The full text of HR 610 may be found here.
H.R.610 – To distribute Federal funds for elementary and secondary education in the form of vouchers for eligible students and to repeal a certain rule relating to nutrition standards in schools.
HR 610 is a seemingly dry and dusty bill currently with the House Committee on Education and the Workforce; but HR 610 has the potential to fundamentally re-shape publicly funded education in the US. Previously I covered the “nutrition standards” aka school lunch part of this bill. Now let’s dive in to the delicious libertarian puzzle that is the voucher part of HR 610.
Section 102 repeals the The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, which was part of President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty. The 1965 act in it’s much-amended form tips the federal education dollars scales towards poor students by net funding poor students at a higher rate than non-poor, which creates perverse incentives failing students.
Repeal of the 1965 act is coupled in Sec 102 (b) with a limitation on the authority of the US Secretary of Education:
The authority of the Secretary under this title is limited to evaluating State applications under section 104 and making payments to States under section 103. The Secretary shall not impose any further requirements on States with respect to elementary and secondary education beyond the requirements of this title.
So, still federal funding of local schools but no more micromanagement. We may fully expect the delicious irony of critics of this carping about the lack of accountability when the consistent position of those critics has been more money, always more money, while the schools continue to fail. Presumably there is some large number of net jobs in in public education whose only function is to collect the figures for the US DoEd so as to keep those block grants coming. Those jobs would suddenly become superfluous, as would the jobs at DoEd to check those figures and approve the block grants.
Section 103 is the real meat of the bill. Currently block grants to schools are awarded according to multiple criteria. At the most basic level is per-child funding to Local Education Agencies (school boards), then the extra poor-kid funding as outlined above, and various other shenanigans. The new legislation would entirely flatten the federal block grant program to proportional per-child funding. True equality.
Section 104 states that to be eligible for block grants that various states must make it lawful for parents of an eligible child to elect to enroll their child in any public or private elementary or secondary school in the State; or to home-school their child. So, a soft mandate on the states, but a mandate the states may avoid by foregoing federal block grants.
Section 105 contains a mandate that states who wish to receive federal block grants must establish a voucher program:
(5) DISTRIBUTION TO PARENTS.—
(A) IN GENERAL.—From the amounts allocated under paragraph (3), each local educational agency that receives funds under such paragraph shall distribute a portion of such funds, in an amount equal to the amount described in paragraph (2), to the parents of each eligible child within the local educational agency’s geographical area who elect to send their child to a private school or to home-school their child (as the case may be) and whose child is included in the count of such eligible children under paragraph (1)(A), which amount shall be distributed in a manner so as to ensure that such payments will be used for appropriate educational expenses.
(B) RESERVATION.—A local educational agency described in this paragraph may reserve not more than 1 percent of the funds available for distribution under subparagraph (A) to pay administrative costs associated with carrying out the activities described in such subparagraph.
There you have it. Federal tax dollars going to icky religious schools, objectively evil for-profit schools and slack-jawed fundamentalist home-schoolers. And the act doesn’t say anything about whether those schools must be accredited by anyone. Someone bring the fainting couch.
Treating everyone the same? Sounds suspiciously like A-N-A-R-C-H-Y. Also, triple word score.
There is a one percent rakeoff for local education agencies for administrative purposes which is not unreasonable. The voucher payments are not to be considered as income to the child or his parents. The act also contains the interesting definition: The term “eligible child” means a child aged 5 to 17, inclusive. So, no federally funded Pre-K, and no federal funding for kids who were “held back” for a year or two. Everyone gets thirteen years of federal education block grant money.
But now let’s look at what the act doesn’t do. It doesn’t require the states to setup a voucher program using state funds. Some states may become so cross at Congress that they forego federal grant money altogether rather than pass any money through to competitors or home-schoolers. And the act does not address funding; congress will still budget a line item for those block grants, but hopefully will reduce that amount as states drop off.
The House Committee on Education and the Workforce, where HR 610 currently resides, has twenty two Republican members including Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (NC), Vice Chairman Joe Wilson (SC) and Tea Party star Dave Brat (Virginia). The committee also includes seventeen Democrats. It will be interesting to see if the Republican members really do have the stomach to upset the apple cart. But they have cover for HR 610 which is far less extreme than HR 899 (Massie, KY) which outright eliminates the DoEd.
Who brought the wookie?
I don’t submit illustrations, they just appear as if by magic.
I like magic.
Who brought the wookie?
Tonio’s avatar is a gorilla. Geez.
HARAMBE PBUH IS NOT A GORILLA
Tonio’s avatar looks like a short nosed bear I think. The gorilla is the goddess that is in charge around here I believe.
Someone’s angling for the ban hammer.
What? I thought the gorilla pic was one of the admins?
I was angling more for brownie points. – recovering teacher’s pet
Yanking your chain. 😉
Wow! Emojis autoappear from text. Didn’t expect that.
?
Sometimes, it’s not so easy to be the teacher’s pet.
RC, as bacon-magic said earlier, my commenter pic is a drawing of a bear. I submit my stuff and it just appears with illos and the occasional edit. The gorilla is the editor, site admin, muse or whatever. Or maybe a collective of skwerlz. I’m just a dupe, not an illuminated grand master.
Oops.
That “Gorilla” was the first step in Hillary losing.
Tonio,
Is that a short-nosed bear picture? From the Pleistocene epoch?
It is indeed, b-m, thanks for noticing. It’s a Wikimedia commons public domain image, so all nice and legal like for our friends here at the Glib.
It is still the largest bear ever found and contender for the largest carnivorous land mammal known.
I like bears. Real ones. I shouldn’t have had to type the 2nd sentence.
The gorilla is the editor, site admin, muse or whatever.
My bad. I was looking at the gorilla avatar just under the article itself.
You’re a bear. Got it. I’m sure jesse is . . . intrigued.
Jesus Christ, look at her cabled forearms. Gah
Gah! Her expression is nightmare inducing.
Snapping Turtle
The screaming from the proggies should be good.
Thanks for the analysis, Tonio. While I greatly prefer HR899, treating everyone the same is a huge improvement.
Seconded, thanks Tonio.
I’m looking for a downside here, and not seeing one. If Massie’s bill goes through, this funding oversight should be easy to switch to whatever department takes over the Ed duties. (SLD, Feds shouldn’t be funding education)
Republicans are pussies and frauds. They’ve passed one bill for Trump to sign. They clearly aren’t in an ambitious mood as they ride the gravy train of power.
In short, it won’t ever pass.
That’s what I’m thinking. They control every branch of the Federal government and they’re unlikely to lose control of Congress in 2018, so why the hell aren’t they going for broke? What more do they need to pass some damn laws?
Yep, and they’re fucking idiots too. The thing to do is ram this shit down and through right the fuck now. Tax cuts, regulation cuts, Obamacare repeal, more free market reforms. Do it now, swallow all the meds at once, and then in 2018 got to the polls with the economy red fucking hot and unemployment below 3%, and with all the parents loving their new school vouchers, brought to you by the Republican Party.
They’re not called The Stupid Party for no reason.
That would be an awesome legislative agenda.
I remember 1994 when the R’s came in on their Contract with America and actually set about implementing it within the first 100 days.
Instead, let’s have yet another legislative hearing, blah blah blah…
It’s why the GOP is so useless. In 04 and 06 the Dems picked and chose “moderate” “pragmatic” Dems to run in swing districts, and then when 2008 happened they had the majority in place to pass their agenda. Which led to the Great Blue Dog Massacre in 2010. But those Blue Dogs accomplished their purpose: they advanced the progressive agenda a big step by stabbing what was left of private healthcare in the lungs.
The fucking GOP doesn’t think like that. They need to ram through an actual shift in the political landscape while they have the power to do it. But they won’t. Because they’re not true believers. They’re not actually going to do what they were elected to do. Fucking useless fucks.
I’m utterly disgusted with the Repubs. They passed lots of OCare repeal bills when it was just PR and they knew Obama would veto. But as soon as its for realz, they pussy out. Fuck them. They’ve got control of all three branches, very little prospect of losing that control, and they act like they are still the minority party. YOU WERE ELECTED FOR A REASON, FUCKNUTZ. THAT CAN BE THE SAME REASON YOU AREN’T RE-ELECTED.
It makes me wonder about some of the conspiracy theories regarding leverage.
The full text of HR 610 may be found here.
God bless you. Sites, which need not be named, that discuss bills, statutes, regulations, etc. without being arsed to link to them drive me nuts.
It is nice. That and content that is not driven with a singular focus to the detriment of other subjects.
fewer top men.
how dare they steal money from the teachers unions.
I don’t have any kids in the goddam school system. Can I get one of those vouchers and take it to the bank and swap it for cash? There’s an early model Sig P220 in .45acp I’ve got my eye on.
P Brooks,
Had a p226 and p228. Good guns. I’m a Ruger fan-boi now.
Soon we’ll be hearing from Elizabeth “Pocahontas” Warren on “The metric is money.”
Bacon-
In my arsenal, after the 1911 (I built it m’self), my next-favorite pistol is a 9mm Sig P6 ex-German Polizei gun.
self built? I know people make their own AR or AK, but I wasn’t aware of anything about a 1911.
He carved it from soap; used to escape from jail.
1911 parts are very interchangeable and customizable(?). A friend of mine is a 1911 fanatic. I like how they shoot, don’t like how they break down.
Speaking of education, if you were wondering about Yale’s decision to rename Calhoun Hall, you can be assured, the Weekly Standard agrees with Yale’s action.
“But Calhoun is unusual among progressive targets in that he falls short by the standards of his own day, although Yale failed to explain this coherently. Their failure, however, does not change the facts of the case. When push came to shove, Calhoun chose the parochial interests of South Carolina over the welfare of the Union, and in so doing laid the intellectual groundwork for the violence of the Civil War….
“Calhoun was a prolific writer blessed with a keen mind, but he was inclined to follow his arguments to their most extreme conclusions. Hence, in the South Carolina Exposition, written in 1828, he developed the idea of the “concurrent majority.” He argued that states retain full sovereignty over internal matters, that the national government was authorized to legislate only in cases where the good of all required it, and that the states possessed an implicit veto over federal laws that violated this limitation. The Exposition helped inspire the Nullification Crisis of 1832-33, when South Carolina declared the Tariff of 1828 to be null and void within its borders….
“Though Calhoun did not recognize it as such, the concurrent majority was a dangerous, violent doctrine. No doubt he was right that the Tariff of Abominations was a terrible piece of legislation, and he was also correct that it raised the specter of majoritarian tyranny. But the concurrent majority implicitly validates a tyranny of the minority. In his thinking, each state was the proper judge of when the federal government is violating its proper limits. So what happens when a state is selfish or immoral in defying the rightful acts of a legitimate majority? Calhoun has no practical answer. But history offers it: The Nullification Crisis nearly turned violent, and the Civil War most certainly did.
“Calhoun’s concurrent majority is deeply antithetical to the principles embedded in the Constitution. Madison, Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and most of the Founders had agitated for a new governing instrument in part because the states had once claimed the authority Calhoun now argued had remained implicitly reserved to them all along. The Framers understood that this was unsustainable. If the states were left to judge matters for themselves, the result would be, as Hamilton argues in Federalist 8, “desultory and predatory” war.”
Neocon bootlicker licks the boot of a strong central government.
Doomco- the 1911 is the perfect gun to build. It’s not like I whittled one out of a piece of meteorite. Everything is available commercially, with a huge variance of cost and quality. There’s a place called Sarco, Inc in Pennsylvania which sells everything you need; their stuff is Armscor/ Rock Island, from the Phillipines. Or you can go to one of the big name / big price guys. The frame is “the gun” and if you buy a completed ready to go frame it will have to come through an ffl just like a complete shooter. Everything else can come via the mailman.
which creates perverse incentives failing students
Oops, that was poorly-worded. Additional funding for poor kids does not incentivize failing students, but the separate, specific monetary incentives for failing students do.
Um.
A federal voucher system is a bad idea, IMO.
Education should be de-federalized. If you want it to be permanently federalized, institute a federal voucher system. It will never ever go away. The feds can then make all sorts of shit eligibility criteria. So it would basically federalize all “private” schools.
Bad idea.
Eh, if they passed this bill next week, by the time Dems are able to fuck with it, you will have several years of parents getting used to spending “their” voucher money as they see fit, and they will resist attempts to regulate how such funding can be spent.
The parents will still feel like they are getting money to spend on schools. It’s the schools and states that will have the restrictions placed on them. Give it a few years. No one will want to give up the money flow, but strings WILL be attached, one by one.
Yeah but in the meantime we can drink deeply of the tears of the teachers unions. Oh and you know, kids will actually have a chance at a good education.
In the long run, we’re all dead anyway.
Of course education should be de-federalized. That’s understood here. I ranted about that long and hard in the related article about the School Lunches part of HR610.
But this is a way out of the current morass of federal block grants to public schools (and only public schools, no private school parents or homeschoolers need apply). Vouchers have been long debated by libertarians, and the majority consensus is that vouchers are the best, most achievable way out of this mess. If we must have federal dollars going for the education of schoolchildren, let those dollars flow according to strict numerical criteria – fixed amount for each student regardless or race, ethnicity, special bathroom considerations, or how well that person does. Not a perfect solution, but a far better place than we are now.
This also serves as a “poison pill” option, ie one that will make progs reconsider that whole federal dollars for public schools, and it’s a win-win for us. If they decide that maybe the US DoEd isn’t such a good idea after all, then we win; if HR 610 passes in it’s current form then it moves us in a better direction.