Noelle Ellerson
Leslie Finnan
May 2015

• Funding
– State and local budgets have yet to reach prerecession levels
– Sequestration at the federal level
• Political
– ….partisan, and battle of the wills between Cong and the admin
• State Government
– Trend in legislation and policy to undermine public education

• Your voice matters.
• These decisions get made whether you weigh in or not
• It’s a marathon, not a sprint
• Relationships, not just content
• You are best positioned to tell your district’s story
• Use your professional organizations!
• 15 minutes a month

• American Legislative Exchange Council
• Conservative group with a membership composed of state legislators, business, nonprofit, and think-tank representatives.
– Started in 1973
– Active with the Reagan administration
• Funded primarily by corporations and vastly affiliated with the Republican Party.

• Two kinds of membership:
– Public Sector Membership (Legislators)
• Membership fee is $100 for two years
– Private Sector Membership (Corporations)
• Three circles of membership
– $7,000, $12,000, or $25,000 per year
– Nonprofits are eligible for $3,500 membership
• Pay extra to sit on influential task forces
• “Scholarship Fund”
– Corporations give to the fund, which pays travel expenses for legislators – gets around many states’ gift or lobbying laws
• Legislators often know who donated, but it is not disclosed
• Three states have specifically exempted ALEC from state gift or lobbying laws

• Big Players
– AT&T
– ExxonMobil
– Koch Companies
– State Farm Insurance
– UPS
– American Express
• Education Task Force
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•
•
•
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• Alliance for School Choice
Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities
National Association of Charter School
Authorizers
John Locke Foundation
Corinthian Colleges
U.S. Chamber of Commerce

• No official list is made available
• Prominent alumni include:
– Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio)
– Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Illinois)
– Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
– Speaker Tom DeLay (R-Texas)
• Executive Board
– National Chair - Rep. John Piscopo (R-Connecticut)
– First Vice Chair - Rep. Linda Upmeyer (R-Iowa)
– Second Vice Chair - Rep. Phil King (R-Texas)
– Treasurer - Sen. Leah Vukmir (R-Wisconsin)
– Secretary - Rep. Liston Barfield (R-South Carolina)
– Immediate Past Chair - Rep. Dave Frizzell (R-Indiana)

• Coca-Cola
• Pepsi
• Kraft
• McDonalds
• Wendy’s
• Mars
• Blue Cross Blue Shield
• YUM! Brands
• Kaplan
• Amazon.com
• Wal-Mart
• Johnson and Johnson
• Dell
• John Deere
• CVS Caremark
• MillerCoors
• Hewlett-Packard
• Best Buy
• Connections Academy
• General Motors
• Walgreens
• General Electric

• Civil Justice and Justice Performance Project
– Promoting systemic fairness in the courts, discouraging frivolous lawsuits, balancing judicial and legislative authority
– Limiting imprisonment of nonviolent offenders, reduction in overcriminalization, increased pretrial release
• Commerce, Insurance, and Economic Development
– Use of public-private partnerships in transportation infrastructure, collective bargaining transparency, reduction of licensing requirements, deregulation of financial system, privatizing public services,
• Communications and Technology
– Broadband development, consumer privacy, promoting new forms of e-commerce, growing high-tech sector

• Energy, Environment, and Agriculture
– Promoting free-market environmentalism
• Health and Human Services
– Promoting free-market health care reforms
• International Relations
– Supporting intellectual property rights, Keystone XL
Pipeline, cybersecurity
• Tax and Fiscal Policy
– Budget transparency, state spending limitation, requirement of supermajority for tax increases

– Voucher Programs for All Students
• Parental Choice Scholarship Program Act - Universal Eligibility
• Parental Choice Scholarship Program Act - Means-Tested Eligibility
– Voucher Programs for Students with Special Needs or
Circumstances
• Special Needs Scholarship Program Act
• Autism Scholarship Act
• Foster Child Scholarship Program Act
– Tax Credit Acts
• Great Schools Tax Credit Program Act
• Family Education Tax Credit Program Act
– Non-Voucher School Choice
• Charter Schools Act
• Open Enrollment Act (portability)

• ALEC insists that charters schools are public schools, even though they believe charters should be controlled by private boards and for profit operators.
• ALEC also believes charter schools should be exempt from most state laws and regulations applied to traditional public schools.

• Most ALEC work so far has been at the state level
• New subgroup - American City County
Exchange announced last summer
– Will focus on the local level
• “Private sector members may join Council Committees, participate in policy development and network with other entrepreneurs and municipal officials from around the country”
• $25,000 or $10,000 membership fees

• Grassroots campaigns
– Publicizing how ALEC works
• Center for Media and Democracy ALEC Exposed site houses information about ALEC and members
• Common Cause publishes ALEC documents
– Linking ALEC with bad policy
• Reactions to Stand Your Ground laws hurting ALEC membership
• Center on Budget and Policy Priorities state affiliates doing research
– Georgia and Kansas – showing how tax cuts hurt public education
• AASA formed a group of state lobbyists and others interested in battling ALEC

• Election communications toolkit –
• http://aasa.org/content.aspx
?id=35704
• Derailing the Push to Privatize:
Vouchers, ALEC, and the Success of Public Education
• http://aasa.org/uploadedFile s/Resources/Toolkits/Advoca cy/Toolkit_Vouchers_ALEC_f ull.pdf

• Activity vs. Productivity
• Authorizations and Reauthorizations
• Regulations
• Funding
– Budget & Appropriations
• Hearings/Mark Ups

• Where do things stand?!
• Portability & Vouchers: Whatever happens re: vouchers/portability in Title I is what they will push for in
IDEA and Perkins
– OPPOSE vouchers and portability; Title I dollars must remain targeted on concentrations of poverty
• Assessment: AASA welcomes language that would reduce the amount of federally mandated testing, with continued focus on high-quality, rigorous assessments
– Important to note that the burden of overtesting is most exacerbated at state/local level. Fed govt can reduce its role, but states/locals must do their part, too.
– Proposal for grade span testing, random sampling (like NAEP!) or every year (with alternating subjects)
– Alexander bill maintains annual testing requirement

• Accountability: Return autonomy to state/local level
– Maintain current data disaggregation, oppose effort to expand accountability matrix
– Reduce highly prescriptive turn around models
• Funding: Oppose funding caps; AASA prefers the language ‘such sums’, allowing appropriators to fund programs

• Comparability: AASA opposes any effort to include teacher salaries in the calculation of comparability. Keep current law.
• Maintenance of Effort: AASA opposes the elimination of
MoE. We want to keep current law, with the 90% threshold.
• Ed Tech: AASA advocates a strong, stand alone ed tech program, currently Title II Part D.
• Background Checks
• & Much More!

$700
$650
$600
(in billions)
$550
$500
$450
$400
FY 12 FY 13 FY 14 FY 15
FY 12 Cap adjusted for inflation
FY 16
Source: CEF Calculations based on CBO and OMB data
FY 17 FY 18
BCA Pre-Sequester Caps
FY 19 FY 20
Sequestration
FY 21 FY 22
Ryan-Murray
FY 23

Appropriations: FY14, FY15, & FY16
• The final FY14 appropriations package restored roughly
80% of all sequester cuts. USED received an amount that covered roughly 65% of its cuts.
– Impact Aid: fully restored
– Title I and IDEA have most of cuts restored (~90%)
– REAP left at post-sequester level
• For FY15, the final deal was essentially level funding, with nominal increases for Title I and IDEA.
– FY16 (as indicated on the previous slide) is the third consecutive year of level funding.
• Pres Obama’s FY16 budget included $2.7b increase for ESEA
• House and Senate committed to timeline budget process
(relates to pressure on ESEA)

• Unless rescinded, sequestration cuts return in FY16
• FY15 reality is such that most programs are still not to presequester levels
• No across-the-board cuts in FY16, unless Defense is exempted.
• Continued push to isolate cuts to non-defense discretionary
• Important to keep the pressure on Congress to protect education funding, preferably through avoiding sequester, if not at least ensuring cuts are to ALL of the budget

– AASA’s #1 legislative priority is full funding of IDEA
– IDEA’s MoE requirements are untenable, inequitable, and need to be modified
• Treat IDEA MoE like that of Title I, both with ‘wiggle room’ and local waiver
• Expand list of exceptions
• Current provisions do not incentivize additional investments in special education when districts budgets improve
• More flexibility is needed in IDEA to encourage districts to invest in special education when budgets are good, and ensure districts can utilize optimize efficiency when budgets aren’t as good
– Reauthorization: Jan 2016?
• Fixing Due Process
– Rate of due process continues to decrease, but not because system is working
– Due process drives good teachers away from special education
– Due process is incredibly costly

• Administration’s Perkins Blueprint
– Removes the basic state grant guaranteed to any school district with a CTE program
– Requires districts to partner with post-secondary institutions for Perkins funding
– Creates a “Pay-to-Play” system for Perkins funding
– Mandates a set-aside within current Perkins allocation for innovative programs
• Themes for Reauthorization
– Common definitions for Perkins
– Requirement for consortium application
– Increased reporting requirements
– Career counseling

• The core of the program is still the same. Category One and
Category Two remain in place, with comparable functionality.
• Poverty indicator is now district level (not school-based).
• Legacy services will be phased out (phone, webhosting, paging, etc…).
• Reduction of top-level discount (from 90% to 85%)
• FCC voted on Dec 11 to raise the E-Rate cap (permanently!) by
$1.5 billion.

• Student Data & Privacy
• Charters
• Higher Education Act
• Affordable Care Act
• School Nutrition
• Early Learning
• Educational Broadband Services
• More?

• Become an AASA Member.
• AASA Website: www.aasa.org
• AASA Policy Blog: www.aasa.org/AASABlog.aspx
• AASA Advocacy on Twitter (next slide!)
• Annual AASA Advocacy Conference
• Weekly Update: Legislative Corps
• Monthly Update: Advocacy Alert
• Policy Insider
• Legislative Trends
• Toolkits (E-Rate, ALEC, etc…)

Noelle Ellerson nellerson@aasa.org
@Noellerson
Leslie Finnan lfinnan@aasa.org
@LeslieFinnan
Sasha Pudelski spudelski@aasa.org
@Spudelski
Francesca Duffy fduffy@aasa.org
@fm_duffy
Join AASA today! http://aasa.org/join.aspx