This legislative session, so far at least, has been all about guns, abortions, and the great Medicaid debate. The legislature has already passed Act 67, the Church Protection Act, which allows churches to permit concealed handguns among their pews, and this of course has led to a number of liability questions that must now be addressed through …
Some Skeptical of New Special Ed Guidance from OCR
The USDOE’s Office of Civil Rights released new guidance last month regarding how school districts must accommodate students with disabilities who wish to participate in extracurricular activities. The USDOE has assured that it only attempted to clarify the current obligations of schools under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which requires recipients of …
Lottery Scholarship Amounts in Question Again
Several legislators filed a bill this week to once again lower the amounts future students will receive from the lottery scholarship. The amounts have been lowered every legislative session since the scholarship’s original enactment in 2009 due to continuing lower than expected revenues from the state-wide lottery. The most recent proposal, HB1295, staggers the amount …
Kansas Legislature Seeks Control Of School Funding
Just last month, the Shawnee County District Court in Kansas ruled that the state was failing to meet its constitutional duty to adequately finance a suitable public education for every child. This ruling follows earlier decisions from the Kansas Supreme Court in 2005 and 2006 that specified that the Kansas Legislature was constitutionally mandated to …
Texas Court Rules School Funding Unconstitutional
A Texas district court in Austin ruled Monday that the state school funding system is inadequate, inequitable, and unconstitutional. The litigation began when more than 600 school districts, including the Fort Worth Independent School District and several other major North Texas school districts, filed a total of six lawsuits after the Texas Legislature cut $5.5 …
Legislative Update
Here are a few of the education bills from the past week or so that have caught my eye: HB1181 - The is the third school choice bill filed this session. This bill allows open school choice except in cases where a transfer would increase the percentage of free/reduced-price lunch students in the nonresident district …
Tennessee Governor Endorses Vouchers
Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam elaborated on his education initiatives in his State of the State speech Monday night to the Tennessee General Assembly. In doing so, Haslam defended a bill filed by Tennessee State Senator Mark Norris, a Republican from Collierville, TN, that establishes the Tennessee Choice and Opportunity Scholarship Program. Under this program, 5,000 …
States Not Required to Give Credit for Out-of-State Teaching Experience.
The Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last week in Connelly v. Steel Valley School District that the Privileges and Immunities Clause of the U.S. Constitution does not require that the same credit be given for out-of-state teaching experience as is given for in-state teaching experience for salary purposes. In this case, the Steel Valley …
Another Week at the Capitol….
It seems to have been a fairly quite week at the capitol. Only a few notable education bills were filed: HB1076 - Requires the Dept of Education to count students being home-schooled as part of a school district’s average daily membership, which I’m assuming will keep at least a few school districts above 350 for …
Legislative Update
Let’s take a look at what happened during the first week of the session. Here are a few bills we knew were coming: SB15 - This bill makes Arkansas a part of the Interstate Military Compact for Education. It most likely will only affect those districts surrounding the air force base. The point of the compact …