Parental Rights Act of New Jersey

Transcription

1 Parental Rights Act of New Jersey Summary This bill mandates that every New Jersey school-age child, attending public or non-public elementary or secondary school, is to be equitably funded 1, while the liberty of schools are respected in hiring and provision of services. Introduction The present system of funding the education of our children has its origins in the early part of the 19 th Century, when diversity was feared, and it was felt that immigrants had to conform to the prevailing culture. Today, our nation has come to respect and value diversity. We have returned to our founding motto, which appears on the Seal of the United States, E pluribus unum, Latin for "Out of many, one." Every individual, of whatever race, religion or ethnicity, contributes to the unique mosaic that makes up our great American society. What unites all Americans is our commitment to uphold the United States Constitution and preserve our inalienable right to individual liberty and equal opportunity. The time is surely past due to rectify the great injustice of government usurping the right of parents to raise and educate our own children. Government s monopolistic control of education has also led to runaway costs and a severe decline in quality, as evidenced in the recently released documentary, The Cartel: For at least a generation, American public schools have been growing progressively worse. According to the U.S. Department of Education national testing, only 35 percent of American high school seniors are proficient in reading and a mere 23 percent proficient in math. On the global stage, America ranks last in educational effectiveness among large industrialized countries despite the highest spending per student in the world. We need to allow the magic of free enterprise do for our educational system what it has done for our economy when allowed to function. This was repeatedly taught by the late, great economist Dr. Milton Friedman, Nobel Laureate and founder of the Milton and Rose Friedman Foundation. He first proposed his plan for equitable educational funding in his 1955 article The Role of Government in Education. Shortly before his death, he left us with a superb legacy, his 2005 article School Vouchers Turn 50 But the Fight is Just Beginning, where he writes: Government ownership and operation of schools alter fundamentally the way the industry is organized. In most industries, consumers are free to buy the product from anyone who offers it for sale, at a price mutually agreed on. In the process, consumers determine how much is produced and by whom and producers have an incentive to satisfy their customers. These competitive private industries are organized from the bottom up. They have been responsible for truly remarkable economic growth, improvements in products and increased efficiency in production. In elementary and secondary education, government decides what is to be produced and who is to consume its products, generally assigning students to schools by their residence. The only recourse for dissatisfied parents is through political channels, changing their residence or forswearing the government subsidy and paying for their children s schooling twice, once in taxes and once in tuition. Parents of more than 10 percent of all students, who go to private schools or are schooled at home, have adopted this final recourse. In short, this industry is organized from the top down. 1

2 Performance differs as much as organization. In sharp contrast to other major industries, there has been little, no or even negative improvement in the product. Children are taught the way they have been for centuries. Functional literacy is very likely lower than it was a century ago. And we spend more per student, in real dollars corrected for inflation, than we ever have before and more than any other country does now. Top-down organization works no better in the United States than it did in the Soviet Union or East Germany. The prescription is clear. Change the organization of elementary and secondary schooling from top-down to bottom-up. Convert to a system in which parents choose the schools their children attend or, more broadly, the educational services their children receive, whether in a brick-and-mortar school or on DVDs or over the Internet or whatever alternative the ingenuity of man can conceive. Parents would pay for educational services with whatever subsidy they receive from the government plus whatever sum they want to add out of their own resources. Producers would be free to enter or leave the industry and would compete to attract students. As in other industries, such a competitive free market would lead to improvements in quality and reductions in cost. The problem is how to get from here to there. That is where vouchers come in. They offer a means for a gradual transition from top-down to bottom-up. However, not just any voucher program will do. In particular, the kind of voucher programs that have been enacted so far will not. Almost all of them have been limited, directly or indirectly, to low-income families and some have not permitted parents to add on to the voucher, thereby limiting the tuition that can be charged. They are what I have called charity vouchers, not educational vouchers. They have served their limited purpose well. The families that received them have benefited; the educational performance of the voucher schools has been better than of the government schools from which the voucher students came. And the educational performance of those government schools has improved. Even if such vouchers were much more widespread than they are now, they could not provide the kind of market needed to stimulate innovative experimentation. It is as if when automobiles or television were in their infancy the government had prohibited charging more than a very low price. One function played by the rich is to finance innovation. They bought the initial cars and TVs at high prices and thereby supported production while the cost was being brought down, until what started out as a luxury good for the rich became a necessity for the poor. An educational voucher of reasonable size, though less than the current government spending per student, that was available to all students regardless of income or race or religion and that did not prohibit add-ons or impose detailed regulations on start-up service providers would end up helping the poor more than a charity voucher not instantly, but after a brief period as competition did its work. Just as the breakup of the Ma Bell monopoly led to a revolution in communications, a breakup of the school monopoly would lead to a revolution in schooling Legislation Section 1. {Title} Parental Rights Act of New Jersey Section 2. {Definitions} (A) Eligible student means the student is of age to attend K-12 grades. (B) Parent includes a guardian, custodian or other person with the authority to act on behalf of the child. 2

3 (C) Department means the New Jersey State Department of Education. 2 (D) Resident school district means the public school district in which the student resides. (E) Participating school means either a public school outside of the resident school district or any nonpublic school that provides education to elementary and/or secondary students and has notified the department of its intention to participate in the program and comply with the program s requirements. 3 Section 3. {Basic Elements of Parental Choice in Education} (A) Any eligible student may apply to attend any participating school. (B) Eligible students may attend a participating school until their graduation from high school or their 21st birthday, whichever comes first. (C) Any eligible student will qualify for an annual scholarship in an amount equal to the lesser of: (1) the participating school s annual tuition charge per pupil, 4 (2) the dollar amount the resident school district would have received to serve and educate the eligible student from federal and local sources had the student enrolled there. (D) The scholarship is the entitlement of the eligible student under the supervision of the student s parent and not that of any school. (E) A participating school may not refund, rebate or share a student s scholarship with a parent or the student in any manner, except to parents who are also serving as teachers. A student s scholarship may only be used for educational purposes. (F) Participating schools are free to accept students whom they feel best qualified to service, 5 except as provided in Section 4. (G) If a parent transfers their child to another participating school in the midst of the school year, the first school is required to transfer to the second school the balance of the voucher, based on the period of attendance at each school, upon request of the receiving school and parent. 6 (H) Eligible students shall be counted in the enrollment figures for their resident school district for the purposes of calculating all aid. The established per child scholarship amount is to be allocated to the school the child attends, whether public, private or religious. Any savings incurred from this new system of funding will be returned to the taxpayers. 7 (I) The Department, in cooperation with parents, shall adopt rules consistent with this act regarding: (1) the eligibility and participation of non-public schools, including timelines that will maximize student and public and non-public school participation; (2) the calculation and distribution of scholarships to eligible students; 8 and 3

4 4 (3) the application and approval procedures for scholarships for eligible students and participating schools. Section 4. {Accountability Standards for Participating Non-Public Schools} (A) Administrative Accountability Standards. To ensure that students are treated fairly and kept safe, all participating schools shall: (1) comply with all health and safety laws or codes that apply to non-public schools; (2) hold a valid occupancy permit if required by their municipality; (3) certify that they will not discriminate in admissions on the basis of race, color, and national origin. (4) comply with all laws that apply to non-public schools regarding criminal background checks for employees and exclude from employment any people not permitted by law to work in a non-public school. (B) Financial Accountability Standards. To ensure that public funds are spent appropriately, all participating non-public schools shall: (1) demonstrate their financial accountability by: (a) submitting a financial information report for the school that complies with uniform financial accounting standards established by the Department and conducted by a certified public accountant; 9 and (b) having the auditor certify that the report is free of material misstatements. The auditor s report shall be limited in scope to those records that are necessary for the department to be assured that payments are consistent with the number of students being serviced. (2) demonstrate their financial viability by showing they can repay any funds that might be owed the state, if they are to receive $50,000 or more during the school year, by: (a) filing with the Department prior to the start of the school year a surety bond payable to the state in an amount equal to the aggregate amount of the parental choice allocations expected to be paid during the school year to students admitted at the participating school; or (b) filing with the Department prior to the start of the school year financial information that demonstrates the school has the ability to pay an aggregate amount equal to the amount of the parental choice allocations expected to be paid during the school year to students admitted at the participating school. 10 (C) Academic Accountability Standards. To ensure that schools provide academic accountability to parents of the students in the program, all participating schools shall regularly report to the parent on the student s progress. 11 (D) A participating school is autonomous and not an agent of the State and therefore:

5 (1) the Department or any other District agency may not in any way regulate the educational program of a participating school, and (2) the creation of this program does not expand the regulatory authority of the Department, its officers or any school district to impose any additional regulation of non-public schools beyond those necessary to enforce the requirements of the program; and (3) participating schools shall be given the maximum freedom to provide for the educational needs of their students without governmental control, except to provide that children are taught and trained to follow the laws of the land and respect the rights of others. Section 5. {Responsibilities of the Department} (A) The Department shall ensure that all eligible students and their parents are informed annually of which schools will be participating. (B) The Department may bar a school from participation if it establishes that the participating school fails to meet the eligibility requirements and is not properly fulfilling its educational responsibilities to students and parents. 12 (C) If the Department decides to bar a participating school from the program, it shall notify eligible students and their parents of this decision as quickly as possible. (D) The Department shall adopt rules and procedures, in cooperation with parents, as necessary for the administration of parental choice. (E) The Department shall provide transportation for the eligible student to and from the participating school under the same conditions as the resident school district is required to provide transportation for other resident public schools students. The resident school district will qualify for state transportation aid for each student so transported. (F) The Department shall provide to the participating school that has admitted an eligible student under this program with a complete copy of the student s school records following standard procedures. Section 6. {Effective Date} Parental Choice will be in effect beginning with the fall semester of the next school year. Endnotes 1 Equitable, as opposed to equal, is meant to apply equal treatment to the same category of student attending public and nonpublic schools, but allow for varied levels of support for special needs students, provided they are equally funded whether they attend public or nonpublic schools. 2 This bill designates the New Jersey State Department of Education as the agency regulating the allocation and administration of funds and related regulations. The intent was to name this existing agency responsible for public school finances and non-public school regulation. Alternatively, legislators may choose to create a new small agency to oversee the funding of nonpublic schools. What is essential is that priority consideration be given to the will of the parents, utilizing the processes that are employed in all matters requiring public input and consideration. 5

6 3 This legislation allows students to use a scholarship to attend a public school outside their district as well as a non-public school. The authors support giving parents the widest possible array of choices so that they can choose the school that best meets their child s needs. Assuring that parents can choose either a public or nonpublic school is not only the right policy but also the best legal strategy. The US Supreme Court and various state courts have all cited this broad array of choices as an important part of the reason they have found school choice programs constitutional. The courts have reasoned that vouchers are not an inappropriate subsidy of religious institutions because the purpose was secular (the education of children) and the parents were given many options including public schools, charter schools, non-public secular schools and nonpublic religious schools. Homeschoolers may participate under the jurisdiction of existing schools that choose to service them, subject to the same standards as regular students, or create special schools for homeschoolers. Compensation to such parent-teachers must not exceed the average per pupil compensation offered to regular teachers. 4 This legislation allows schools to charge all students tuition and fees in excess of the scholarship amount. This will encourage greater participation by a handful of schools with average costs above the scholarship amount, and some believe direct payments from parents will encourage stronger ownership and involvement in their children s education. In the words of Dr. Milton Friedman (above), One function played by the rich is to finance innovation. They bought the initial cars and TVs at high prices and thereby supported production while the cost was being brought down, until what started out as a luxury good for the rich became a necessity for the poor. 5 The intention here is to allow schools to function with minimal governmental interference, which will motivate schools to grow and flourish as does private enterprise when allowed to function with minimal governmental interference. 6 Such transfers will only be possible when the receiving school perceives an urgent need. Historically, schools view midyear transfers as disruptive of the class, and will only accept them under extraordinary circumstances. 7 This bill has been drafted so that any savings in the cost of educating a student shall accrue to the taxpayer. Runaway costs for public education, resulting from lack of competition, have been placing an undue burden on taxpayers. The intention here is to correct this injustice to the extent possible. 8 It is essential that the DCPS calculate the voucher in strict accordance with the definitions and intention of the legislation. 9 The legislation provides for two methods for schools to demonstrate financial viability to ensure that public funds are secure. The first method employs a market-based means of demonstrating viability. Private companies that issue surety bonds have a financial interest in making sure that the schools can repay any funds that might be owed the state. They will therefore conduct the checks necessary to protect their financial interest as well as the taxpayers financial interests. Surety bonds can be expensive (one to three percent of the amount covered) or invasive for some institutions, so the legislation allows schools to demonstrate by some other means that they have the financial wherewithal to pay back any amount they might owe the state. This might include things like personal guarantees, reserve accounts or escrow accounts. 10 The purpose of the financial information report is to make sure that the department ensures public funds are used appropriately. The legislation does not call for an independent audit because this would be unnecessarily expensive and invasive for many non-public schools. 6

7 11 Empowering parents is the best way to achieve academic accountability, and schools of choice are generally much more accountable for academic performance than assigned public schools. However, some legislators may feel the need to demonstrate academic accountability more concretely or to mandate testing to ensure that parents are given useful measurements of their children s progress. In that case, participating schools may be required to annually administer either state achievement tests or nationally recognized normreferenced tests in math and language arts or both to any student participating in the program in grades that require testing under prevailing testing laws. Most non-public schools already administer such normreferenced tests so this provision should not be seen as burdensome. It is important, however, to give schools the ability to choose between a state test, the nationally recognized test other standard tests that are recognized by accredited colleges. Many non-public schools would simply refuse to participate in the program if they were forced to administer the government tests, because it implies that they are no longer independent of government. The reason many opponents to school choice promote state testing of non-public schools is, in fact, because they want to discourage school participation and quietly eliminate the competition. Testing should take place at a time comparable to when public schools conduct achievement tests. Participating schools should provide the parents of each student with a copy of the results. The purpose of this testing requirement should be to provide each parent with a measure of their student s progress. The number and scope of the tests should be carefully limited to ensure that there is sufficient information to demonstrate the achievements of the program without being so exhaustive or prescriptive as to end up dictating the curriculum at participating schools. The costs of the testing requirements for a nonpublic school must be included in the costs used to determine the size of the scholarships. 12 The legislation allows schools to occasionally fail to meet an accountability standard so that an antagonistic regulator cannot shut down the program by banning schools with a modest occasional violation such as turning in a report late. 7