: July 2009 |
PTA Calls on Members to Support White House Community Service Initiative On June 27, PTA leadership and officials from the U.S. Department of Education called on thousands of parents and educators attending the 113th Annual PTA National Convention to get involved in 'United We Serve,' a White House initiative that encourages Americans to serve their communities from June 22 - September 11. Several days before the convention, PTA published a community service toolkit to give all parents and advocates a practical tool to use when planning a service project in support of 'United We Serve'. The toolkit, available at PTA.org/calltoservice, provides step-by-step details for planning a project, as well as other resources like checklists, sample invitations to the public and to an elected official, and sample thank you letters. It also allows people to share their success stories about their project with PTA. These stories and results will be shared with President Obama and the Corporation for National and Community Service at the end of the initiative. The toolkit is now available in Spanish. As 'United We Serve' engages Americans to address community needs in education, health, energy, and the environment, PTA is mobilizing its members, partners, and supporters to focus on sustained service related to education, military families, and health. Although the United We Serve effort has an end date, PTA encourages all families to be involved in meaningful service year-round. Progress on Health Care Reform Slow But Steady Last month, both the Senate Finance Committee and the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) released their initial drafts for comprehensive health care reform. Both committees are attempting to craft legislation that would cover the nearly 46 million uninsured Americans, along with the approximately 25 million Americans deemed underinsured. Both versions of the legislation immediately faced significant opposition due to Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates putting the cost of the bills at $1 trillion over the next decade for the HELP Committee plan and $1.6 trillion over the next decade for the Finance Committee version. However, the CBO estimates were not inclusive of every aspect of these bills, and champions of the legislation have put forth a renewed effort to reduce the overall price tag in recent days. On July 2, the CBO rescored the HELP Committee's bill, announcing the overall cost of the plan to be $611.4 billion over the next ten years. While this estimate would now fit within the $630 billion set aside for financing health care reform initiatives in the next decade under President Obama's Fiscal 2010 Budget, there remain a number of difficult tasks ahead. One major hurdle yet to be addressed is the eventual requirement to marry the various legislative proposals into one comprehensive plan. Just one example of the fundamental differences that will need to be resolved between the two Senate versions is the inclusion of a national, public option, which is a government-sponsored health care plan to compete with private health care insurers. This contentious component of the legislation is included in the HELP Committee version, but not in the Finance Committee's plan. In addition to the two Senate committee versions, three committees in the House of Representatives have crafted their own version of health care reform legislation, which does include a public option. With many critical provisions of these bills still up for debate, it is clear that turning these disparate bills into one final version will require a long negotiation process. In addition to covering the millions of Americans who are either uninsured or underinsured, the administration has tasked Congress with the goals of bringing down the rising costs of health care coverage, strengthening existing coverage, and emphasizing prevention and wellness under our system. House Education and Labor Committee News Congressman John Kline (R-MN) has become the new ranking member of the House Education and Labor Committee. The elevation of Congressman Kline, who was listed tenth in Republican seniority on the Committee, occurred when Congressman Buck McKeon (R-CA) relinquished his ranking member status to take on the Republican leadership of the House Armed Services Committee. The House Education and Labor Committee has jurisdiction over issues of health care, child care, education, and any early childhood initiatives the Administration proposes. Supreme Court: Public Must Pay for Private Special Education
Federal law calls for school districts to reimburse students or their families for education costs when public schools do not have services that address or fulfill the students' needs. Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), special education students are entitled to a 'free and appropriate public education.' In its appeal, the school district said students should be forced to at least give public special education programs a try before seeking reimbursement for private tuition. Parents of some special education students contend that forcing them to try public schools first could force children, especially poor ones, to spend time in an undesirable situation before getting the help they need. Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in his majority opinion that the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) requires a school district to pay for private special education services if the public school doesn't have appropriate services. "We conclude that IDEA authorizes reimbursement for the cost of special education services when a school district fails to provide a [free appropriate public education] and the private-school placement is appropriate, regardless of whether the child previously received special education or related services through the public school," Stevens said. The court's decision does not require reimbursement, but Stevens said school officials "must consider all relevant factors, including the notice provided by parents and the school district's opportunities for evaluating the child, in determining whether reimbursement for some or all of the cost of the child's private school education is warranted." The case is Forest Grove School District v. T.A., 08-305. Supreme Court Rules School Strip Search Unconstitutional Savana Redding, who now attends college, was 13 when officials at Safford Middle School ordered her to remove her clothes and shake out her underwear because they were looking for pills. The district bans prescription and over-the-counter drugs, and the school was acting on a tip from another student. An 8-1 majority of the Court found that the search was unconstitutional. Justice David Souter, writing for the majority said, "Savana's subjective expectation of privacy against such a search is inherent in her account of it as embarrassing, frightening, and humiliating... Here, the content of the suspicion failed to match the degree of intrusion." However, the Court ruled 7-2 that the school officials were protected from having to pay Savana monetary damages, saying that though the search was unconstitutional, school officials "are nevertheless protected from liability through qualified immunity." The case is Safford v. Redding, 08-479. |
