Friday News Roundup: Week of August 1-5

New York tuition costs head higher

California loses federal funds for teacher database

Ohio voters reject 85 percent of new school taxes

Major education groups in Colorado back proposed state tax hike for K-12

New York tuition costs head higher
New York State’s fiscal year 2012 budget agreement included deep cuts (6 percent over fiscal year 2011) to the state’s community college network. Counties have maintained their contributions to the schools, but with increasing enrollment numbers, students at the community colleges will feel the pinch this year when schools raise tuition to fill the hole left by missing state funding. Some tuition increases will reach nearly 9 percent, as at Hudson Valley Community College. Schenectady County Community College, which will increase spending by 9 percent despite the funding gap this year, will replace some of the missing funds with a 3 percent tuition increase amounting to about $300 per student.. More here…

California loses federal funds for teacher database
Budget cuts signed by California Governor Jerry Brown for fiscal year 2012 included $2.1 million in spending cuts for a program designed to track teacher and administrator data. Now, the federal government is requiring the state to return $6 million in grant funds provided though the State Longitudinal Data Systems grant program. The funds were to be used for the creation of the CalTIDES database, which would store teacher information. California officials had hoped to convince federal officials to allow them to use the $6 million for other projects, but ultimately were told that they would have to return the grant. In the meantime, Governor Brown has suggested that school districts could each track some of their own data. More here…

Ohio voters reject 85 percent of new school taxes
Elections held this week in Ohio yielded a series of votes on new and existing taxes to support public schools. All three votes to renew existing taxes were approved. However, voters nixed all but six of the 23 new funding requests across the state, according to the Ohio School Boards Association. While August elections generally are not kind to education funding, the passage rate for education finance votes was the lowest it has been since 2007. The biennial state budget for fiscal years 2012 and 2013 cuts funding for Ohio schools by almost $780 million, meaning that the 17 school districts that failed to pass new local taxes to support public education will either be forced to drastically cut their budgets or will have to gain voters’ support at the ballot box in November. More here…

Major education groups in Colorado back proposed state tax hike for K-12
Colorado State Senator Rollie Heath (D-Boulder) is the author of a proposal to place income and sales tax increases to support education on the ballot in November. This week, the Colorado Association of School Boards and the Colorado Association of School Executives came out in support of his proposal. The Colorado Education Association, a major teachers union in the state, has not yet come out in support of the proposal. The proposal would raise the income tax to 5 percent from 4.63 percent for five years, and would increase the state sales tax from 2.9 percent to 3 percent for five years. All told, the proposal would generate $536 million for K-12 and higher education in its first year, and a total of about $3 billion over the five year period of the increase. K-12 education in Colorado has been cut by over $500 million in the past several years, so the funds could help to restore that money. Heath ran a petition drive, earning more than enough signatures to secure the initiative’s place on the ballot. More here…