Editor’s note:
The following article, courtesy
of the St. Paul/Minneapolis Archdiocesan newspaper, The Catholic Spirit,
explains the general education access grant bill in which the Minnesota Catholic bishops
will support through the lobbying efforts of the Minnesota Catholic Conference
during the 2006 legislative session that begins
March 1.
Chalnicea Smith said she is among the fortunate parents who can
afford to send her seventh-grade daughter, Musulyn,
to Ascension School in Minneapolis.
"There
are many people who would like to send their kids to Ascension and just
don’t have the means," said Smith. It becomes even more difficult
to pay tuition when people have two or three children”, she said.
Smith
said she would support the general education access grant bill that
was proposed in the 2005 state legislative session by Sen. David Hann
(R-Eden Prairie). The proposal is supported by the Minnesota Catholic
Conference, which lobbies the Legislature on behalf of Minnesota’s bishops. An access grant or financial certificate
that follows low-income students to the school of their choice is one
of four education issues the MCC will be watching during the legislative
session that begins March 1.
“The
Legislature would be putting the money in the right place, Smith said,
if it allowed a grant to follow a student to the school chosen by the
parents to best meet a child’s needs.”
She
chose Ascension for Musulyn because of the family atmosphere, she said.
"It
puts her in a place with family being involved in education," she
said. Discipline is another plus, along with the school uniforms.
"With
everyone wearing the same thing, kids concentrate on education, instead
of how they look," she said.
Along
with great academics, Smith added, principal Dorwatha
Woods "is a wonderful person."
Woods
said Ascension’s first priority is a solid curriculum.
"Academically,
we score very high on the Minnesota basic skills test - in the 90 percentile - both in math
and reading," Woods said. "We boast a college graduation rate
of 99 percent. We have
a very high sense of self-respect that is fostered in the students."
But the kindergarten through eighth-grade inner-city school with 295
students has to use "massive amounts of scholarships" because
many families cannot afford the $1,400-per-student annual tuition, Woods
said. (The actual education cost per pupil is $5,000 per year.) Sixty-six
percent of Ascension’s students are eligible for free or low-cost lunch.
General access grants would not only help families and private schools
like Ascension, but also would help the public schools, said Hann,
who is the main author of SF0736, the "Students general education
access grants" bill.
A
graduate and proponent of public schools, Hann
said he is concerned that today’s public school system is not as strong
as it could be. He said he believes competition and free-market choices
help bring reform. Public schools, for instance, did not suffer when
open enrollment allowed students to choose from a variety of charter
schools or schools out of their district, he said.
"We
should be trying to find ways to allow families and students to go to
schools where they believe they are going to have the best opportunity,
and we shouldn’t refuse them access to those schools simply because
they don’t have the financial means," Hann said. "For me, it’s a matter of social justice."
An
access grant follows a low-income student to the school chosen by the
parents. However, the grant is just a portion of the per-pupil allotment
set for a school district. For example: If the Minneapolis school district
received $11,000 per pupil, the access grant proposed last session would
have been about $2,500, or about 25 percent of the available revenue.
The remaining per-pupil allotment - $8,500 - would be available to the
Minneapolis
school district. Additional restrictions apply. (See the state and MCC
Web sites on page 21B for more information.)
Peter
Noll, MCC’s education department director, also believes educational
choice is a matter of social justice.
"[Catholics]
operate from principles that go back 2,000 to 3,000 years," Noll
said. "These are core principles developed from encyclicals and
documents on Catholic social thought."
But,
not everyone agrees with how that choice should be funded.
State
Sen. Steve Kelley, DFL-Hopkins, said public schools are subject to public
accountability for the money they receive, which currently includes
meeting requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act.
"I
think the principals of private schools would not want to subject their
kids to No Child Left Behind," Kelley said.
"I
think some private schools have done a very good job with at-risk students,
as have some very good public schools," he added. "But the
fact remains that the private schools get to choose which students to
admit, and that gives them an enormous advantage with respect to the
public schools, which have to take all comers, regardless of ability
levels, regardless of what happened to them before in their lives, whether
they are crack babies or not."
Despite
opposition, providing general education access grants to students will
be an MCC priority during the 2006 Minnesota legislative session, Noll said.
"That’s
going to be our big effort this session and beyond," he said. The
grant allows poor families some assistance and latitude to select a
school that meets the needs of their child.
Noll
also noted that public school revenue would actually go up with the
proposed student access grants. "The family just utilizes a portion
of the per-pupil cost when they choose to go to a private school - the
rest remains there for the discretion of the school district.
Studies
of the grant program in Milwaukee have shown it to be "quite successful," Noll
said. And the program offered in Cleveland was found to be constitutionally sound when it was challenged
in court, he added. The U.S. Supreme Court found in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris
that the scholarship program did not offend the Establishment Clause:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
In
many instances, Catholic schools provide a private, religious school
education for about two-thirds the cost of public education, Hann
said.
In
addition, said Deborah Morris, executive director of KidsFirst
Scholarship Fund, Inc., private school students out-perform their public
school peers.
KidsFirst has provided low-income parents educational choice for
their children in kindergarten through eighth grade since it was formed
in 1998. About 57 percent of the 600 students, who have received the
privately-funded KidsFirst scholarships, attend
or have attended Catholic schools.
"At
the eighth-grade level, once they graduate, we look at if they passed
the eighth-grade standard skills test, which includes reading and math,
and how many passed it in comparison to the Minneapolis and St. Paul public schools," Morris said.
"Eighty-five
percent of our KidsFirst graduates have passed
the math test and 91 percent passed the reading," she said. "If
you look at their public school peers in Minneapolis and St. Paul, only
48 percent in both school districts have passed the math, and in Minneapolis
64 percent passed the reading and 65 percent in St. Paul."
Marty
Weisbeck, principal at St. Pascal Baylon
School in St. Paul, said he can think of a half dozen kids of parishioners
who can’t afford to attend the school, and the school can’t afford to
provide the full tuition.
But,
if the state would provide grants to any inner-city school, he said,
it should provide them to Catholic schools, which have the most need
and the most difficulty surviving. "Twenty-five hundred dollars
would almost pay for a student here," he said. "A grant system
would make a great difference by making it possible for a student to
receive a Catholic, Christian education in smaller classes and a safe
environment."
Income tax education credit eligibility expansion
Sen.
Julianne Ortman (R-Chanhassen) also introduced an education bill in
the 2005 legislative session. The "Income tax education credit
eligibility expansion," SF0558, would authorize an education tax
credit for tuition expenses (in an amount equal to 75 percent of the
amount paid for education-related expenses) for certain school attendance
and eliminate the family cap on the education tax credit.
Current
legislation allows low-income families to deduct some education materials,
such as textbooks, computers, software, and some instructional fees,
from their income tax. Parents of Catholic school students also may
be eligible for deductions, which do not include religious, arts, sports,
driver’s education or similar expenses.
The
general response from principals to the proposal has been lukewarm.
"It’s
unrealistic to believe that a very low-income family can take $1,000
and go and buy a computer and expect to wait for that money to come
back, when they can’t hardly get the food on the table," said Woods
of Ascension. "You can’t think of it in a middle-class or upper-class
frame of mind."
Noll from the Minnesota
Catholic
Conference acknowledged that it would be difficult for low-income families
to provide money for tuition up front. "There may need to be creative
problem solving," he said. "Under Sen. Ortman’s
bill, the tuition tax credit would be available to any family who meets
the income level."
Top education issues at the state Legislature
Education
access grants: The grants would allow poor families in the Minneapolis and St. Paul school districts some assistance to select a school
of their choice for their students.
Education
tax credits: The tax-credit program allows families to deduct expenses
for certain school supplies, such as computer hardware and software,
when they file their state income-tax return. It does not allow parents
to claim a tax deduction for tuition to non-public schools.
Special education delivery and funding task force
A
task force was created to study funding and services to students with
learning disabilities and provide
a report with recommendations to the 2006 Legislature.
Early learning and school preparedness
A
new study on early learning is slated to be released in 2007, which
may influence future proposals for pre-school students.
In-state
tuition rate at colleges and university for students of undocumented
immigrants who meet certain requirements - called "The Dream Act."
As proposed, the act would allow immigrant students who attended a state
high school for two or more years; graduated or obtained a G.E.D.; and
are registered in a public institution of higher education, to pay the
in-state tuition rate at a state college or University.
To contact your legislator
Visit
the Minnesota State House Web site at: www.house.leg.state.
mn.us or visit the Minnesota State Senate Web site at: www.senate.leg.state.mn.us
To
find out who your representative is: geo.commissions.leg.state.mn.us/districts/start.html
For
more information and links to the above sites, visit the Minnesota Catholic
Conference Web site: www.mncc.org
(Source:
Minnesota Catholic Conference.)
