PTA Leaders,
Below is an update regarding federal legislative activity on a COVID relief package and FY21 funding, and equitable services funding under the CARES Act.
COVID-19 Relief Package & FY21 Funding
The House of Representatives has passed the Heroes Act (H.R. 6800), Senate Democrats proposed the Coronavirus Child Care and Education Relief Act (S. 4112), and Senate Republicans proposed the HEALS Act and, more recently, a slimmed-down version that still includes $105 billion for the Education Stabilization Fund. Both the House and Senate are in recess until after Labor Day and will then have to work on legislation funding the government before the end of the fiscal year on September 30. It seems likely that a relief measure could be tied to an extension of government funding, (referred to as a Continuing Resolution (CR)) before that deadline. Because both the House-passed bill and the Senate proposals contain at least $100 billion for education relief, it is possible that a final bill would include at least that level of funding. A bigger unknown is whether a relief bill will include general fiscal relief for state and local budgets (a large share of state budgets support public education), and other funding for PTA COVID relief priorities.
Equitable Services Funding
Here is an overview of equitable services under ESSA, the CARES Act. Further down is a Politico article on recent court ruling on the equitable services rule issued by the U.S. Department of Education.
Equitable Services under Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Equitable Services is a concept that is built into all major U.S. Department of Education (the Department) programs which provide education funding by formula (rather than competitive grants) to States and school districts. Title I is an example of such a program. Under Title I, school districts reserve a portion of their Title I funds that is equal to the proportion of low-income children enrolled in private schools. They use these funds to provide services to eligible children in private schools that are located in that school district.
The school district then consults with private school officials from these private schools on what services their students (and at times teachers) need and then the school district then makes the final determination on what services are provided. Private schools don’t get direct grants under equitable participation and services provided to private school students and teachers are always under control of the public school district.
The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act and Equitable Services. As is common with big education formula programs provided by the U.S. Department of Education, Congress required education funds provided to school districts under the CARES Act to meet Title I’s equitable participation requirements. Unfortunately, the Department determined that CARES Act funds that must be reserved under equitable participation would be based on proportion of all children in private schools rather than Title I’s requirement to base it on only low-income children.
CARES Act Takeaway. While this determination by Department doesn’t sound like a major change, it results in significantly more funding being reserved for services in private schools rather than maintaining these funds in our public schools. This also means that private schools are getting services for all children, even upper income private school children, when we know that low-income children in public schools are not getting all of services they need in our public schools.
POLITICO Article
Judge blocks DeVos plan to send more pandemic relief to private school students
By Michael Stratford
08/26/2020 09:07 PM EDT
A federal judge in California on Wednesday halted Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ effort to boost emergency coronavirus relief for private school students.
The court ruling blocks DeVos from implementing or enforcing her rule in at least eight states and some of the nation’s largest public school districts. The secretary's policy requires public school districts to send a greater share of their CARES Act, H.R. 748 (116), pandemic assistance funding to private school students than is typically required under federal law.
U.S. District Judge James Donato’s order prevents DeVos from carrying out her policy in a large swath of the country: Michigan, California, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, the District of Columbia as well as for public school districts in New York City, Chicago, Cleveland and San Francisco.
Last week a federal judge in Washington state similarly blocked DeVos’ rule, but there has been a dispute about whether that order applies nationwide. DeVos separately on Wednesday evening sought clarification from that judge about the order.
The pair of rulings amount to a major setback for DeVos, as she seeks to oversee the roughly $16 billion pot of emergency assistance Congress laid out for K-12 schools in the CARES Act in March.
Dana Nessel, attorney general of Michigan, who led the legal challenge, praised the court’s ruling in a tweet on Wednesday, calling it a “Big win for Michigan kids.”
An attorney arguing the case for Nessel argued during a hearing last week that the states were seeking to stop DeVos from acting as a “reverse Robin Hood” in taking funding away from cash-strapped public schools to send to wealthy private schools.
At issue in the cases is how school districts must share their coronavirus relief funding with private schools to provide “equitable services” such as technology, tutoring or transportation for those students.
Public school officials argue the emergency funding should be shared with private schools under the typical federal formula, which is based on the number of low-income students at private schools. But DeVos’ rule says school districts must set aside money for private school students, based on total enrollment, irrespective of income.
The rule also gives public schools a second option, allowing them to limit funding to low-income private school students, but only if the districts use their share of the relief aid entirely on low-income students in public schools. State and education groups dismiss that option as an unworkable false choice.
Education groups, teachers unions, civil rights organizations and some GOP education officials have expressed concerns about the administration’s approach to distributing the pandemic assistance.
The Trump administration argues that it has the authority to create policy dictating public distribution of the funding to private school students because the CARES Act is ambiguous on that point. But the two judges disagree.
On Wednesday, Donato ruled that DeVos’ policy is likely to be struck down because she lacks the legal authority to impose her own conditions on coronavirus relief funding for K-12 schools. He wrote in the 15-page decision that “allowing the Department to rewrite the statutory formula for sharing education funds is manifestly not in the public interest.”
The judge said Congress' intent "is plain as day" for how CARES Act funding should be distributed to schools. The judge also said the coronavirus relief law “unambiguously” instructs the funding to be distributed to private school students in the typical manner under federal law, based on the number of low-income students.
An Education Department spokesperson pointed to the agency’s statement last week, which defended DeVos’ policies as treating “all students equally."
Angela Morabito, a department spokesperson, said “the pandemic affected all students and the CARES Act requires federal funds help all students,” and that the department was “following the law.”
“It’s unfortunate," Morabito said, "that so many favor discriminating against children who do not attend government-run schools.”
