School Choice & Charters

House Panel Rejects Education Accounts for Hurricane Aid

By Michelle R. Davis — November 01, 2005 4 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

A Republican plan to send hurricane aid to both public and private schools was defeated unexpectedly last week in the House education committee, after coming under attack as a voucher program in disguise.

Four Republicans sided with 22 Democrats on the House Education and the Workforce Committee on Oct. 27 to reject the plan to use “family education reimbursement accounts” to funnel money to schools taking in students displaced by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, which hit the Gulf Coast in August and September. The vote was 26-21 against the bill.

After the vote, Rep. John A. Boehner, D-Ohio, the committee’s chairman and a sponsor of the bill, proposed an alternative plan in the hope of appeasing committee members. The new plan would allow regular public, public charter, and private schools to apply directly to the U.S. secretary of education to receive reimbursement for educating hurricane-displaced students. The committee did not act on the second plan last week.

Rep. Boehner’s original plan would have authorized giving parents education accounts amounting to $6,700 per student in most cases, and $8,200 for students in special education. The money in the accounts, which would have been authorized only for the current school year, would follow displaced students to the schools of their parents’ choice—public, charter, or private, including religious schools. Parents would register their children through a toll-free telephone number, be provided a personal-identification number, and then give that number to the school, which would use it to collect the federal payment.

But during a feisty discussion of the plan, Democrats on the education panel clearly considered it a form of tuition voucher—an idea that their party and public school groups generally oppose.

“If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then I don’t know what else it could be except a duck,” said Rep. Danny K. Davis, D-Ill. “I don’t know what else this could be except a way to inject vouchers into the public arena.”

Plan B

After the committee voted against Rep. Boehner’s plan, the chairman floated his backup plan of direct grants to schools from the Department of Education to cover the expenses of educating displaced children, using the same per-pupil cost estimates as his earlier proposal.

“It’s unfortunate that even in a time of national emergency, the education establishment refuses to consider new ideas to meet the needs of students, families, and individual schools affected by these unprecedented natural disasters,” Mr. Boehner said in a statement.

Some Republicans had vigorously denied any ulterior motives in putting forward the original $2.5 billion plan, which also included authorization of $50 million for the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, saying the accounts would give private schools the opportunity to be repaid for taking in hurricane-displaced students and would end after one year.

“There’s no mechanism in place for federal dollars to get to private or parochial schools,” Mr. Boehner said. “The money would flow directly, at the parents’ decision, from the Department of Education to the private school.”

Democrats had other concerns about the proposal, including what they viewed as a lack of accountability for how the money would be used in private schools, a new layer of bureaucracy, and opportunities for fraud.

But Rep. Sam Johnson, R-Texas, noted that under the bill, a private company would be hired to monitor the disbursement of funds, and that the program would be closely scrutinized.

Rep. George Miller of California, the ranking Democrat on the education committee, called it cumbersome.

“You’re depending on the parent calling in on a timely basis,” he said, adding that “the idea that the answer to this problem almost 90 days [after Hurricane Katrina] is 1-800-voucher, just doesn’t hold.”

Some committee Republicans also objected to elements of Rep. Boehner’s bill. Rep. Judy Biggert, R-Ill., expressed concern that the parental accounts were akin to vouchers, and would set a dangerous precedent.

“I’m disturbed we couldn’t find some way to get money to children desperately in need of it other than through that program,” said Ms. Biggert, who voted against the bill. The other GOP members who voted against the proposal were Reps. Bob Inglis of South Carolina, Todd R. Platts of Pennsylvania, and John R. “Randy” Kuhl Jr. of New York.

No Consensus

Rep. Miller, along with Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., introduced a substitute proposal that would have authorized $4 billion for schools directly damaged by Hurricane Katrina, and it would have authorized $8,314 per student to districts taking in displaced students. The schools, including private schools, would have applied directly to the Education Department for payment. The plan was defeated on a 25-21 party-line vote.

Meanwhile, in the Senate, a bipartisan plan for hurricane-related aid to schools that supporters had hoped would easily sweep through last week stalled after being assailed by groups of various ideological stripes.

The bill, sponsored by Sen. Michael B. Enzi, R-Wyo., the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, and its ranking member, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., would authorize providing school districts taking in displaced students with quarterly installment payments, up to $6,000 per displaced student for the school year or as much as $7,500 for a student in special education. (“Educators Discover That Tracking Displaced Students is a Challenge,” Oct. 26, 2005.)

But groups such as the Phoenix-based Alliance for School Choice, which supports public funding for private school tuition, objected to the bill’s restrictions on use of federal money to pay for religious instruction, while Ralph G. Neas, the president of the liberal group People for the American Way, in Washington, denounced the proposal as “the largest private school voucher program in the nation’s history.”

A version of this article appeared in the November 02, 2005 edition of Education Week as House Panel Rejects Education Accounts for Hurricane Aid

Events

This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Assessment Webinar
Reflections on Evidence-Based Grading Practices: What We Learned for Next Year
Get real insights on evidence-based grading from K-12 leaders.
Content provided by Otus
Mathematics Webinar How to Build Students’ Confidence in Math
Learn practical tips to build confident mathematicians in our webinar.
Student Achievement K-12 Essentials Forum How to Build and Scale Effective K-12 State & District Tutoring Programs
Join this free virtual summit to learn from education leaders, policymakers, and industry experts on the topic of high-impact tutoring.

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

School Choice & Charters Texas Is Poised to Create a Massive Private School Choice Program
The bill’s passage represents a major shift in the state.
budget school funding
iStock/Getty
School Choice & Charters Trump Admin. Tells States, Schools How to Use Title I for School Choice
A letter sent to state education chiefs pointed to two portions of Title I where states and schools can "provide greater flexibility."
4 min read
Image of a neighborhood of school buildings, house, government buildings, and a money symbol in the middle.
Trodler/iStock/Getty
School Choice & Charters Trump's Order Kicks Off His Efforts to Expand Private School Choice
Trump is directing several federal agencies to look into expanding school choice offerings—a push that continues from his first term.
3 min read
President Donald Trump talks as he signs an executive order giving federal recognition to the Limbee Tribe of North Carolina, in the Oval Office of the White House, Thursday, Jan. 23, 2025, in Washington.
President Donald Trump talks as he signs an executive order giving federal recognition to the Limbee Tribe of North Carolina, in the Oval Office of the White House, Jan. 23, 2025. Trump on Jan. 29 signed an executive order that would mandate a federal push for school vouchers.
Ben Curtis/AP
School Choice & Charters Opinion Teachers Might Embrace Private School Choice. Here's Why
School choice is often discussed in terms of student impact. But what's in it for teachers?
10 min read
The United States Capitol building as a bookcase filled with red, white, and blue policy books in a Washington DC landscape.
Luca D'Urbino for Education Week