EXECUTIVE ORDER PAYS SCHOOLS EXTRA TO JEOPARDIZE STUDENT HEALTH & SAFETY
Just when you thought you’d seen the limits of the governor’s poor decision-making, he goes a step further. Last week he went so far as to provide financial incentives for K-12 schools to ignore CDC COVID mitigation recommendations.
In a second Executive Order, he offers $7K per pupil in federal money to families that live in districts following CDC mitigation measures.
Let’s start with the school bribery scheme. In that E.O. the governor offers to increase per pupil funding by $1,800 per year for schools that ignore CDC mitigation measures (universal masking).
Only schools that haven’t already received $1,800 per pupil federal pandemic funds qualify, so many districts (including Phoenix Union High School District) couldn’t qualify for the extra money even if they were ignoring CDC mitigation (which is what the governor desires). Schools ignoring CDC’s universal masking recommendation qualify for the difference between $1,800 per pupil and whatever they have already received.
Just think about this. He is actually paying schools extra to jeopardize student’s health by ignoring CDC mitigation measures. Amazing.
Here’s the list of schools that qualify for at least some of the $1,800 per pupil assuming they ignore CDC mitigation measures. Note that not a single school could qualify for the $1,800 per capita.
Now on to the scheme where parents get $7,000 ‘cash on the barrelhead’ if they live in a district that is following CDC mitigation measures and they don’t want to send their kid there because of that. Perhaps Chris Kotterman (@mrkotter) from the Arizona School Boards Association said it best on Twitter last week:
“If your school district is following @CDCgov guidance to reduce the spread of COVID, here is $7,000 of federal COVID relief money to send your child to a place where they do not do that.”
Interestingly, the free cash is only available to families that have an income less than 350% of poverty or about $66K per year. My guess is that limitation is because of some provision in the Rescue Act funding, otherwise I would expect this governor to have no income limit so that his wealthy patrons could get free cash too.
US Treasury and Education Departments Push Back
Less than 24 hours after the governor outlined his scheme by Executive Order, the US Departments of Treasury and Education pushed back, suggesting that Ducey’s move is an inappropriate use of American Rescue Plan Act funds (the federal dollars to states flow through those federal agencies). Here’s the statement from Treasury:
“No state should use federal funds to prevent or discourage schools from using evidence-based approaches to stopped the spread of Covid-19,” a Treasury spokesperson said. “Treasury is monitoring all proposed expenditures and expects any state or local government that uses State and Local funds in violation of the eligible uses to repay the misused funds to the federal government.”
Likewise, the U.S. Department of Education read the governor the riot act in this letter to Ducey:
“Arizona’s actions to block school districts from voluntarily adopting science-based strategies for preventing the spread of COVID-19 that are aligned with the guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) puts these goals at risk and may infringe upon a school district’s authority to adopt policies to protect students and educators as they develop their safe return to in-person instruction plans required by Federal law.”
“The Department recognizes that several LEAs in your State have already moved to adopt such policies in line with guidance from the CDC for the reopening and operation of school facilities despite the State-level prohibitions. The Department stands with these dedicated educators working to safely reopen schools and maintain safe in-person instruction.”
Note: The governor better be careful here. He is playing with federal funds and dealing with an administration that is committed to evidence based public health practice (unlike himself). Because the federal government holds the purse strings, they can punish the governor in different ways, just as the governor tries to punish schools and students.