F.A.C.E. to FACE   F.A.C.E. BULLETIN 7/10/07     July 10, 2007 Dear Friends, Thousands of New Scholarships Available for Low-Income K-12 Students (More scholarships available! See bottom of Newsletter!) All who knew Rev. R. J. Hendley are saddened by the loss of this hero of children. He passed last week and he will be missed. We are praying for the Hendley family. I understand he had a beautiful service and over 3,000 people attended. Rev. Hendley touched so many lives and the school choice movement has lost one of its generals. He truly was a hero and I am glad to have called him friend. Think Tank Faults Vouchers For Disabled, The Tampa Tribune. Florida's McKay Program: A Response To Ed Sector from John Kirtley. Think Tank Faults Vouchers For Disabled, The Tampa Tribune. Trust Parents' Judgment, An editorial response from Victoria Henwood, a McKay parent. Expensive illiterates, Miami Herald Superior Court Judge Declares Scholarships For Disabled and Foster Children in Arizona are Constitutional, Institute for Justice reports. The Black Alliance for Educational Options (BAEO) Board of Directors has selected Gerard Robinson to serve as their next President. I know they went through a very rigorous search process and that they are quite pleased that Gerard has agreed to assume this position. He will begin his duties on August 20, 2007. The Tallahassee rally video is up! Go <http://www.youtube.com/flacetampa> Thank you for Stepping Up For Students, Michael A. Benjamin Executive Director, F.A.C.E. Florida Alliance for Choices in Education Pastor grew congregation started Christian school By William Cooper Jr. Palm Beach Post Staff Writer Tuesday, July 03, 2007 RIVIERA BEACH - By all accounts, Elder R.J. Hendley Jr. had a knack for turning small things into something big. He did it as the pastor of Greater Bethel Primitive Baptist Church and as founder of the private Christian school that bears his name. On Monday, Elder Hendley died of prostate cancer. He was 77. In 1966, Elder Hendley took Greater Bethel, a fledging church of 38 and developed it into a community anchor of 800-plus members. Under Primitive Baptist doctrine, a minister is referred to as an elder. He used the church's after-school tutorial program to launch the R.J. Hendley Christian Education Center. The school began in 1982 with 17 students and three staff members. Today, it boasts an enrollment of nearly 500 students and is a fixture in Palm Beach County. Elder Hendley's son, Dr. Leon Hendley, said his father's compassion for children and his desire to see them learn in a Christian environment helped prompt him to start the school. The school covers kindergarten to 12th grade. "He had a love for kids and always wanted to see them get the right type of discipline and continue to have Christ in their life," said the 51-year-old Vero Beach cardiologist. In 1997, Elder Hendley was confronted by a former student who tried to rob the school. The youngster pointed a shotgun at secretaries and yelled, "Where's the money?" "I told him to put that thing away before he got into serious trouble," Elder Hendley told The Palm Beach Post at the time. The young robber was caught with an unloaded shotgun and eventually confessed. He had stolen $3. Elder Hendley's ministry went beyond the church and school. He was an ecumenical pastor, serving in various ministerial and community organizations. He served as moderator from 1990 to 2004 of the East Florida Primitive Baptist Association, overseeing all Primitive Baptist Churches from Key West to Jacksonville. In 1996, he served as a torch bearer for Palm Beach County as part of the Olympic celebration. From time to time, his voice was heard at city hall, fighting on such issues as services for the needy and maintaining the Rivera Beach Police Department. "His involvement wasn't limited to the just the pulpit," said the Rev. Herman McCray, a community activist and assistant pastor at Greater Bethel. When it came to preaching, Elder Hendley taught strictly from the Bible and rarely used an outline, McCray said. His sermons were laced with humor and yet he preached with the passion characteristic of great black orators. "He wasn't a college graduate, but his words were profound," McCray said. "Every now and then, he'd do like the old Baptist preachers and kick his leg up." Elder Hendley is survived by his wife, Mae Thelma, and six children as well as grandchildren and great-grandchildren. His funeral will be at 11 a.m. Saturday at Christ Fellowship, 5343 Northlake Blvd. ORIGINAL ARTICLE Think Tank Faults Vouchers For Disabled By MARILYN BROWN The Tampa Tribune Published: Jun 27, 2007 TBO.com Site Search | Tribune archive from 1990 TAMPA - Another pillar of former Gov. Jeb Bush's educational reforms - McKay Scholarships - took a jab in a study released Tuesday. Florida's largest voucher program, using taxpayer money to pay private school tuition for students with disabilities, lacks accountability and offers no proof that it helps children, the study from Education Sector says. That's to be expected for a system faulted for its lack of accountability since soon after the Legislature created it in 1999, Education Sector's Andy Rotherham said. "The big surprise is that problems that have been recognized in the past still persist," Rotherham said. Education Sector is an independent education think tank in Washington. The McKay study was funded by the Annie C. Casey Foundation, based in Baltimore and supporting issues involving children and families. The full report is available at www .educationsector.org. Florida taxpayers have paid private schools more than $340 million since 2002-03 for McKay students, records show. The schools still have no requirements for curriculum, testing or teacher certification. McKay was chosen for the Education Sector study because other states are starting or considering similar programs, Rotherham said. "McKay is basically the model and also the largest," he said. "States more often than not repeat the mistakes other states make." The report questions support of the McKay program in parent surveys, saying parents are likely to opt for McKay Scholarships if they are unhappy with services they receive in public schools. The vouchers also create an incentive for parents to seek a special education diagnosis to get a voucher, the report says. State Education Department spokeswoman Jenifer Fennell referred to reports showing high parental satisfaction with the McKay program, stressing that parents make the choice to transfer from public school. Media reports questioning voucher payments under the program led to state audits in 2003. Locally, Sago Palm Educational Academy in Tampa lost funding for its 10 McKay students after the building's owner was accused of financial misconduct. Starting this year, schools in the McKay program must conduct employee background checks and make student files available to auditors, the report notes, but information on student outcomes and absence of quality controls are "significant flaws." "It is virtually impossible to say whether special-needs children using McKay vouchers to attend private schools are faring better, worse, or about the same as they had in their old public schools," the report concludes. Among recommendations in the report: *Require private schools in the McKay program to administer state assessments and publicly report results. *Provide a statewide database of accurate information for parents, including test scores and staff qualifications. *Create an ombudsman for parent complaints and to protect public money. *Expand school choices for students with disabilities. McKay scholarships are available to families of any child with a disability who transfers from public to private school. The state's February report showed 17,884 students, with nearly $89 million in payments going to schools. That will increase when this month's report is completed. Florida has had three other voucher programs: *The original opportunity scholarships that allowed students from chronic F-graded public schools to attend private schools with public money. The private school aspect was declared unconstitutional by the state Supreme Court in January 2006, and no new students have been added. *A corporate scholarship program that allows corporations to divert state income taxes to buy scholarships for children from low-income families. About 17,000 students use the scholarships, each worth up to $3,750 a year. Schools submit audits and report achievement test results, although students need not take the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test required for public schools. *The taxpayer-funded voluntary prekindergarten program, which pays about $2,500 per child to mostly private and faith-based schools during the regular school year. Little accountability is required, which draws criticism. Public schools offer a summer alternative with certified teachers. The push to send public tax dollars to private education was a central part of education reform under Bush. Another is the state's school grading system, recently marred by inflated 2006 third-grade reading scores that have complicated this year's report card on schools. School grades due out in mid-June have not been released. EDITORIAL RESPONSE Florida's McKay Program: A Response To Ed Sector I read with interest the Education Sector report on Florida's McKay Scholarship program, "Information Underload: Florida's Flawed Special Ed Voucher Program." I commend the writers for stating that parents of special education children have long received no benefit from their "legal rights" under the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act. They correctly point out that only the wealthy and the connected have the ability to challenge the public system and find a better school for their children. I also commend the writers for showing that the McKay program busts two other common myths perpetuated by opponents to parental choice. There is no "creaming" of only the best special needs students. And over 800 Florida private schools have responded in just a few years to serve special needs children. Before such programs are created, opponents claim that private schools will never serve these children. The writer's main complaint is that children attending private schools do not have to take the FCAT, the state assessment given to children in Florida public schools. Further, they claim that the program is seriously flawed because the parents and the public (that is, the Florida taxpayers), don't have the ability to track the learning gains of the program overall, or the learning gains at individual schools serving McKay children. The writers omit this crucial fact: the public schools don't publish the learning gains of these students either! The Florida Department of Education does a very admirable job of publishing statistics on the percentage of all special needs kids at some public schools reading and writing at grade level. However, at many schools even this information isn't available. For example, on the DOE website 73 of 253 Dade County elementary schools have no information at all about the performance of special needs children. The website explains that public schools with less than 30 children in this category don't have to report that information. Thirty of those schools had more than 20 special needs children. Over 600 of the 800 private schools serving McKay children serve less than 30 scholarship children. Taking snapshots of students at grade level at a school isn't measuring learning gains. The writers are very upset that they can't track learning gains of McKay students at private schools, but they can't track them at the public schools either. Would such information on a statewide, district or school level even be useful to special needs parents who are unhappy with their own child's performance? Even the schools that give you a snapshot of the percent of special needs kids at grade level understandably don't break out categories of disability, or even by grade. Imagine you have a child with ADD or Aspergers' who is struggling in school. Would it be useful to you to know that 40% of special needs children of all disabilities in all grades at the school read at grade level? I doubt that the many special needs parents we have worked with would think so. They care about how well a school, whether public or private, is meeting the needs of their own child, not a large group as a whole. The FCAT is a test designed to measure proficiency in a very specific curriculum used in the public schools, the Sunshine State Standards. It is an excellent curriculum. But it's not the only effective one-and certainly not the only one useful for teaching special needs children. According to a survey done by the Coalition of McKay Scholarship Schools, over 90% of schools serving McKay children already administer a nationally recognized standardized test like the Stanford 10 or the Iowa Basic Skills. Would requiring McKay children by law to take such tests (which they already administer) be enough for these critics? Why is the FCAT the only test that can measure the progress of these students? The issue the report raises is one worth serious discussion. How do we help parents of special needs children get more information about school performance as it relates to their own child's specific problems? But by totally ignoring the fact that parents don't have that information about public schools, the writers reveal their bias against parental choice. This orientation surfaces in other ways, perhaps most revealingly so in this quote: "School choice works best when parents have access to accurate, comparable information...but even then, parents sometimes insist on choosing poor quality schools." So even if parents had the information the writers desire, parental choice is a bad idea because parents sometimes don't make good decisions. They need someone smart to make them for them. I presume they mean just poor parents, but I shouldn't make that assumption-maybe they believe parents at all income levels have this problem. And heaven help them if they make a bad choice, because "Parents who become dissatisfied with a private school's special education program after enrolling....have little recourse other than to pull their child out of that school." And, they forgot to mention, they can take the scholarship to another private school of their choice or put their child back in public school. Sounds pretty good to me-what other remedy do the writers want for the parents? The service the report does by raising the information issue is further denigrated by arguments so silly that they should have been omitted. They claim there is a "perverse incentive" for parents to try to get their children classified as special needs in order to get the McKay Scholarship-but the public school districts completely control the classification! They cite as evidence of this "gaming" by parents the fact that 10.4% of McKay kids are ADD and ADHD, vs. 4.2% of public school special needs kids. But a more logical explanation is simply that children at these lower disability levels have more readily available options to use with the scholarship. They miss the point on the real perverse incentive that has long existed-for public school districts to quickly classify minority children as special needs. There are both financial and operational incentives to do so. The writers worry that the McKay program will incentivize districts not to classify kids as special needs, which could hurt them. So which is it-are kids being over classified by "gaming" parents, or under classified by the districts afraid of losing students? One of their final recommendations in the report: "Don't tolerate schools that fail to serve students." Do they have the courage of their own convictions? Will they apply that standard to all schools, public and private? Our examination of Dade County alone yielded many public schools with grade level proficiency for special needs children of less than 15%. Do the authors want these public schools shut down or ineligible to receive taxpayer funds for special education? Is that really the right way to judge if progress is being made with these students? The truth is, even those public schools are working for some children. There are teachers at these schools making heroic efforts to help special needs children. But despite these efforts some students will not be served well by them. It's not a matter of blame or fault. It's just ludicrous to expect a "one size fits all" solution to work in a district like Dade where children speak over 100 languages and have such diverse learning challenges. What we need to improve outcomes in special education is uniformity of parental power, not uniformity of schools. Give parents the power to choose the right school for their kids. Yes, help them get information, but also trust them to make the right decisions for their own children. The McKay Scholarship program does just that. Trust Parents' Judgment Published: Jun 29, 2007 TBO.com Site Search | Tribune archive from 1990 Regarding "Think Tank Faults Vouchers For Disabled" (Metro, June 27): The main complaint of the report on the McKay Scholarship study is that the state does not track the learning gains of these children. My son takes a standardized exam every year to monitor his progress. How can the program be criticized for not tracking the learning gains of these special education students when the public schools do a fragmented job of tracking them? My child has been on a McKay Scholarship for two years. I work with my son each day and I work closely with his teacher. I know firsthand that he has improved both academically and socially. This program has given my child a new outlook on life - a more positive attitude in and out of the classroom. He now has opportunities ahead of him that he would not have been able to consider without the intervention of this scholarship program. There is no better judge of a child's progress than his or her own parents. You must learn to trust our judgment. VICTORIA HENWOOD Brandon Posted on Thu, Jul. 05, 2007 Miami Herald online Expensive illiterates BY RICHARD COHEN The eight Democratic presidential candidates assembled in Washington last week for another of their debates and talked, among other things, about public education. They all essentially agreed that it was underfunded -- one system ''for the wealthy, one for everybody else,'' as John Edwards put it. Then they all got into cars and drove through a city where teachers are relatively well paid, per pupil spending is through the roof and -- pay attention here -- the schools are among the very worst in the nation. When it comes to education, Democrats are uneducable. One candidate after another lambasted President Bush, the Republican Party and, of course, the evil justices of the Supreme Court. But not a one of them even whispered a mild word of outrage about a public school system that spends $13,000 per child -- third highest among big-city school systems -- and produces pupils who score among the lowest in just about any category you can name. The only area in which the Washington school system is No. 1 is in money spent on administration. Chests should not swell with pride. The litany of more and more when it comes to money often has little to do with what, in the military, are called facts on the ground: kids and parents. It does have a lot to do with teachers unions, which are strong supporters of the Democratic Party. Not a single candidate offered anything remotely close to a call for real reform. Instead, a member of the audience could reasonably conclude that if only more money was allocated to these woe-is-me school systems, things would right themselves overnight. Only one candidate, Barack Obama, suggested that maybe money was not all that was lacking when it comes to educating America's poor and minority children. Parents had a role to play, too. ''It is absolutely critical for us to recognize that there are going to be responsibilities on the part of African American and other groups to take personal responsibility to rise up out of the problems we face,'' he said. What? It's just not a question of funding? Obama has said this sort of thing before. In March, in one of his first major speeches as a presidential candidate, he struck just the right balance -- not just more money, but more personal responsibility, too: ``Even as I fight on behalf of more education funding . . . I have to also say that if parents don't turn off the television set when the child comes home from school and make sure they sit down and do their homework and go talk to the teachers and find out how they're doing. . . . I don't know who taught them that reading and writing and conjugating your verbs was something white.'' I suppose it is easier for Obama to say these things because he is black and impervious to charges of racism. But black or white, white or black, Hispanic or Asian American or whatever, kids are kids. We're talking about lives that could be salvaged and made productive and rich. The problem no longer is just underfunding or racial segregation, it is something else -- and we all know it. Yet, when the Supreme Court ruled last week that in most cases race could no longer be taken into account to achieve classroom diversity, the groans from the Democratic candidates suggested that something of great and tragic consequence had occurred. Jim Crow was at the schoolhouse door. The reality, though, is that the court decision has almost no application to the big-city school systems we worry so much about. Most of these systems are overwhelmingly black or Hispanic. Washington has about 65,000 black students and about 3,500 whites; Los Angeles has about one million Hispanic students and 285,000 whites; Philadelphia has about 180,00 nonwhite students and 30,000 whites. New York's borough of the Bronx has about 200,000 black or Hispanic students and nearly as many Asian/Pacific Islanders as whites (9,000). ''I can't do racial balancing,'' Joel Klein, New York City's innovative schools chancellor, told me. To him, it's a distant dream. In so far as the Democratic presidential candidates talked about public school education and in so far as they mentioned the Supreme Court decision, they largely mouthed Democratic orthodoxy. This must have sounded reassuring to big-city education unions and politicians with a gift for exacerbating racial paranoia. But to the kid in the classroom, to a parent bucking the bureaucracy, the rhetoric must have sounded as unreal as the hot air that comes from Baghdad's Green Zone -- a ''surge'' of money instead of men or, as we used to say, throwing good money after bad. Institute for Justice 901 N. Glebe Road Suite 900 Arlington, VA 22203 (703) 682-9320 FAX: (703) 682-9321 Home Page: WWW.IJ.org FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: CONTACT: Lisa Knepper, (703) 682-9320 June 13, 2007 Tim Keller, (480) 557-8300 Another Victory for School Choice: Superior Court Judge Declares Scholarships For Disabled and Foster Children are Constitutional Arlington, Va.-In yet another victory for school choice in Arizona, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Bethany Hicks today ruled that the state's school choice programs for special needs and foster children are constitutional. The Institute for Justice and its Arizona Chapter represent six families who intervened in the case to defend the new scholarship programs. "This is the fifth lawsuit that school choice opponents have filed against educational aid programs designed to help Arizona schoolchildren most in need, and it is the fifth time that courts have sided with kids," said Tim Keller, executive director of the Institute for Justice Arizona Chapter. "It is time for opponents of genuine education reform to get the message and stop these frivolous legal battles. All our clients want is a good education that meets their children's unique needs." The Arizona Education Association, the ACLU Foundation of Arizona, and the People for the American Way, among other groups, filed suit against the programs in February, alleging they violate the state Constitution's Blaine Amendments and its educational provisions. School choice opponents had asked the Arizona Supreme Court to take the case in November 2006, without it going to the trial and appellate courts, but the Supreme Court declined that request in January, forcing opponents to re-file in the Maricopa County Superior Court. Relying on U.S. Supreme Court and Arizona Supreme Court precedent, including 1999's Kotterman v. Killian case upholding Arizona's first tax credit scholarships program, Judge Hicks rejected opponents' claims that the new scholarship programs violate the state Constitution's Blaine Amendments and its education guarantee. "This is a complete vindication of vouchers in Arizona in the face of persistent and relentless legal attacks by those who prefer the educational status quo," said Chip Mellor, IJ's president and general counsel. "That yet another court rejected the favorite legal claims of school choice opponents should give heart to proponents of equal educational opportunity nationwide." IJ, the nation's leading legal advocate for school choice, is currently defending Arizona's corporate and individual tax credit scholarships and helped secure the Kotterman victory for school choice. The Institute also helped win a victory in the U.S. Supreme Court for school choice in Cleveland, and successfully defended vouchers in Milwaukee and tax credits in Illinois. 5,000 New Scholarships Available for Low-Income K-12 Students The Step Up For Students scholarship program, administered through Florida P.R.I.D.E. and Children First Florida--Florida Corporate Tax Credit (CTC) scholarship funding organizations, will award approximately 5,000 new scholarships for the 2007-2008 school year to Kindergarten through 12th grade students who qualify for the Federal Free and Reduced Lunch Program. Applicants must be currently enrolled in a public school, unless they are entering kindergarten or first grade. Those who qualify may receive up to a $3,750 scholarship for tuition at an eligible private school of their choice or a scholarship for up to $500 for travel expenses to an out-of-district public school. The scholarships provide a fresh start for students who are not succeeding in their current school setting. This year, $70 million in scholarships will be awarded to qualifying Florida students until funding is exhausted so applicants are encouraged to apply as soon as possible. Income limits for scholarship recipients are determined by household size. For example, a family of four can earn no more than $38,203 to qualify. To apply, log on to www.floridapride.org or call (813) 258-2700 for Florida Pride and www.scholarshipfunding.org or call (904) 247-6033 or (407) 702-2607 for a Children First Florida application. The Step Up For Students (Corporate Income Tax Credit) scholarship program provides K-12 scholarships that currently allow almost 17,000 low-income Florida students to attend an eligible private school or out-of-district public school. One hundred percent of corporate contributions go directly to funding scholarships – not a single penny can be used for administrative costs. Children First Florida - Serving Orlando, Central Florida, Jacksonville and Panhandle P.O. Box 54367 Jacksonville, Florida 32216 (904) 247-6033 or (407) 702-2607 cforster@scholarshipfunding.org Alachua, Baker, Bay, Bradford, Brevard, Calhoun, Clay, Columbia, Duval, Escambia, Flagler, Franklin, Gadsden, Gilchrist, Gulf, Hamilton, Holmes, Indian River, Jackson, Jefferson, Lafayette, Lake, Leon, Liberty, Madison, Martin, Nassau, Okaloosa, Okeechobee, Orange, Osceola, Putnam, Santa Rosa, St. Johns, Seminole, St. Lucie, Suwannee, Taylor, Union, Volusia, Wakulla, Walton, and Washington   School Year 07 - 08 Income Eligibility Guidelines Persons in Household New & Add-Ons (185%) Renewals (200%) 2 $25,327 $27,380 3 $31,765 $34,340 4 $38,203 $41,300 5 $44,641 $48,260 6 $51,079 $55,220 7 $57,517 $62,140 8 $63,955 $69,140 9 $70,393 $76,100 10 $76,831 $83,060 11 $83,269 $90,020 12 $89,707 $96,980 13 $96,145 $103,940       For each additional person, add $6,438 $6,960       Effective from June 1, 2007 to June 30, 2008

 

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