March 2023 Outlook

March 2023 | Number 483

Florida Approves Universal School Choice

On March 27, Governor Ron DeSantis signed legislation making Florida the fourth state this year to approve universal school choice legislation. The new law expands eligibility for an existing scholarship program to all Florida families.

Read the Full Story >>

Universal School Choice Now a Reality in Arkansas

Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders has signed legislation creating an Education Freedom Account program, the terms of which will allow parents to use most of their child’s state education dollars for private school tuition and other approved education expenses.

Eligibility for the program will be phased in over three years, after which time all school age children in Arkansas will be eligible.

Florida, Iowa, and Utah have passed similar bills this year, with West Virginia and Arizona having done so in 2022.

Biden Administration Releases Proposed Education Budget

On March 9, the Biden Administration released its proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2024. According to the US Department of Education, the budget request includes:

$20.5 billion for Title I grants to school districts, a $2.2 billion increase;
An additional $2.7 billion for Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) programs, including $2.1 billion more for Part B grants to states and $392 million more for Part C grants for infants and toddlers;
$3 billion in educator preparation, development, and leadership;
$1.47 billion, a $43 million increase, in career and technical education state grants;
An increases in the maximum Pell Grant to $8,215.

As always, the budget is a set of recommendations prepared by the White House, but Congress ultimately decides spending levels for education and other federal programs.

Maryland Private School Students Put on Their Lobbyist Hats

From The Dialogue:

With crowd sizes limited due to construction around the State House, about 300 students and 50 principals, teachers and parents from 27 Catholic, other Christian and Jewish schools across Maryland assembled in Annapolis for the 2023 Nonpublic School Advocacy Day.

A key purpose of the day was for the students and school representatives to advocate for the BOOST (Broadening Options and Opportunities for Students Today) Scholarship Program. New Maryland Gov. Wes Moore’s budget proposed cutting BOOST funding from $10 million to $8 million and included language that would phase out the program in a few years.

Over the past seven years, nearly 20,000 BOOST Scholarships have been awarded to low-income students, allowing parents to choose the nonpublic school that best fits their children’s needs. In the 2022-23 school year, 3,248 students are receiving BOOST Scholarships in 21 of Maryland’s 24 counties and the city of Baltimore. All of them are from low-income households, with the average annual household income of all recipients around $36,000. Minority families received 57 percent of the scholarships. Of the BOOST scholarship recipients, 32 percent are Black students and 15 percent are Latino students.

In addition to supporting the BOOST Scholarship Program, the school groups also advocated for nonpublic school safety, textbook and aging schools programs, and for funding for school bus transportation for nonpublic school students.

NY Substantial Equivalency Update

Regular readers of CAPE Outlook will be very familiar with the controversy over New York State's "substantial equivalency" regulations. A recent court ruling represents the latest development in this continuing saga.

According to the AP, "Parents cannot be required to pull their children from private schools in New York that fail to meet state-designated standards, a judge decided, striking down a key provision of rules recently passed to strengthen oversight of such schools, including those specializing in religious education."

The story continues:

The ruling in a state trial court in Albany came in response to a lawsuit brought by ultra-Orthodox Jewish schools, called yeshivas, and related advocacy groups over education rules enacted last fall. Under the rules, the state’s 1,800 private and religious schools must provide an education that is “substantially equivalent” to that of a public school.

Judge Christina Ryba on Thursday rejected an argument that the state regulations were unconstitutional. But she said state officials overstepped their authority in setting penalties for schools that don’t adhere to them.

Read the whole thing here and a story in the NY Sun here.

Indiana CAPE Head Elected Chair of State CAPE Network

At CAPE's spring board meeting in Philadelphia, John Elcesser, executive director of the Indiana Non-Public Education Association, was elected chair of the State CAPE Network. He follows in the footsteps of Suzie Hanson, executive director of the Washington Federation of Independent Schools, who provided the network with many years of outstanding service and leadership.

CAPE has affiliates in 38 states, and the list is growing! Utah was approved for State CAPE membership at the recent meeting and at least two more states are looking at joining in the near term.