West Virginia is ground zero for the battle for broad Educational Savings Accounts in America

One of the broadest Educational Savings Accounts (ESA) in the nation is set to go into effect on Aug. 15 in West Virginia. The program stipulates $4,600 to West Virginia students that leave the public school system for either private schools or homeschooling. Any unused funds in the account can be rolled over to the next school year or used for postsecondary expenses.

But to qualify for the scholarship, a student must first have been enrolled in a West Virginia public school. Regarding a student currently in a private school and being homeschooled the “student could become eligible by enrolling full time and attending a public elementary or secondary school program in this state for at least 45 calendar days at the time of application.”

Meaning, unless they immediately enroll in public school, the roughly 14,000 West Virginia students who are enrolled in private school or the more than 30,000 who are homeschooling will be ineligible for the scholarships. The exact number is not quite clear as the reporting requirements for homeschooling in West Virginia has recently changed.

That said, all students would become eligible for the Hope Scholarship in 2026 if less than 5 percent of students statewide are enrolled in the program in 2024.

While the West Virginia Hope Scholarship is a major step in the right direction, and an excellent initiative for parents skeptical of their current student’s public school, excluding the families who have already chosen alternative education is not an ideal launch for a program. It also is unfortunate for parents of older children who will have little time ahead to use the money as opposed to a new kindergartner. The state should open the program to all students immediately, but with its expected cost, there may be a lack of funding and an unwillingness to reallocate other funding. This is unfortunate.

Out of the roughly 266,000 K-12 students in West Virginia, 90 percent will be eligible to receive funding to help pay for tuition, curriculum, tutoring, therapy, and other educational expenses in lieu of public school.

West Virginia’s Hope Scholarship Program, established by House Bill 2013, became law on June 15, 2021. Students started enrolling earlier this year on March 1 for an initial fund distribution on Aug. 15, 2022. “The Hope Scholarship Program is an education savings account (ESA) program that will allow parents and families to utilize the state portion of their education funding to tailor an individualized learning experience that works best for them” according to the Hope Scholarship website.

The program has its own fund created and managed by the State Treasury. A parental agreement must be signed prior to a student receiving assistance. Additionally, the funds will only made available through a dashboard in which educational expenses can be paid. No direct checks shall be issued.

The Hope Scholarship is an unexpected legislative victory in a state with a very powerful teacher’s union. West Virginia Education Association President Dale Lee opposed the measure and gave the state legislature an F in public schools. This is at odds with the 64 percent of adults and 73 percent school parents in West Virginia who support Educations Savings Accounts.

The Hope Scholarships are just one of the multi-year, bitter battles that have been fought between West Virginia State legislators and the union. On Feb. 22, 2018, around 20,000 West Virginia teachers went on strike for 9 consecutive days. Public schools in all 55 West Virginia Counties were closed. The legislature then conceded gave teachers a 5 percent pay raise.

Many on the left considered this a major victory for organized labor and the birth of the Red for Ed movement where teachers went on strike in Republican held states across the country.

Less than one year later, West Virginia teacher went on strike again, citing being left out of discussions of a complicated piece of education legislation in the Virginia Senate. The bill would have allowed for the creation of 7 charter schools throughout the state and 1,000 educational savings accounts for parents to pay for private school. The House killed the Senate’s version of the bill and educators returned to work on Thursday. This was after the teachers demanded a second 5 percent pay raise in two years.

Fast forward back to 2021 and the West Virginia Senate passed a bill that illegalized work stoppages by public employees and called for withheld pay for any days missed. The House also passed its version of the bill, and it was signed into law.

Now, three West Virginia parents are suing state officials and seeking a judgement and injunction against the Hope Scholarship program. The plaintiffs argue that the program creation was the result of the Legislature exceeding or frustrating the West Virginia Constitutional obligation to public education being upheld as public right. This argument may not hold up in court as the West Virginia Constitution grants the legislature the power to determine what is thorough and efficient for public schools, not the courts.

While it’s unknown how this will end in West Virginia, the fight over education between red legislatures and blue teacher unions is only intensifying. West Virginia’s Hope Scholarship school choice move may encourage other states to take notice and let parents decide what education is best for their children.

https://dailytorch.com/2022/04/west-virginia-is-ground-zero-for-the-battle-for-broad-educational-savings-accounts-in-america/

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More Pandemic Fallout: The Chronically Absent Student

At one middle school, more than 40 percent of the students have been chronically absent this year. Districts are going to great lengths — offering gift cards, night classes — to reach them.

Schools across the country have seen a rise in chronic absenteeism, often defined as missing 10 percent of the days in a school year.

After the coronavirus pandemic pushed his classes online in the spring of 2020, Isaac Mosley, now 18, got used to spending his time outside of school.

Isaac, a public school student in Waco, Texas, finished his sophomore year remotely. During his junior year, he worked at a lumber company, where he discovered that he could still be counted as present at school if he carved out some time to check in online.

When he became a senior last fall, his high school fully resumed in-person learning. But Isaac kept working, earning money to support himself and his family while racking up dozens of missed school days and hundreds of missed classes.

Isaac is one of millions of public school students across the United States who are considered chronically absent — often defined as missing 10 percent of the days in a school year, whether the absences are excused or not.

“Chronic absence has skyrocketed” during the pandemic, said Hedy Chang, the director of Attendance Works, a national group that promotes solutions to chronic absenteeism, which has been linked to weaker academic performance and can predict whether a student is more likely to drop out before finishing high school.

Rates of absenteeism can be hard to compare nationally because schools do not report the data in the same way, nor on the same timetable. But according to a December report from the consulting firm McKinsey & Company, which defined chronic absenteeism as missing 15 school days per year, the percentage of students who were on track to be chronically absent was about 22 percent — more than double the rate of chronically absent students before the pandemic.

“While absenteeism rates for high-income students are leveling off, rates for low-income students have continued to worsen since the spring,” the report added.

“What we know,” Dr. Chang said, “is that chronic absence is exacerbating existing inequities.”

For school districts, attendance is a knotty problem. Showing up to class is fundamental to learning, but schools have little control over absences and solving the problem is not easy. Chronic absenteeism can stem from a variety of issues including instability at home, work obligations or illness.

Now, unsettled by the continuing shock waves of a pandemic, even more students appear to be falling through the cracks. And district employees — stretched increasingly thin by understaffing and absences of their own — are grasping for creative ways to lure students back.

Some are offering night classes. Others are giving gift cards for groceries. At least one has eaten insects.

When McDonough Middle School in Hartford, Conn., held a pep rally to encourage student attendance last month, about 16 percent of the school’s students were marked absent. That meant 51 children missed their chance to see the basketball free-throw contest in the gymnasium and the spirited dance-off between two sixth-grade teachers.

Still, it was not a bad turnout for a district where more than 40 percent of the students have been chronically absent this year.

In Connecticut, state data shows that chronic absenteeism soared during the pandemic, especially for Black, Latino and Native American students. This year in Hartford, where children of color make up a vast majority of the student body, the pandemic has disrupted years of effort to push that figure down, said Leslie Torres-Rodriguez, the superintendent of Hartford Public Schools.

“You feel that in the hallways,” she said. “You hear teachers saying to students: ‘I’ve missed you. Where have you been?’”

The district collected data on students’ reasons for absences and found that the most common included illnesses and quarantines, whether Covid-related or not; transportation difficulties, sometimes exacerbated by safety concerns or bad weather; suspensions over students’ behavior; and appointments outside of school, for example with doctors or social workers.

“We look at the barriers,” said Marjorie Rice, the principal of McDonough. “What we can remove, we remove.”

That work falls not only to teachers and administrators, but also to teams of district employees with tongue-twister titles like Student Engagement Specialist, or S.E.S., Family and Community Support Service Provider, or F.C.S.S.P., and Pupil Personnel Worker, or P.P.W.

Michelle Martinez, an F.C.S.S.P. at McDonough, said parents regularly called and texted her for help with everything from food to shelter to transportation.

She works with students, too, and has performed eye-popping antics at pep rallies in order to encourage attendance. Last year, Ms. Martinez ate a chocolate-covered cricket. This year, she ate a salted one.

The stunts were worth it, she said, if they brought more children to school.

“With attendance not being where we want it to be, we have to go that extra step,” said Ashley Jackson, an S.E.S. who often leads the pep rallies. She added, “They know, at the end of the month, if I have perfect attendance, I get to see Ms. Martinez eat a bug.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/20/us/school-absence-attendance-rate-covid.html

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A Critical Look at Critical Race Theory in America’s Classrooms

A growing number of states are acknowledging that parents—not schools or teachers—are their children's primary guidance counselors, especially with respect to sexual orientation or gender identity issues. (Photo illustration: ajr_images/ IStock/Getty Images)

Florida has been the center of national attention for weeks over its new Parental Rights in Education law, but it’s not alone: Across the country, state lawmakers are introducing similar legislation.

Florida’s law—inaccurately dubbed “the Don’t Say Gay law” by opponents—prohibits “classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity” to children in kindergarten through third grade or in a manner that isn’t age appropriate according to state standards.

A report by The Heritage Foundation says that other states are responding to parent dissatisfaction by increasing classroom transparency and asserting parents’ rights as decision-makers for their children. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)

“Lawmakers around the country are considering parents’ bills of rights that affirm that parents are their children’s primary caregivers, prevent schools from compelling students to affirm ideas that violate the Civil Rights Act of 1964, require schools to receive parental permission before administering health services to children, and authorize parents to view the list of books and instructional materials for K–12 classrooms,” the Heritage report reads.

In recent months, these five states—among others—have taken action to limit discussion of gender ideology in the classroom and to protect parents’ rights in K-12 education.

1. Alabama
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican, on April 8 signed into law a bill that goes further than Florida’s. It prohibits classroom instruction to children in kindergarten through fifth grade on gender identity or sexual orientation.

The new Alabama law also limits who may use which multiple-occupancy restrooms, locker rooms, changing rooms, and shower facilities in K-12 public schools, “based on their biological sex.”

2. Ohio
As with Florida’s law, legislators in Ohio proposed a bill April 4 to prohibit teachers from instructing children from kindergarten through grade three on sexual orientation and gender identity.

The bill also would require any instructional materials used in grades four through 12 to be “age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.”

The Legislature has not yet voted on the bill. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, has not yet indicated his position.

3. Kansas
In March, the Kansas state Senate approved SB 496, which aims to create a parents’ bill of rights.

The bill states, in part, that “a parent shall have the right to play a central role in a child’s education, to obtain critical information about what is being taught or provided in the classroom and to take action when a parent feels that the quality or content of a child’s education does not align with the values and expectations the parent expects and deserves.”

If the bill becomes law, Kansas parents will be able to inspect any classroom materials, such as lessons, curriculums, surveys, and tests. Parents also would be able to object to any learning activities that infringe on their values.

The bill also would protect the right of parents to “challenge the material or educational benefit of any book, magazine, or any other material available to students in the school library such that a successful challenge results in the removal of the book, magazine, or material from the school.”

4. Iowa
A proposed bill in Iowa would require schools to obtain parental consent to teach children in grades one through six about gender identity.

The legislation also states: “If a parent or guardian does not provide written consent, a student may opt out of instruction relating to gender identity.”

5. Indiana
Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita issued an updated parents’ bill of rights that, although only a legal opinion and not state law, provides what Rokita calls a “road map” for parents to direct their children’s educational and medical decisions.

Among the parental rights listed are the right to “question and address your child’s school officials via letters, electronic communications, and in-person meetings” and the right to “make medical care decisions on behalf of your child.”

Rokita, a Republican, said the purpose of the bill of rights is to ensure parents understand their legal rights to oversee their children’s education. He wrote:

The family unit is the vital building block of a free society. ‘We the Parents’ have the duty to raise our families and are primarily responsible for what and how our children learn. It is not the government’s job to raise our children, even if it wants to do so.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2022/04/19/more-states-move-to-affirm-parental-rights-in-education

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My other blogs: Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

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