Education Week - February 18, 2015 - 20

Calif. Testing
Has Districts
Seeking Aid
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 14
send to the state. That case began in
2000 and was not settled by the Michigan
Supreme Court until 2010, when
the justices found in favor of plaintiff
Daniel Adair, a taxpayer, along with
several school districts. Three years
later, Mr. Adair and 465 districts filed
a new suit over the method and adequacy
of the additional state K-12
appropriation made in response to
the 2010 court ruling. Last December,
the state's highest court dismissed
the plaintiffs' latest suit.
However, such statutes and portions
of state constitutions aren't
limited to school districts, and it is
unclear how often districts seek such
remedies. For example, the website
for New Jersey's Council on Local
Mandates reports that its last opinion,
in response to a complaint by the
Allamuchy Township school board
over an anti-bullying law, was issued
in September 2011. The council reports
no pending cases.
And just because a state has a
law on the books regarding mandates
doesn't mean that schools are
automatically eligible to make such
claims. In Colorado, the constitution
says that K-12 education isn't
subject to requirements for state
mandates. In Louisiana, claims of
unfunded mandates can't be related
to the state's school funding
formula, or for school and district
accountability.
A Potentially Powerful Tool?
In addition to districts' fiscal concerns
about the short- and long-term
costs associated with testing, political
concerns could also drive new claims
of unfunded mandates, said Tom
Loveless, a senior fellow at the Brookings
Institution who has studied such
laws. District officials opposed to the
common core, for example, could
seize on such provisions as a tool in
the battle.
"They're out looking for ways of
stopping common core, and undermining
the implementation of the
common core," Mr. Loveless said. "I
think we might see some commoncore
opponents using these statutes
in the future to try to slow down implementation
of the common core or
undermine it."
Michael Griffith, a senior school
finance analyst with the Denverbased
Education Commission of the
States, noted that even if districts
were successful in their claims that
standardized assessments systems
represented unfunded mandates,
state legislators would likely respond
by shifting money around in
their K-12 budgets, but not actually
increasing their overall spending
levels on public schools. Districts
anticipating this general reaction,
he said, are therefore likely to decide
not to bother with mandate
claims.
"It's a real nebulous thing," Mr.
Griffith said. "You're just not going to
win if you're the locals."
Administration Lays Out Education-Aid Priorities
OBAMA'S 2016 SPENDING BLUEPRINT
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 14
offerings at the state level.
For the first time, the administration is not
asking for any new money for its hallmark
Race to the Top competition, which rewards
states and districts for adopting Mr. Obama's
K-12 priorities.
The elimination of the program is "an example
of the administration listening more to Congress
and understanding that the Race to the Top brand
has suffered tremendously in both parties," said
Erik Fatemi, vice president at Cornerstone Government
Affairs, a bipartisan lobbying group in
Washington, who until recently worked as an aide
to Democrats on the Senate panel that oversees
K-12 spending.
Instead, the president's budget seeks increases
for competitions that have been less
politically toxic, including $300 million for Investing
in Innovation, a $180 million increase;
$750 million for the Preschool Development
Grant program, a $500 million increase; and
$150 million for Promise Neighborhoods, a
$93 million increase.
New Programs
Federal grants for charter schools would see
more than $120 million in increased spending,
bringing total appropriations to $375 million,
in part to help replicate successful models. And
the administration is also seeking to expand
and revamp the Teacher Incentive Fund, which
provides grants to districts to create alternative-pay
programs. The budget request asks for
$350 million for a new version of the program
that could be used for broader systems to reward,
train, and help develop strong teachers
and principals.
And the budget request includes a new
$100 million competitive-grant program aimed
at helping districts make the best use of federal,
state, and local K-12 dollars to improve outcomes
for low-income students.
The administration also is seeking funding for
new education programs, including $60 billion
over the next decade to provide two years of free
community college.
The higher education plan is part of a big tax
package that would raise the top capital gains
tax, hike the amount of inherited money that's
subject to taxes, and impose new fees on financial
institutions.
Using the savings freed up by those tax
changes, the White House would cover the
cost of the community-college initiative, fund
a new technical education program, expand
eligibility for the existing American Opportunity
Tax Credit, and increase an existing tax
credit that low-income families receive for
child care.
The spending plan also includes a new K-12
program aimed at addressing barriers to success
for Native American youth. The $1 billion
Generation Indigenous program, a joint effort
by the Education Department and the Department
of the Interior, would funnel $125 million
into school maintenance and construction. It
also would boost funding for a host of programs
that support Native youths and education in
Indian Country.
Education advocates were predictably heartened
to see the president ignore the congressionally
mandated spending caps, and also to see
increased funding proposed for core education
programs like Title I and idea.
"The president's budget is always an important
message and tone-setter, and the fact that
right up front he recommits to the idea of getting
rid of the flawed policy of sequester, we
see this as a very positive development," said
Mary Kusler, the director of government relations
for the 3 million-member National Education
Association.
But Republican lawmakers criticized the pro20
| EDUCATION WEEK | February 18, 2015 | www.edweek.org
posal across the board.
"We need to address Washington's spending
problem and fix the federal government's $18
trillion debt, and the way to do it is by reducing
the growth of out-of-control entitlement spending,"
said Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., who
chairs both the Senate education committee and
the appropriations subcommittee that sets education
spending.
Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., the chairman of the
House education committee, agreed: "A budget
reflects priorities, and it's clear the president's
priorities continue to be more spending, more
taxes, and more government."
In the coming months, Mr. Duncan will head
to Capitol Hill to defend the president's request
before the appropriations committees in
the House and Senate, where he's sure to take
heat from gop lawmakers. Then the real work
begins as members of each chambers' appropriation
subcommittees try to draft and pass
their respective spending bills before sending
them to the chamber in time for final passage
and the president's signature by Oct. 1, the
end of the current fiscal year.
But with the exception of nominal increases
for programs like Title I, idea, and early education,
most advocates and analysts see it as
unlikely that much of Obama's budget request
comes to fruition.
"The administration clearly knows that most
of these ideas aren't going anywhere," said Anne
Hyslop, senior policy analyst at Bellwether Education
Partners. "They are sending the budget out
to the world that doesn't take into account the
spending caps and proposes some bold programs
that won't get any traction."
"
They are sending
the budget out to the
world that doesn't
take into account the
spending caps and
proposes some bold
programs that won't
get any traction."
ANNE HYSLOP
Bellwether Education Partners
US. Department of Agriculture
School Nutrition Programs
$21.3 billion
$21.5 billion
By ignoring spending caps put in place by Congress in 2011,
the president's fiscal 2016 budget request proposes some
major increases in education spending over what was
appropriated this year. Some highlights:
Fiscal
2015
U.S. Department of Education
Title I grants for districts
Special Education State Grants
School Improvement Grants
Teacher Quality State Grants
Preschool Development Grants
Career and Technical Education State Grants
21st Century Community Learning Fund
Impact Aid
Investing in Innovation
English-Learner Education
Promise Neighborhoods
TRIO Programs
Office for Civil Rights
TOTAL FUNDING
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Head Start
$14.4 billion
11.5 billion
505.8 million
2.3 billion
250 million
1.1 billion
1.2 billion
1.3 billion
120 million
737.4 million
56.8 million
839.8 million
100 million
$67.1 billion
Fiscal
2016 Proposal
$15.4 billion
11.7 billion
555.8 million
2.3 billion
750 million
1.3 billion
1.2 billion
1.3 billion
300 million
773.4 million
150 million
859.8 million
130 million
$70.7 billion
$8.6 billion
$10.1 billion
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Education Week - February 18, 2015

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