Hurricane Katrina displaces approximately 372,000 public and private school students in Louisiana and Mississippi
With Hurricane Katrina having displaced approximately 372,000 public and private school students in Louisiana and Mississippi, those states, along with the federal government, face the daunting task of rebuilding schools and providing educational services for displaced students until evacuees can return home. U.S. Department of Education (ED) Secretary Margaret Spellings has declined to estimate the cost of educating displaced students or of rebuilding or how much funding the federal government will provide. "I shouldn't be talking about the details that I'm in negotiations with the White House and the (Capitol) Hill on," she says. "As soon as I can talk about it, I want to talk about it." In addition, she plans to ask Congress for the authority to ease several provisions in the McKinney-Vento Act, which governs the education of homeless children. While Secretary Spelling has vowed to extend No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) waivers to states affected by the hurricane, she cautions that this does not signal that every state will have a year off from complying with NCLB's provisions. For example, she has denied Mississippi's request for a waiver for some school districts from NCLB's adequate yearly progress (AYP) provisions, citing the fact that the tests are not scheduled until this spring and it is too soon to waive a "lynchpin" of NCLB. Texas, which has enrolled 29,000 displaced students, has also made a NCLB waiver request. In addition, states and local school districts are facing additional costs associated with providing educational services for displaced students. Texas spends an average of $7,500 per student. With experts estimating that the state might absorb up to 60,000 displaced students, Texas would need an additional $450 million. While Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) funding will cover transportation costs, portable buildings, school computers and mental health counselors, it will not cover the cost of textbooks or salaries for additional teachers. In a letter to ED seeking additional federal education funds to help offset the costs of educating thousands of evacuees, Texas Education Commissioner Shirley Neeley also has asked ED to allow "school administrators … flexibility in assigning evacuees to campuses based on safety, capacity, personnel and transportation considerations," and for relief from the AYP provisions. Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn has asked Governor Rick Perry to convene a three-day special session of the state legislature to appropriate $1.2 billion in surplus revenue to help with hurricane-related costs. "While we can count on the federal government to do what it can in Texas, the feds are not going to pay for us to hire more police, and they are not going to pay for us to bring in more teachers to educate the thousands of new children enrolling in our already stretched local schools," she notes. However, the governor voices confidence that the federal government will reimburse the state for education, social services, and other costs related to helping the hurricane victims. According to the governor's spokesman, Robert Black, "The comptroller needs to stop trying to make Texans pay the bill when it's the federal government's responsibility."
CNN.comBy Associated Press
[Link to full story]Houston ChronicleBy Janet Elliott
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Editor's Note: Both Secretary Spellings' response to Mississippi's requests and Texas Commissioner Neeley's letter to her are below. In addition, Louisiana State Superintendent of Education Cecil J. Picard has announced that, as a starting point, he will request federal flexibility in the form of permission to calculate AYP only for students who are in the same school for two years and, given that schools are not operating at capacity, to substitute Supplemental Educational Services for public school choice as an intervention when a school fails to make AYP. Indicating that charter schools "may be uniquely equipped" to meet the needs of displaced students, Secretary Spellings has announced that the department is prepared to consider requests from or on behalf of charter schools for waivers of statutory or regulatory requirements and would like to direct $20 million currently available under the Charter Schools Program to help charter schools serve displaced students.]
[Spellings letter to Mississippi][Neeley letter to Spellings][Louisiana Department of Education press release][Federal guidance on charter school supplemental funds and waivers]