F.A.C.E. to FACE
F.A.C.E. BULLETIN
8/21/06
Dear Friends,
Thousands of New Scholarships Available for Low-Income K-12 Students
(More scholarships available! See bottom of Newsletter!)Start Spreading The News, Tell a Friend Today!
The 4th Annual Coalition of McKay Scholarship Schools Conference, September 18th - 19th at the Doubletree Hotel in Tampa.
Looks like one slipped by the Florida press! The Miami Herald, Scholarship program gets boost.
New mayor plots new era for Newark, USA TODAY.
Newark Mayor: New Black Leaders Must Innovate, NPR
SCHOOL CHOICE-With vouchers come new choices -- and markets, Miami Herald.
Students do better in private schools, researchers find, BLOOMBERG NEWS
MIAMI-DADE SCHOOLS-$6.1 billion Dade schools budget would set record.
You won't find, anywhere in the article, the per pupil spending amount, which is this:
$5,914,565,381
total spending
$2,306,928,076
less spending on construction
$221,051,762
less interest costs
$3,386,585,543
total operating costs
362,406
number of students
$9,344.73
per pupil spending
Value Added: Grant opportunities from the Department of Education
Thank you for Stepping Up For Students,
Michael A. Benjamin
Executive Director, F.A.C.E.
Florida Alliance for Choices in Education
The Coalition of McKay Scholarship Schools
Coalition Conference
The 4th Annual Coalition of McKay Scholarship Schools Conference will be filled with opportunities for your school with the varied program being offered.
You will be:
1) Meeting with legislators and sharing your concerns and ideas as well as listening to their perspectives on the future of the McKay Scholarship;
2) Participating in workshops aimed at helping your school develop even stronger programs for your students -
a) Building a Big Library on a Small Budget and Developing Enthusiastic Readers
b) Assisting your high school students in making the transition to post high school
c) Using and adapting on-line courses for your students (Florida Virtual School and the University of Miami On-line High School will be featured)
3) AND MORE
The 4th Annual Coalition of McKay Scholarship Schools Conference, September 18th - 19th at the Doubletree Hotel in Tampa. You may go to our website for registration forms. www.mckaycoalition.com
Copyright 2006 The Miami Herald
All Rights Reserved
The Miami Herald
August 3, 2006
Scholarship program gets boost
A five-year-old program that provides scholarships for children of low-income families to attend schools of their choice got a $1.5 million boost.
BYLINE: Miami Herald Staff Report
BODY: Students, parents and faculty of a local church school were on hand as Hardy Johnson, Florida president of Tarmac America, presented a check for $1.5 million to the Florida Corporate Tax Credit scholarship program's Step Up For Students initiative.
The Florida legislature created the CTC program in 2001 to offer more educational opportunities to low-income families by providing K-12 children with scholarships of up to $3,750 so they can attend schools of their choice, according to the program's website.
The program has raised more than $210 million for students across the state and currently serves more than 3,000 students in Miami-Dade.
The law allows corporations to direct up to 75 percent of their corporate state income tax liability every fiscal year to the program, with the state Department of Revenue giving the corporations a dollar-for-dollar tax credit for every dollar donated to the program which is capped at $88 million.
It is aimed at children from households whose income level falls within financial guidelines set by the National School Lunch Program -- $22,074 for a family of four.
The Tarmac check presentation took place July 25 at New Jerusalem Christian Academy, 777 NW 85th St., which several families have chosen for their children. Last year, 36 of the 111 students enrolled at the school got Step Up for Students scholarships.
''It is my privilege to announce that this contribution will enable an additional 400 disadvantaged children in South Florida to attend a school of their choice through the Step Up for Students program,'' Johnson said. ``We look forward to seeing all the good it will do to help more families who could not otherwise afford to find the educational opportunities that fit their unique needs.''
Tarmac America, which produces building materials and is part of the Titan America group, donated $700,000 to the program last year, according to a statement from the company's publicist.
John Kirtley, president of the Florida School Choice Fund and chairman of Florida PRIDE, the organization behind Step Up for Students, said the donation will go directly to scholarships.
During the presentation at New Jerusalem, guests heard also from Laura Jones, who said she was able to send three of her sons to private schools because of the Step Up for Students program.
Jones was joined by her mother, Annie Mae Carter, a former Miami-Dade public school teacher, who supported the idea of choosing schools that meet the individual needs of children.
Pauline Darling, executive administrator of New Jerusalem, welcomed the donation.
''On behalf of all the low-income families that will benefit from this contribution, my sincerest appreciation goes to Tarmac for their continued generosity and outstanding support of the Step Up for Students program,'' Darling said.
For more information on the program, log on to www.stepupforstudents.com.
LOAD-DATE: August 3, 2006
New mayor plots new era for Newark
Updated 7/31/2006 7:54 AM ET
By Charisse Jones, USA TODAY
NEWARK, N.J. -- It's close to midnight. A crowd is swelling at the Bradley Court housing project, scene of several recent shootings. The excitement is palpable.
Cory Booker, mayor of this long-troubled city of 280,000 for less than a month, is performing his weekly ritual of patrolling some of Newark's toughest neighborhoods. It's no ride-through.
Booker hits the concrete, competing with a boy to see who can do the most push-ups. Sweat soaks his T-shirt as he plays basketball with older youths. He leads a game of Simon Says and doles out cash prizes from his pocket.
"If you ask people when's the last time they saw the mayor or a council member, they can't tell you," Booker says. "I want people to know I'm with them in the fight."
Booker, 37, became Newark's first new mayor in 20 years on July 1. A Rhodes scholar who has degrees from Stanford and Yale Law School, Booker has been touted as a rising star in the Democratic Party. For now, he is staking his political fortunes on Newark's potential and progress.
"Imagine if in the next eight years we created in Newark a national model for urban transformation," he says. "That in itself is a phenomenal end, to get people to start believing that these things are possible again."
Booker is one of several new mayors who have been thrust onto the national stage, says Bruce Katz, director of the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.
"There is the re-emergence of a number of charismatic mayors," Katz says. "These mayors are really selling a message of inspiration and hope that contrasts fairly sharply with the partisan and ideological gridlock that I think permeates our political culture today."
Chronic distress
Newark has long been blighted and crime-ridden, languishing in the shadow of New York City. One-fourth of the city's families live below the poverty line. Newark's schools have been under state control since 1995. As of last Friday, 65 people have been killed in the city this year. The homicide rate is outpacing last year's, when 97 murders were recorded, the second highest in a decade.
Such problems linger even as Newark has become home to the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, a minor league baseball team, and starting July 17, a light-rail system that connects two transportation hubs.
"Newark has undoubtedly shown positive things," Booker says. "If you measure a renaissance by new buildings going up, heck, yeah, Newark's got a renaissance. If you measure it by the quality of life for a child, if you measure it by employment rates, overall poverty rate, graduation rates from high school, the more substantive measures ... we've shown no change."
Shortly after he took office, Booker outlined a sweeping agenda, making public safety his priority. He flooded 30 high-crime neighborhoods with police and initiated weekend activities such as concerts and block parties. He plans to help former inmates re-entering the community and have office hours for the public.
Booker meets with religious leaders one day and law enforcement officials the next, always carrying in his pocket a slip of paper with his mission statement for the city. His words tumble out in a rush. His youthful drive has sparked enthusiasm among many residents, although some fear that people may expect the impossible.
"Everybody is excited," says Father Edwin Leahy, headmaster of Newark's St. Benedict's, a well-known college preparatory school. That's "part of the problem. People think Mayor Booker is going to solve all the problems of urban America, and when he doesn't, then you'll get the skepticism."
'Wait-and-see attitude'
Others are more guarded. "There is some degree of caution because I think Newark has been through several transitions in the last 40 years," says Walter Fields, a political consultant and former political director of the New Jersey NAACP. "People will give him the benefit of the doubt but are taking a wait-and-see attitude."
Fields says Booker has shown commitment by living the past eight years in the Brick Towers, once a premier high-rise that fell into disrepair and was deemed unlivable by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. It is likely to be torn down.
"He's proven it wasn't a stunt," says Fields, who admits to initial skepticism. "I think people respect him for that, and he's made a commitment to his neighbors that it will continue to be his home until some of those issues are resolved."
Leahy, Fields and others say Booker's success will hinge partly working with factions of the local government and community.
"The interesting thing about Newark, compared to a Philadelphia or Baltimore, is because of its relatively small size ... if you can come to some critical mass of policy intervention, you might be able to solve some of these long-term problems," Fields says. "Despite all the great things people say about Cory Booker, one person alone can't change the city of Newark."
Some residents already have seen change they call meaningful.
"Just the fact he came out, he's bonded with the people," says Monica Seabrook, 34, a teacher's aide who lives in Bradley Court. "This is the first time I've ever seen a mayor come out."
After his basketball game, Booker takes a call on his cellphone. A police officer has been struck by a stolen car. The mayor plays a couple more games with the kids, then heads to the hospital. As he walks away, the crowd cheers.
Newark Mayor: New Black Leaders Must Innovate
\
Spencer Platt
Cory Booker campaigns for mayor in Newark, N.J., May 4, 2006. Getty Images
More in the Series
August 7, 2006
Juan Williams on African-American 'Victimhood'
Morning Edition, August 8, 2006 · Although he could afford more, Cory Booker, an Oxford and Yale-educated lawyer, chose to live in one of Newark's downtrodden neighborhoods. Booker, the recently elected mayor of Newark, N.J., lives in a public housing project with no hot water and no heat in the winter.
"It's a little challenging living," Booker tells Steve Inskeep. "But for me what is an inconvenience, to a lot of residents that live there it's [an] issue of life and death."
Booker notes that while the black middle-class has grown since the 1960s, African-Americans living in poverty haven't seen much improvement in their lives.
"We could all sit and talk about the historical causes for where we are, we can talk about the geopolitical causes, the massive shifts economically in our global economy. But, more productively, my question as the mayor of New Jersey's largest city and one of the majority African-American cities is, where do we go from here?"
Booker says his top goal is to tackle the city's soaring crime rate. One answer, he says, is halfway houses and other alternatives to incarceration. He says they can be very effective in reducing recidivism.
Booker says he's a member of the new generation of black political leaders that he hopes will be known for being dynamic innovators.
"The folks in my generation of political leaders, we owe it to the ones that came before us to change the culture, to adapt, to evolve, to reexamine," he says. "That's what we've been doing in the black community for generations in this nation, and that's what we're going to continue to do as we go forward."
Are African-Americans focusing too much on racism?
"I think you can't ignore racism. People who try to do it will undermine their ability to deal with the problems. We have to be an honest nation and be candid. There are real racial realities that we have to be honest and talk about. But we cannot let people use it as a way to divide us. It must be used in a way that unifies us around common principles."
Related NPR Stories
June 2, 2006
Cory Booker Wins Newark's 'Street Fight'
July 5, 2005
Hard Boiled New Jersey Politics: 'Street Fight'
May 11, 2002
SCHOOL CHOICE
With vouchers come new choices -- and markets
With taxpayer-funded vouchers and the explosion of charter schools, Gov. Jeb Bush created vast new choices for parents and vast new markets for education entrepreneurs.
BY MATTHEW I. PINZUR
mpinzur@MiamiHerald.comA generation ago, most parents had no say in where their children attended school. The answer, normally, was just up the road.
Aside from those who could afford private school, there was rarely an alternative to the neighborhood campus assigned by the district. The students and their parents were a captive audience, and the mammoth school system bureaucracy had little incentive to cater to their desires.
When Gov. Jeb Bush aimed to reinvent public education after his election in 1998, one of his first priorities was to shatter that model, prompting some of the fiercest political and legal fights in Florida's modern history.
Bush and his supporters said school choice embodied American's free-market values, forcing schools to address students' needs or lose them to competitors. Why, they asked, should private school be restricted to wealthy families?
''Public schools will never improve unless they have to compete for that [funding],'' said state Rep. Ralph Arza, R-Hialeah, who was often Bush's point man for carrying education reform through the Legislature.
Florida became the first state to introduce vouchers, allowing some students to take the tax dollars that would have gone to their neighborhood school and use that money at a private school.
SCHOLARSHIPS
The most prominent of the state's three voucher programs, the Opportunity Scholarships, was offered only to students whose neighborhood schools had received multiple F grades. The scholarships were never terribly popular -- only 733 students were using them when the program was struck down this year by the Florida Supreme Court as an unconstitutional use of public money.
But by that time, two other voucher programs -- including one that gives disabled students a wider choice in schools -- had enrolled nearly 30,000 students. Charter schools -- which allow cities and nonprofit groups to run schools with state funding -- have attracted more than 80,000.
Altogether, the voucher and charter programs use more than $400 million that would otherwise go to local school districts. Critics said Bush cravenly created a way for private companies to profit from education.
''This is a scheme he created for Florida to undermine the public school system,'' said Andy Ford, president of the Florida Education Association, a group of teachers unions.
But a voucher system was also widely accepted -- barely even challenged -- when it was used to implement Florida's universal voluntary prekindergarten program, which was created in a 2002 amendment to the state constitution.
Bush embraced the program, pushing for a longer day and tougher standards than were actually enacted, and parents were free to choose among a wide range of public and private schools.
Other choice programs have been routinely attacked for lack of oversight, both educational and financial. The largest voucher program, which gives corporations tax deductions in exchange for paying for poor children to attend private schools, was savaged when an Ocala man with a long criminal history was convicted of stealing more than $268,000 through a phony scholarship organization.
With the exception of the now-defunct Opportunity Scholarships, voucher students did not take the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, making it impossible to compare their performance with their peers in public school. Even with the Opportunity Scholarships, state officials hardly ever studied voucher pupils' performance.
''We didn't want to see the results of that study,'' said Jim Warford, who was Florida's chancellor for K-12 education from 2003 to 2005 and left over disagreements with Education Commissioner John Winn. ``We did poke around in that and frankly we didn't like what we saw.''
But Bush said the small number of participants in the program would have made any analysis statistically weak. Moreover, he said vouchers still reached their primary goal of forcing public schools to improve.
Charter schools settled into Florida's educational landscape with less furor and have spread quickly. Bush literally founded the movement in Florida -- after he was defeated in the 1994 governor's race, he helped open the state's first charter school in Liberty City.
More than 200 were active last school year, with more opening this fall. The typical charter has a slightly lower grade than district-run schools, but experts believe many of their students switched to charters because they had already struggled.
`TOO EASY'
''We made it too easy in Florida to get a charter, but what it did provide was a choice for parents, an alternative,'' Arza said. ``The quality of education might not be supremely better, but it might be an environment that they're pleased with.''
The charter and voucher movements also pressed school districts to offer their own choices. Magnet schools -- which draw from around the county into special themed programs -- largely began as part of federally mandated efforts to desegregate schools but expanded and flourished in Florida's atmosphere of choice. Many districts have also experimented with letting parents choose between numerous schools in their area.
''I feel parents are becoming more consumers in this education industry,'' said Jon Hage, president of Charter Schools USA, which manages 17 charters. ``If you only have one choice of school -- the one you're ZIP-coded into -- you're not going to take the time and effort to educate yourself about the school.''
But Bush's relentless push for vouchers and charters also permanently poisoned his relationship with some teachers unions and local school systems, which saw the movement as an attack.
Warford, who met with Bush regularly during his time as chancellor, said the administration never recovered from the enmity generated during those early fights. ''The objective was the paint the teachers union into a corner and make them look bad,'' said Warford, now the executive director of the Florida Association of School Administrators.
As a result, he said the Bush administration implemented its later reforms -- such as performance-based pay for teachers -- by force instead of compromise.
''Their idea of dialogue on this issue and most others is to call you into a room, tell you what they're going to do and call it dialogue,'' Warford said. ``If your only tool is a hammer, the whole world begins to look like a nail.''
© 2006 MiamiHerald.com and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.miami.com
Students do better in private schools, researchers find
Study counters federal report
BY PAUL BASKEN
BLOOMBERG NEWSAugust 3, 2006
A Harvard University study concluded that private schools perform better in 11 of 12 categories when compared with public schools, countering an Education Department report last month that suggested parity.
The study, led by Paul Peterson at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, used the original data from the report that the department's National Center for Education Statistics issued July 14 and "an improved methodology" for interpreting the data, Harvard said in a statement.
Peterson and colleague Elena Llaudet "identified a consistent, statistically significant private school advantage," Harvard said.
The Harvard study counters critics of the Bush administration, including teachers unions, who argued that the original study showed that instead of spending public money on private schools -- as supported by Education Secretary Margaret Spellings -- the government should give more money to public schools. Spellings was criticized for not paying more attention to the study.
Spellings "was nowhere to be seen or heard" when the education statistics center issued its findings July 14, Edward McElroy, president of the 1.3 million-member American Federation of Teachers, said in a July 19 statement.
Peterson's study is an attempt by a "full-fledged, unabashed voucher advocate" to undermine the center's conclusions, union spokeswoman Janet Bass said. "Don't be fooled by the Harvard halo," she said.
The center's study found that fourth- and eighth-grade public school students performed comparably with private school students in reading and math when variables such as income and race were factored out. It involved comparisons of 2003 test results from more than 5,000 public schools and more than 500 private schools.
The Harvard researchers, under their interpretation of the center's figures, found private schools performing better in 11 of 12 instances, including in eighth-grade reading and fourth-grade reading.
MIAMI-DADE SCHOOLS
$6.1 billion Dade schools budget would set record
New schools, more teachers and special programs for low- and high-performing students are part of the Miami-Dade school district's largest budget proposal ever.
By MATTHEW I. PINZUR
mpinzur@MiamiHerald.com$6.1 billion budget would set record
The largest budget in the history of the Miami-Dade school system is set for preliminary approval today, a $6.1 billion plan that includes unprecedented spending on construction, the hiring of 1,700 new teachers and millions in funding for Superintendent Rudy Crew's top-priority programs.
''This budget represents a new conversation for us,'' Crew said at a budget workshop last month.
The county's soaring land values fueled the boost, allowing the district to cut its tax rate while still increasing spending by 13.5 percent over last year. The school taxes for someone buying a typical Miami-Dade home would be about $1,424, or 14 percent higher than last year. Most homeowners, however, are protected by state laws that cap assessments for residents who stay in the same home. For them, the typical school-tax bill will drop about $7.
''We've had blockbuster years,'' said board member Evelyn Greer, a lawyer and real-estate developer.
The biggest spending spike in Crew's budget is for construction, part of the effort to relieve overcrowding and replace decrepit schools by the end of the decade. Nearly 30 schools will be built or undergo major overhauls at a cost of more than $600 million, and another $220 million is budgeted for improvements at existing campuses.
The budget also pays for 1,700 new teachers, many of whom are needed to meet the tightening demands of the state's class-size amendment. Beginning this year, each school must have average class sizes that comply with the amendment. Until now, the rule only applied to district-wide averages -- for instance, packed classrooms in fast-growing Kendall were compensated for in the underenrolled inner-city schools.
The question of how much to pay those teachers will likely be the most contentious issue when the board debates the budget this afternoon. Crew set aside $60 million for raises, but contract talks are still ongoing and the leader of the teachers union said far more money is necessary.
''This budget makes funding for qualified teachers a leftover,'' said Karen Aronowitz, president of United Teachers of Dade. ``We're not going to be the leftovers any longer.''
Board members want to move the starting teacher salary from its current $34,200 toward $40,000 over the next few years. There has also been pressure from other unions to adopt a living-wage rule for the district's lowest-paid staff, primarily cafeteria workers and bus aides.
''It's not inconceivable the $60 million could somehow or other be somewhat higher,'' said board member Solomon Stinson, one of three board members facing reelection this fall, who said he is unhappy with current salaries.
Another $20 million was set aside by the Legislature for a controversial new plan that will make part of a teacher's pay dependent on their students' performance on standardized tests. A similar program will be tested for administrators.
Salaries and benefits account for nearly 77 percent of the projected $3 billion operating budget, and Crew said he has cut the number of nonschool administrators by nearly 25 percent.
He plans to shuffle his administration this month to save another $5 million and said only ''marginal'' savings can be found by further cuts.
Many of Crew's priority projects are also funded in the budget, such as:
· More than $3 million to fund literacy training for teachers, who are increasingly called upon to improve students' reading while teaching math, science and social studies.
· More than $2 million to reform middle and senior high schools, where Crew wants to create career-themed academies for all students.
· About $1.7 million to expand gifted and Advanced Placement courses.
· About $19 million to fund the School Improvement Zone, an intensive-care plan for 39 long-struggling schools. Most of that money goes to paying teachers an extra 20 percent because the school day and school year are longer at those schools.
Many of Crew's comments in the budget proposal signal his growing frustration with education funding in Florida. South Florida is smarting from the 2004 change to the cost-of-living formula; the old version would have sent an additional $80 million to Miami-Dade.
''At risk for us is the continued solvency of the district,'' he said in the June budget meeting. ``The pot remains too thin to do the work of a major school system.''
MIAMIHERALD.COM: To read Matthew Pinzur's blog, Miami Gradebook: Inside South Florida Education, click on Today's Extras.
© 2006 MiamiHerald.com and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.miami.com
The following grant opportunity postings were made on the Grants.gov Find Opportunities service:
U.S. Department of Education
Literacy Information and Communication Regional Resource Centers (84.257T)
Grant
http://www.grants.gov/search/search.do?mode=VIEW&oppId=10473
Technology and Media Services for Individuals with Disabilities Steppingstones of Technology Innovation for Children with Disabilities (84.327A).
Modification 1
http://www.grants.gov/search/search.do?mode=VIEW&oppId=10528
Literacy Information and Communication Resource Collections (84.257S)
Grant
http://www.grants.gov/search/search.do?mode=VIEW&oppId=10532
8,000 New Scholarships Available
for Low-Income K-12 StudentsFlorida P.R.I.D.E. and Children First Florida, Florida Corporate Tax Credit scholarship funding organizations, will award approximately 8,000 new scholarships for the 2006-2007 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 $37,000 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 Florida Corporate Income Tax Credit scholarship program provides K-12 scholarships that currently allow over 14,000 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 49099
Jacksonville Beach, Florida 32240
(904) 247-6033 or (407) 702-2607
cforster@scholarshipfunding.org
Florida P.R.I.D.E. - Serving Tampa Bay, South Florida and Marion County
P.O. Box 1670
Tampa, Florida 33606
(800) 782-9140
info@floridapride.org
School Year 06 - 07 Income Eligibility Guidelines
Persons in Household
Annual Household Income
2
$24,420
3
$30,710
4
$37,000
5
$43,290
6
$49,580
7
$55,870
8
$62,160
9
$68,450
10
$74,740
11
$81,030
12
$87,320
13
$93,610
For each additional person, add
$6,290
Effective from June 1, 2006 to June 30, 2007
Florida Alliance for Choices in Education (F.A.C.E)
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