high schools.

Other provisions included corporate tax credits to let children from poor families transfer to private schools and provide full-day kindergarten scholarships for private schools.

It’s not certain whether the pro-voucher legislators can get the two-thirds majority they need to override a veto.

House and Senate pass budget resolutions

• Both the House and Senate passed budget resolutions for fiscal year 2006 March 17. The House resolution would provide $91.98 billion in new budget authority for Function 500, which includes education, training, employment, and social services. The Senate resolution includes $91.85 billion for Function 500.

During the debate on the House resolution (H.Con. Res.95), the House rejected an amendment by Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.) to add $8 billion for education and related programs. The House also rejected an amendment by Rep. Mel Watt (D-N.C.) to provide an additional $36.3 billion for No Child Left Behind and other programs.

The Senate’s budget resolution (S.Con.Res.18) includes an amendment by Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) to increase education spending by $500 million. The Senate also approved an amendment by Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) to add $5.4 billion to education programs, including the restoration of several programs the Bush Administration wants to eliminate.

The President has proposed eliminating 48 education programs, including vocational education, education technology grants, and Safe and Drug-Free Schools.

NSBA has sent a letter to members of Congress urging support for “ensuring that education programs are a top priority in the budget and appropriations process for fiscal year 2006.”

Charter schools don’t have more poor pupils

• A study released by the Economic Policy institute (EPI) March 31 disputes the claim that charter schools serve mostly disadvantaged students.

Using data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the study challenges the notion that the lower academic performance of students in charter schools relative to their peers in regular public schools can be explained by socioeconomic differences in the students served.

“On average, the students attending charter schools are not more difficult to teach than students in comparable regular public schools,” says EPI President Lawrence Mishel, co-author of The Charter School Dust-Up: Examining the Evidence on Enrollment and Achievement, published by Teachers College Press.

EPI began the study last year after a heated controversy surrounding the initial release of NAEP data that seemed to show charter school students performed no better than regular public school students.

Many charter school supporters claimed the reason was because charter schools served a greater proportion of disadvantaged students. The popularity of the charter school movement has been tied to the expectation that freeing these schools from regulations would lead to higher student achievement.

EPI refutes that claim. For example, it shows that while charter schools enroll a higher percentage of black students than regular public schools, black students in charter schools are less likely to be eligible for lunch subsidies. Yet test scores for black students are not higher in charter schools than in regular public schools.

Science teachers face pressure on evolution

• Nearly a third (31 percent) of science teachers feel pressure to include creationism, intelligent design, or other nonscientific alternatives to evolution in their science classroom, according to a survey by the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA).

When asked about where the pressure is coming from, 22 percent of science teachers said students and 20 percent said parents. Thirty percent said they feel pressure to de-emphasize or omit evolution from their curriculum.

NSTA is encouraging science teachers to play a more vocal role in the dialogue on evolution.

Overemphasis on discipline charged

• School districts across the country have teamed up with law enforcement to create a “schoolhouse to jailhouse track” charges a Washington, D.C.-based group called Advancement Project, an advocate for racial justice.

The group says this is being done through a “double dose” of punishment -- suspensions or expulsions and a trip to the juvenile court -- for misconduct that often does not threaten school safety.

A report released in March, Education on Lockdown: The Schoolhouse to Jailhouse Track, documents the overuse of zero-tolerance school discipline policies and the growing reliance on police and juvenile courts as disciplinarians.