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The Hill
4 days ago
- Politics
- The Hill
Education Department investigating 4 Kansas school districts over trans student policies
The Education Department said Thursday it is investigating four Kansas public school districts over transgender student policies alleged to violate federal discrimination and privacy laws. The department's Office for Civil Rights and Student Privacy Policy Office opened probes into Topeka, Shawnee Mission, Olathe and Kansas City, Kansas Public Schools, according to a news release. The investigations follow a complaint filed with the Department of Education in June by the Defense of Freedom Institute, a conservative nonprofit, requesting the department investigate the school districts and 'consider potential sanctions' against them, including a withdrawal of federal funding. On the same day in June, Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach (R) asked Education Secretary Linda McMahon to investigate the same school districts, referencing the Defense of Freedom Institute letter and letters he sent in 2023 to six school boards, including the four at the center of Thursday's announcement. The Education Department's investigations, as well as the letters from Kobach and the Defense of Freedom Institute, are directed at policies adopted by each of the school districts that ask staff to not disclose or use caution in revealing to a student's parents when a student requests to use a different name or pronoun at school without the parent's permission. Proponents of such policies argue they protect trans and gender-nonconforming students from families who may not support their identity. Detractors say they deceive parents and infringe on their constitutional rights. The Education Department said Thursday it is also investigating policies at three of the districts that allow transgender students to use single-sex restrooms and locker rooms that best align with their gender identity. The department's investigations allege the school districts' policies violate Title IX, the federal civil rights law against sex discrimination in schools that the Trump administration has said prohibits transgender students from using the restroom or playing on sports teams that match their gender identity, and the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, which grants parents of minor students access to their child's records. Spokespeople for the Shawnee Mission and Kansas City, Kansas school districts did not immediately return a request for comment. Becky Grubaugh, executive director of communications and community relations for Olathe Public Schools, said the district had not received any formal notification that it was under investigation. 'This is the first I have heard of this,' she wrote in an email to The Hill. A spokesperson for Topeka Public Schools said the district 'recognizes the importance of parental rights and understands that student success is best achieved when families are actively involved in their child's education.' 'We are committed to working in partnership with parents, keeping them informed and engaged in all decisions that impact their student's educational experience. Our district remains dedicated to ensuring that families are fully supported, valued, and involved every step of the way,' the spokesperson, Aarion L. Gray, said in an email. In a statement on Thursday, McMahon said the four districts had allowed 'gender ideology to run amok in their schools' in what she said is an affront 'not only to the law, but to the sound judgment we expect from our educational leaders.' 'My offices will vigorously investigate these matters to ensure these practices come to an end,' she said. Responding to the investigations, Kobach touted a 2024 lawsuit he filed alongside three other Republican-led states challenging Title IX rules instituted by former President Biden's administration that bolstered protections for LGBTQ students. The Biden administration's regulations, which a federal judge vacated in January, covered discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity for the first time. 'I am grateful that we now have a federal government that takes Title IX seriously and will ensure that school districts follow the law,' Kobach said Thursday. The Education Department has opened more than two dozen investigations into states, school districts, athletic associations and colleges and universities alleged to have violated Title IX by allowing transgender students to use restrooms or participate in sports consistent with their gender identity, part of a broader and aggressive Trump administration push to deliver on the president's campaign promise to rid schools of 'gender insanity.'
Yahoo
01-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Big Tax Bill Passes Senate With Less ‘Beautiful' Plan for National School Choice
The Senate on Tuesday passed the nation's first federal tax credit scholarship program as part of a massive tax and spending bill President Donald Trump wants to sign by July 4. But the provision is significantly watered down from the one school choice advocates have been working toward since the first Trump administration. As it currently stands, states may opt in, meaning many Democratic-majority states probably won't participate. Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter Jim Blew, co-founder of the Defense of Freedom Institute, a conservative think tank, called the Senate passage 'an important step toward making sure every family and teacher in our country enjoys education freedom.' But the restrictions, he said, will 'make it very, very hard to put funds into the hands of families who just want to get their children in a better school.' House staff began deliberations over the bill immediately, with a vote expected Wednesday. But it's unclear how members will greet the revamped choice plan. The plan grants donors to scholarship organizations a tax credit for the same amount they contribute. Those nonprofits then award funds to families for private school tuition and other educational expenses. But unlike the more expansive plan the House passed in late May, the Senate gives states a say over which groups can participate and strikes language that would have prohibited any control over private schools. That could be a major sticking point for House members, said Joshua Cowen, an education professor at Michigan State University and a vocal voucher opponent. 'Maybe they'll just hold their nose and pass it,' he said. But that would come at the cost of 'the most wide-ranging federal regulations we'd ever see on private and religious K-12 schools.' Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a longtime sponsor of the Educational Choice for Children Act, didn't mention the revisions when he addressed the chamber during the early morning hours Tuesday after members worked on Trump's 'one big beautiful bill' through the night. 'This tax credit provision will unleash billions of dollars every single year for scholarships for kids to attend the K-through-12 school of their choice,' he said, calling school choice 'the civil rights issue of the 21st century.' The new program is just a small part of a legislative package that continues Trump's 2017 tax cuts and could add at least $3 trillion to the national debt by 2034. With a trifecta in Congress and the White House, Republicans passed the bill in a party-line vote. But Vice President J.D. Vance still had to break a 50-50 tie in the Senate after opposition from Republican Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Susan Collins of Maine. The legislation includes other child-related provisions, including the extension of an existing $2,000 child tax credit. The House version boosts it to $2,500, while the Senate version increases the credit to $2,200. 'Trump accounts,' a new feature, would provide a $1,000 investment fund for children that they could later use for education or a house. Among the most controversial changes are cuts and work requirements for Medicaid and food assistance programs for low-income families. The $1 trillion proposed cut to Medicaid could especially impact children in rural areas who are more likely to depend on the program for health care. On the Senate floor Monday morning, Senate Majority Leader John Thune said the 'reforms' make the program more efficient by targeting 'people who are supposed to benefit from Medicaid.' But Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, ranking member of the finance committee, warned: 'Kids with disabilities will lose health care.' Those provisions have generated far more debate among GOP members than the school choice provision. But Republicans made significant changes to that portion after a Senate official ruled Thursday that it didn't meet the standards for reconciliation and would require 60 votes to pass. In addition to allowing government oversight, Republicans dropped the total amount a donor can contribute from 10% of their annual income to $1,700. 'To raise $1.7 million for scholarships, [organizations]need to identify 1,000 donors, which is a lot harder to do,' Blew said. 'That wasn't done to help students or families.' Multiple questions remain over which families stand to benefit the most from the program. Some existing scholarship groups target funds to low-income students, but the federal program lacks such a requirement. The bill sets eligibility at 300% of median income, meaning that in higher-income areas, families earning nearly half a million dollars could use the scholarships. Preference for the scholarships would also go to students who received them the previous year or to their siblings, contributing to concerns that families who already have their children in private schools would be more likely to receive a voucher. 'You can be a very wealthy family in a very wealthy area and still be eligible for [these] funds,' said Jon Valant, director of the Brown Center on Education Policy at the left-leaning Brookings Institution. 'Who knows exactly how this is going to play out.' Supporters say the program will bring private school choice to students nationwide at a time of increasing demand. Tennessee's newly expanded voucher program, for example, received roughly 33,000 applications in the first few hours it was open on May 15, creating technical glitches Opponents argue the program allows donors to avoid taxes and would fund tuition at schools that discriminate against students. Related The House version, Cowan said, 'rams' vouchers into states like Michigan that have rejected them since 2000. Michigan billionaire Betsy DeVos, who promoted a similar federal plan as education secretary during Trump's first term, failed to get a voucher initiative on the ballot in 2023. Kentucky and Colorado said no to private school choice initiatives last November, and Nebraska voters repealed a program lawmakers passed in that state in 2024. In other states — Ohio, South Carolina and Utah — judges have ruled that voucher programs violate the law. On Tuesday, DeVos sounded a triumphant note, calling the Senate passage 'a major win for students and families' on X. Cowan said the vote would not give the former secretary 'her long-sought after goal of forcing vouchers into the states using the tax code' and gives 'substantial authority to state governors and perhaps [education] agencies to say 'no.' ' Education Secretary Linda McMahon welcomed a provision that limits student loans for college, but had nothing to say about the school choice aspect of the bill. Related Critics frequently cite the scarcity of private schools in rural areas as the reason they oppose vouchers. A data analysis from the Urban Institute shows that over 60% of students in urban areas live within two miles of a private school, compared with just a quarter of students in rural areas. Participation in the new program depends on how many families apply and the size of scholarships. Historically, take up rates have been relatively low with new voucher programs, said Colyn Ritter, a senior research associate at EdChoice, an advocacy organization. If scholarships are large enough to cover the full ride to some private schools, which averages about $12,000 nationwide, more families might seek a scholarship, Ritter said. But that amount wouldn't be enough to afford more expensive schools in the Northeast. If scholarship awards are as low as $2,500, that might offer a cut on tuition for families who can make up the difference, but it wouldn't be enough to make private school an option for a family in poverty, he said. Families could use the scholarships for homeschooling costs, like tutoring, curriculum and educational therapies. But Ritter called homeschoolers a 'hard-to-predict' group. The population has grown more diverse racially and politically. Some, he said, could be 'early adopters' of the new funds, but many homeschoolers are still leery of government-run programs. 'We just want to make sure that there are no strings attached and that we won't end up in some government database that can track us and tell us what to do in the future,' said Faith Howe, president of Texans for Homeschool Freedom. Related The Children's Scholarship Fund in New York is one of the nonprofits that would likely participate in the program. The group has affiliates in 23 states, including several blue states, that are closely watching negotiations over the final wording, said spokeswoman Elizabeth Toomey. Her organization has a small homeschool pilot program and might take advantage of the new legislation to expand it. Forty families currently receive $1,000 to spend on approved expenses through the ClassWallet platform, the same way many state education savings accounts operate. But the group's core mission, Toomey said, is awarding roughly 7,000 scholarships each year to students from low-income families across New York City. Recipients receive, on average, about $2,500 toward tuition, but Toomey said the new federal program would allow the organization to increase the award and serve more families. She acknowledged that a scholarship might not help the 'poorest of the poor,' but has helped push many families 'into a position where they can afford private school.'
Washington Post
07-03-2025
- Business
- Washington Post
Trump voucher plan would divert billions in taxes to private schools
The school voucher movement has ticked off victories in conservative states in a quest to send public dollars to private schools, with tax money following the child. Now backers see their best chance yet to go national. Congressional Republicans, backed by the White House, are pushing for a new tax credit that would direct billions of dollars a year to school voucher programs — and not just in conservative states. The program would be fueled by a powerful, never-before-tried incentive: Taxpayers who donate to voucher programs would get 100 percent of their money back when they file their taxes. That means the tax break for giving to voucher programs would dwarf tax incentives for giving to churches, hospitals, food banks and every other charity. Taxpayers who donate to other charities might qualify for a tax deduction — meaning they would not pay taxes on the dollars they contribute. But donors to voucher programs would get a dollar-for-dollar tax credit, meaning they could subtract the full value of the donation from their bottom line tax liability. One version of the plan would cost the federal government $5 billion a year in lost revenue; another version, $10 billion. At $10,000 per student, $5 billion would be enough to pay for about 500,000 vouchers, which families could use to send their children to private schools or to pay for home schooling expenses. Under a version of the bill approved by the House Ways and Means Committee last fall and a new version introduced this year, all but the wealthiest families would be eligible to receive vouchers. 'It would be transformational,' said Jim Blew, co-founder of the Defense of Freedom Institute, which advocates for school choice programs. 'Although the numbers are very small in the federal context, in the context of the school choice movement, these are huge numbers.' About 46 million American children — nearly nine in 10 — attend public schools; about 5 million are enrolled in private schools, according to federal data. Blew and others argue that public schools have failed many students, and families deserve the opportunity to choose alternatives with taxpayer support, just like public school students get taxpayer support. Backers often point to poor test scores and schools that were kept closed for long periods during the pandemic as reasons more choice is needed. They call the movement 'education freedom' and sometimes deride public education as 'government schools.' 'Giving students a brighter future, no matter their background or address, is critical to move American K-12 education forward,' said Rep. Adrian Smith (R-Nebraska), co-sponsor of legislation to create the tax credits. But opposition is fierce from those who say these plans drain resources from public schools, which are required by law to take all children. Public school advocates are mobilizing publicly and privately against the plan, lobbying Republicans who might oppose it based on the merits or the cost. 'We're making sure the public understands this is the greatest threat to public education we've ever had at the federal level,' said Sasha Pudelski, director of advocacy for AASA, the School Superintendents Association, who helps lead a coalition of more than 60 groups opposed to the voucher plan. Pudelski noted that unlike public schools, private schools can reject students based on their religion, test scores, disability or ability to pay tuition. The vast majority of vouchers in existing state programs go to religious schools. 'It would be the first time the federal government is choosing to subsidize a secondary private system of education that can pick and choose the students it educates over the one that welcomes all,' she said. Voters, too, have opposed these plans. In November, ballot measures to allow vouchers in Kentucky and Colorado failed, while voters in Nebraska voted to repeal a voucher program put into place by the legislature. But the federal plan enjoys robust support from the most powerful people in today's Republican Party. President Donald Trump has repeatedly vowed to create a federal school choice program. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) have both co-sponsored versions of the voucher legislation. Supporters hope the tax credit will be included in the massive budget reconciliation bill that is moving through Congress using a procedure that allows passage in the Senate with a simple majority. It's not a given. The budget bill's primary purpose is to extend trillions of dollars in tax cuts set to expire, and lawmakers are searching for savings to fill that hole. The tax credit would make the hole deeper. Victory in Congress would mark the biggest, but not the only, advance for the school choice movement this year. Last month, the governors of Tennessee and Idaho signed legislation creating new voucher programs, bringing the total number of states with voucher programs available to all or nearly all families to 16, according to EdChoice, an advocacy group that tracks state policy. In Texas, where voucher plans have been blocked for years, lawmakers appear poised to enact a program after Gov. Greg Abbott intervened in GOP primaries to replace Republicans who opposed vouchers with Republicans who support them. And in January, Trump signed an executive order directing the Education Department to look for ways to divert existing federal spending into voucher programs. 'Parents want and deserve the best education for their children,' the order said. 'But too many children do not thrive in their assigned, government-run K-12 school.' The first voucher programs date to the 1990s, and they were initially touted as a way to help families who cannot afford private school and were stuck in low-performing public districts. The early programs limited participants based on income, location or both. Some were targeted to children with disabilities. Later, backers overcame opposition by creating tax credit programs — a way to offer vouchers without directly allocating money from the state budget. Instead, states offered generous tax credits to corporations and individuals who donated to nonprofit 'scholarship granting organizations.' The organizations, called SGOs, then used the donations to give scholarships, or vouchers, to pay for private school. Twenty-one states have tax credit scholarship programs in place, according to EdChoice. Congress based the tax credit plan it is now considering on these models. In states that don't have these programs — typically those run by Democrats — scholarship-granting organizations could be created to participate in the federal plan without any state action. In the meantime, conservative states have become more willing to create direct voucher programs, and they have made them available to families of all incomes, arguing government should support any school that a parent chooses. They typically also offer families money to pay expenses associated with home schooling. In many states that keep track, most of the families receiving the subsidies were already sending their children to private schools. In some cases, private schools have raised their tuition, now that families have access to additional funding. Under the proposed federal plan, families earning up to three times their area median income would qualify for vouchers. That's more than $450,000 per year in D.C., or more than $270,000 in Morgantown, West Virginia This bill marks the second big push for this idea in Congress. In 2017, at the start of Trump's first term, a similar budget reconciliation bill was being negotiated. Betsy DeVos, the education secretary at the time, lobbied hard for the tax credit plan to be included, but it was left out. At the time, some conservatives opposed it, including the influential Heritage Foundation, which argued that the tax credit would complicate the tax code, allow for future regulations on private schools, improperly broaden the federal role in education and require 'massive new spending.' 'A new federal tax-credit scholarship program would make private schools increasingly dependent on federal funds … greatly expanding Washington's reach into K-12 education generally, and private school education, specifically,' wrote Lindsey Burke, who directs education policy at Heritage. But Burke changed her position. In Project 2025, the conservative blueprint for a new president, she wrote that Congress 'should consider' a school choice tax credit. Burke declined an interview request to discuss why she changed her view. The plan under consideration would be a first for federal policy. No other donations qualify for a 100 percent federal tax credit, tax experts say. Under the plan, both individuals and corporations could qualify for the tax credit. For individuals, the credit applies for donations up to $5,000 or 10 percent of adjusted gross income, whichever is higher. For corporations, it's up to 5 percent of taxable income. 'There is nothing like this at the federal level,' said Carl Davis, research director at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. 'This is not normal tax policy.' For other charitable donations, a tax deduction functions as an incentive or a match — the government is paying part and the taxpayer is paying part. In this case, the government is paying all of it. But Davis's bigger concern is with another element of the bill. Taxpayers would be allowed to claim a tax credit for donations of stock, as well as cash. When people donate stocks, they would not have to pay capital gains taxes on accumulated earnings. That means that taxpayers who donate stock to a scholarship granting organization would first avoid the capital gains tax and then receive the value of the stock back in the form of a tax credit. For instance, imagine someone buys $1,000 in stock and, five years later, wants to sell. The stock is now worth $5,000. Normally, a sale would trigger capital gains taxes on the $4,000 of earnings. But using this maneuver, a taxpayer could avoid those taxes by donating the stock to a scholarship organization, and then get the full value — $5,000 — back as a tax credit. A report his group plans to release next week calculates that a $10 billion annual tax credit will cost the federal government $134 billion over 10 years, including the lost revenue from capital gains taxes. Davis predicted wealthy people with no particular interest in vouchers will be advised to donate stock to voucher programs to get the combined power of these two tax incentives. 'That is the quintessential definition of a tax shelter,' he said. Dan Hungerman, an economics professor and expert on charitable giving at the University of Notre Dame, agreed that this would offer a powerful incentive not seen elsewhere in the tax code. 'You're kind of double dipping,' he said, 'avoiding the tax and getting a benefit for the donation.'
