H.R. 1056: Family Education Freedom Act of 2007

Family Education Freedom Act of 2007 – Amends the Internal Revenue Code to allow a tax credit of up to $5,000 (adjusted for inflation after 2007) per student per year for the cost of attendance at any educational institution (including any private, parochial, religious, or home school) organized to provide elementary or secondary education, or both.

Sponsor: Rep. Ronald Paul [R-TX]

Cosponsors [as of 2007-10-20]
Rep. Roscoe Bartlett [R-MD]
Rep. Tom Feeney [R-FL]
Rep. Patrick Mchenry [R-NC]
Rep. Jeff Miller [R-FL]
Rep. Bobby Rush [D-IL]
Rep. James Sensenbrenner [R-WI]

This bill may look good on the surface, but the kicker is, “Amends the Internal Revenue Code.” To receive such a credit in this manner, a family would have to meet the requirements of the IRS who would then be in the business of writing rules saying that A, B and C are acceptable practices for receiving a credit, but that X, Y and Z are not.

H.R. 1056 — Full text

`(e) Regulations- The Secretary shall prescribe regulations to carry out this section, including regulations providing for claiming the credit under this section on Form 1040EZ.’

For further information, see:

• Home Education Magazine: Are Tax Credits for Educational Expenses a Good Idea for Homeschoolers?, May/Jun 1998
• LocalHS.com: Federalization of homeschooling, 4 December 2003
• NHELD: CT Legislators against Federalization of homeschooling
• Homeschool CPA: Do homeschool teachers get the Educators Expense deduction?

Probably the bottom line is whether parents who homeschool would like to be audited by the IRS about their choice of homeschooling expenses.

posted by Valerie

The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act does not apply to homeschooling families because the federal government does not give them any money for their children’s educations. Still, I must comment because this wording in the NCLB discussion bill puts everyday family life into federal law.

Miller-McKeon Discussion Draft, PDF-pages 276 – 277

(d) SHARED RESPONSIBILITIES FOR IMPROVED STUDENT ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT.As a component of the school-level parental involvement policy developed under subsection (b), each school served under this part shall jointly develop with parents for all children served under this part a school-parent compact that outlines how parents, the entire school staff, and students will share the responsibility for improved student academic achievement and the means by which the school and parents will build and develop a partnership to help children achieve the State’s high standards. Such compact shall

(1) describe the school’s responsibility to provide high-quality curriculum and instruction in a supportive and effective learning environment that enables the children served under this part to meet the State’s student academic achievement standards, and the ways in which each parent will be responsible for supporting their children’s learning, such as monitoring attendance, monitoring homework completion, and monitoring television watching; volunteering in their child’s classroom; and participating, as appropriate, in decisions relating to the education of their children and positive use of extracurricular time;

[emphasis added]

The tax dollars given to schools should support the children and families, not be a means to hold the children and families in thrall. For more on that attitude, see the post below about recapturing children.

I understand that the best use is made of the money given to schools if the children have safe, happy and interesting family lives. Children must be able to take in the attention given to them in school or that time and money is wasted. But having the federal government legislate parental responsibilities, especially by presuming that Federal Knows Best on the “positive use of extracurricular time” — as if childhood is merely an adjunct to ‘curricular time,’ i.e., school! — is an affront.

Whoever wrote this must not see families as sons and daughters, mothers and fathers; that person or people must see us as students and employees.

posted by Valerie

The writer of this article may have got the financial information right, but the sentence about homeschooling and the federal No Child Left Behind act is wrong.

Liberating Kids From The Classroom — But Not Exams, 20 August 2007, Investor’s Business Daily

Also, with the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2000, [the homeschooling] children have a more stringent round of standardized tests to pass.

That is not even close to the facts.

No Child Left Behind — A Desktop Reference, 2002, Page 176

Federal control of home schooling is prohibited. Home schools are not subject to NCLB or NCLB assessments.

The rest of the article is about virtual schooling, and specifically K-12, Inc. In a recent discussion about another online lesson provider, my advice was to “follow the money.” This article underlines my advice.

Liberating Kids From The Classroom — But Not Exams

Auspiciously founded the same year that the No Child Left Behind Act passed, K12 develops online curricula for this unique market. The company draws revenue from a mix of government contracts and direct sales to families. K12 profits to the tune of $8 million in net income the past nine-month school year.

Virtual schools do not liberate children from classroom-type learning, as the article’s title states, but all schools liberate money from the bank accounts of all of us. It is true that state-funded schooling, virtual or brick & mortar, does not cost families direct tuition, but the programs are not free. I doubt that any curriculum-provider/virtual school just drops off the materials at the state DoE and then drives away. It is unlikely that the virtual providers are happy with only the warm glow of satisfaction from providing an education for the children any more than teachers show up at neighborhood schools without the expectation of paychecks. K-12, Inc.’s $8,000,000 net income (meaning the money left after K-12′s obligations are paid) did not fall off a printing press.

Home education is a hot market, but the cash is not in homeschooling, it is in what states pay for virtual schooling. This cost is part of the half-trillion dollars the fifty states and the federal government spend yearly on K-12 education.

Remarks by Secretary Paige at the Executive Leaders Forum, Committee of 100, San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, 28 June 2004

It’s time we recognized a central, cardinal fact: education is a big business. It is a huge part of our economy, a large segment of our gross national product. Last year, as a nation, we spent more than half a trillion dollars on K-12 education.

For those with a technical bent, that would be $500,000,000,000.00+ (as for how much half a trillion looks like ….)

• a million dots — scroll to the right at the site (I believe you would need fifty thousand of those pages to make half a trillion)
• a million gallons — would need a pool 267 feet long x 50 feet wide x 10 feet deep (a football field is 300 feet long without the end zones, and 160 feet wide — so fifty thousand of those pools)
• a million asterisks fit on 302 Microsoft Word pages (about as many pages as an average-size paperback book). I just tried it so you wouldn’t have to. It would be a pity for all of us to spend time and electricity counting asterisks on pages. If my math is right, a trillion asterisks would fit on 15,100,000 8×10 Microsoft Word pages, roughly the page-equivalent of 533 sets of the Encyclopedia Britannica Macro- and Micro-pedia.

The National Debt Storm by U.S. Representative John Tanner

One trillion seconds ago 31,688 years Neanderthals walked the earth.

Since we know that the article did not provide accurate homeschooler/NCLB information, should we hope that the education-cost information, both from the article and overall, is correct?

posted by Valerie

homeschooling, home education, virtual schooling, public school at home

Back to School for Vouchers?, 14 August 2007, National Catholic Register, North Haven, Connecticut

Back-to-school time sure has changed. In the 1950s and ’60s, back to school for Catholic children meant a walk or city bus ride to a parish school. Tuition was free or inexpensive the uniforms were often the biggest school expense for families.

Then the numbers of nuns in teaching orders plummetted just as federal and state regulations were putting new costs on schools. Parish schools had to hire laypeople, buy costly insurance and meet new codes. The costs made it impossible for Catholic schools to keep charging little or nothing for an education.

…

Today’s parents often feel forced to choose between public schools that were ineffective and private schools that were unaffordable. For Catholics with large families, it is worse. The home schooling movement has grown as many parents discovered that the only way to provide a sound education is to do it themselves.

But in inner-city neighborhoods, where poverty and single parent rates are high, home schooling is often impossible and public schools are much worse.

…

Meanwhile, in the school-voucher movement, a bright spot briefly flickered for poor parents, only to be snuffed out. School-voucher programs were conceived to give poor families access to some of the piles of taxpayer money confiscated for education.

posted by Valerie

A hat tip to Lisa. Given that Judy’s getting letters out of the ether, we’ll leave Lisa’s whereabouts to the imagination.

Consent of the Governed, 19 April 2007, Homeschoolers: Sharing A Letter That I Received

We would like to establish a partnership with your organization to better provide home educators with an all inclusive reading instruction program.

I bet they would. Looks like a camel’s nose snuffling its way under the side of the tent conditioned to expect government support of schooling.

- An ABC’s of reading Supplemental Study Booklet which includes activities, suggestions for classroom reading games and additional study materials

But to paraphrase what Mark Twain said to his wife when she repeated a litany of cuss words back at him, they’ve got some of the words, but not the tune. (Many) Homeschoolers don’t do the “classroom” bit.

on the bottom of the letter is says: PROMOTING TEACHER QUALITY – IMPACTING STUDENT LEARNING

“Impacting student learning?” Sounds as painful as one of my (former) wisdom teeth. Ow.

Remember the historical trend that we can see concerning preschool: first it is popular, then it is required.

Through the Lens of Homeschooling: A Response to Michael Apple and Rob Reich (footnote, page 3)

From what I have found so far, scholars have reached no consensus as to the effect, if any, of compulsory attendance statutes on school attendance. Reporting the results of research that I have not seen refuted in the years since this study was published, Landes and Solmon (1972) found no observable evidence that compulsory attendance laws were responsible for levels of school attendance. In fact, the data can support the hypothesis that these statutes followed high enrollment, not vice versa.

posted by Valerie

While watching the goings on in the federal and state legislative world, the words from Jack Nicholson’s character in A Few Good Men of, You can’t handle the truth, bob around in my head sometimes. But I like to think that whatever gets out of control can be returned to reasonableness and rationality when the facts (or the truth) are laid out.

If the truth is that universal mental health screening is not the goal, then let’s have our leaders in our states and our nation state that they oppose specific bills that call for universal mental health screening.

And why should we homeschoolers care? My theory, along with many other watchdog homeschoolers is that as a tiny minority, we need to be in prevention mode. And maybe there are homeschoolers who haven’t heard the “what about socialization” question as if we’re a bunch of backwoods, gun totin’, barricaded kooks, but I haven’t met them yet. That question is asked without much thought, so there should be some trepidation to homeschoolers being screened for mental health in their health care providers’ office. A look at Larry and Susan Kaseman’s information in HEM’s article: Increased Mental Health Screening? Are You Crazy!?! makes thoughtful and well researched points about homeschooling concerns.

People who are considered to be marginal or “different” are particularly vulnerable in a program such as mental health screening. Professionals are eager to force them into conventional institutions such as public schools.

Standardization is the norm, after all.

In New Jersey, there were no bones made from the current and former governors about their agenda. They wanted a law and they got one last year. The New Jersey lawmakers voted for this:

Physicians, nurse midwives and other licensed health care professionals providing postnatal care to women shall screen new mothers for postpartum depression symptoms prior to discharge from the birthing facility and at the first few postnatal check-up visits;

On June 24, 2005, there was a debate about an Amendment 366 proposed to the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act of 2006 in our nation’s House of Representatives. The amendment was presented by TX Representative Ron Paul and there were no cosponsors.

The amendment was very succinct. The H.AMDT.366 was “to prohibit use of funds in the bill to create or implement any universal mental health screening program“. It failed by recorded vote: 97 – 304 (Roll no. 317).

And documented from the debate are some of our Representatives’ goals and concerns. Did any of the opponents say, “we don’t want mandatory (universal) mental health screening during this discussion”? I don’t think so as I scanned comments:

Wisconsin Representative Obey: “Having said that, ["there are no plans for anyone in the Federal Government to conduct universal screening"] let me simply say I do not think our problem in this country is that we do too much screening for mental health problems with young people.”

Rhode Island Representative Kennedy: “The problem here is not overtreatment, it is undertreatment. That is why I think the Paul amendment, unfortunately, continues to ascribe to the stereotypes of the past that mental illnesses are not real illnesses and therefore they should not be treated and taken care of. That is why I would ask my colleagues to please vote against the discrimination, the intolerance, the stigma of the Paul amendment. ”

That charge was disputed with these comments from Representative Paul: “Once again, I want to make the point that this does not deny funding for individual children who show signs that they may need or they have a problem and need to be tested. It is just to make sure that this is not universal and not be mandatory and that parental rights are guarded against and that the parent is very much involved.”

And current chair of the National Governors Association, Arizona Governor, and at that time Arizona Representative Napolitano’s opposition to the amendment was this: It would affect current funds used by States for mental health services and future planning to address this issue. It is a major medical concern, and this amendment does not provide for a solution.

Even as Ohio Representative Regula stated: “Let me point out, there is no universal mental health screening funded in the underlying bill. This is an inflammatory amendment. It is not necessary.”

What is the truth?

Representative Regula also said: “They made it very clear that in all programming involving kids there is a requirement that parents participate and give their informed consent”. If he believes that of importance, then he would surely and emphatically oppose mandated mental health screenings for any specified group in his constituency, wouldn’t he?

Leaders like Michael Hogan, chair of the New Freedom Commission and Ohio Department of Mental Health Director, states this in an October 21, 2004 Washington Times letter to the editor :

The commission did not call for mandatory universal mental-health screening for all children. I am at a loss to explain why this misrepresentation persists, since it is at odds with the plain language of our report to the president.

But the plain language of his New Freedom Commission Final Report states this as one of its goals; just as one example:

4.4 Screen for mental disorders in primary health care, across the life span, and connect to treatment and supports.

And further, in reference to the New Freedom Commission’s Goal 4 of making sure that “early mental health screening, assessment, and referral to services are common practice“, the appointed chair went on to elaborate in Psychiatry Online that the “Executive Order that created the Commission emphasized that its focus should be on “children with serious emotional disturbance and adults with serious mental disabilities,” which may seem to imply a concern only for those most in need.

But yet, in their solution to “identify unmet needs and barriers to service”, “the Commission concluded that early screening, assessment, and treatment must become a national goal.”

Early screening and assessment as a national goal sounds like universal mental health screening. But we can and should ask directly and sometimes more than once: What is the truth?

In my state of Illinois, there are now 2 bills in the Senate Public Health Committee. SB-15 and SB-39 were both introduced to create the Postpartum Mood Disorders Prevention Act. (I was just told today by my Senator’s aide that SB-39 would likely be dropped.) They were introduced to mandate, among other things that:

Physicians and other licensed health care workers providing prenatal and postnatal care to women shall assess new mothers for postpartum mood disorder symptoms at a prenatal check-up visit in the third trimester of pregnancy, prior to discharge from the hospital or other healthcare facility, and at the initial postnatal check-up visit and at each postnatal check-up visit thereafter until the infant’s first birthday. Physicians and other licensed health care workers providing pediatric care to an infant shall assess the infant’s mother for postpartum mood disorder symptoms at any well-baby check-up.

One of Illinois’ leaders, Barbara Shaw, helped pass the IL Children’s Mental Health Act and is the Illinois Children’s Mental Health Partnership (ICMHP) Chair. With that role, she has been asked a few questions and in one interview for the Heartland Institute, she said this:

“Our biggest concern is that all children and expectant mothers have access to good mental health care,” ICMHP Director Barbara Shaw said. “We have no intention of setting up a mandatory system of screening. We just want the 20 percent of children who need mental health care to get what they need.”

Which inspired this question below that I sent along to her:

To: ‘Barbara.shaw@illinois.gov’
Subject: SB 15 and SB 39

Dear Ms. Shaw,

I read one of your interviews where you stated this in an interview with Fran Eaton: http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=17121

“Our biggest concern is that all children and expectant mothers have access to good mental health care,” ICMHP Director Barbara Shaw said. “We have no intention of setting up a mandatory system of screening. We just want the 20 percent of children who need mental health care to get what they need.”

With that said in 2005, can we now count on your opposition to SB 15 and SB 39 which proposes a “mandatory system of screening” pregnant and new moms?

I’m looking forward to your response. As I see that you have a tax funded position, I am counting on a timely response, as well. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Susan Ryan

I haven’t heard back from her office yet. She’s taken some hard hits about what many see as her universal mental health screening goal. And as the ICMHP Chair, she would satisfy much criticism and concern with her public opposition to these 2 bills to create an intentional system for mental health screening. I plan on also giving her office a call so I can ask directly; as a taxpayer, parent and concerned citizen: What is the truth?

I wonder if there is some kind of root instinct in people for banding together, because that’s how the co-op phenomenon looks. I even tried a co-op class for the kids, once upon a time, so I’m familar with (one form of) the motivation.

I don’t know if it’s an ‘instinct’ or ‘urge’ or merely a desire for efficiency, but it seems, among some people, to work ‘against’ family homeschooling. X-number of people in a geographic area independently decide to homeschool, and before long they get together as homeschoolers, and soon there are co-ops and hired teachers, and everyone appears to be taking the first steps towards a private school. The phenomenon almost looks like an expansion (into homeschooling), then a contraction (back to the school model).

I don’t mean this to be a squeaky-squawky outburst, it’s just that I’m seeing this trend in more news articles.

Kentucky.com, Lexington, Kentucky, 4 February 2007, Home-schoolers gain socialization, specialized teaching

Home-schoolers commonly attend enrichment classes and take field trips, learning about unique subjects, meeting the expectations of someone other than their parents and having a chance to socialize.

Many members of the FAITH (Families Acquiring Instruction Through Home schooling) support group take part in regular enrichment classes, where more than 100 kids turn First Christian Church in Elizabethtown into a school. …

“A doctor actually teaches me biology,” he said. …

Parent Michelle Piscatello, for example, is an electrical engineer but has a passion for art and wanted to pass it on to children, she said. …

In another case, a police officer and father of home-schooled children teaches a D.A.R.E. class.

At the high-school level, parent Cindy Vaughn organizes the classes and teaches literary analysis.

Is the school model more efficient? Is it the manifestation of the ‘tribe’ passing along their culture? Is it just the model we’re imprinted with? Has that model become inevitable in this place and time?

No answers, just questions.

One caution: On an email list there was a recent warning about the IRS considering homeschool support groups who hire professional teachers to be employers — and to be responsible for FICA and Medicare withholding, and issuing W-2 forms.

Homeschool CPA: Hiring paid teachers: Are they employees or independent contractors?

posted by Valerie

This development is a follow-up to the announcement last September of a change of providers for the program.

American Forces Information Service, Washington, D.C., 24 January 2006, DoDEA to Discontinue Remote Home School Program

WASHINGTON, Jan. 24, 2007 The Department of Defense Education Activity will discontinue its Remote Home School Program beginning in school year 2007-2008, DoDEA officials announced today.

“We understand this unique program is valued by our families,” said Joseph D. Tafoya, DoDEA director. “Unfortunately, with the funding allocation and grants expiring for this program at the end of school year 2006-2007, we will have to discontinue the Remote Location Home Schooling Program.”

The saddest thing to me about this program being discontinued is that some people were depending on it for their children’s “permanent records,” especially for the teen years/high school. Military families who left the overseas area were able to continue with the record-keeping provided by IDEA International, and I’ve read comments online that some parents considered this a key feature of the program.

In all likelihood, the families will ‘suck it up and drive on,’ but if it’s one thing military parents don’t need at this point, is yet another change to weather.

IDEA International, Enrollment Eligibility Guidelines for Families Retiring and PCSng CONUS
[note: PCS = permanent change of station, aka a 'move;' and CONUS = continental/contiguous United States, ie, the 'lower 48']

The following applies to families enrolled on or after July 1, 2002. If a family should PCS outside the Pacific Rim prior to August 25th of that year, they may remain in the program; however, they will receive modified benefits as listed:

• Contact Teacher support
• Records/transcripts
• Online resources (WorldBook Online, Lightspan, Inet, etc.)
• Continued use of previously purchased IDEA equipment and curricular materials
• No allotment provided
• No equipment upgrade available

Will the “grandfathered” families who are still schooling their children at home, and using the program’s records/transcripts benefit, be left to continue their own arrangements once the program concludes?

DoDEA to Discontinue Remote Home School Program

…

“We truly regret the disruption this may cause students and families,” Tafoya said. “We do not take this decision lightly; it is the result of careful analysis of the needs of our directed mission.”

One would think that they’d have carefully analyzed their needs before establishing a program that families would be encouraged to rely on during their children’s school years: Education That Goes Where You Go!

posted by Valerie

Heads up with our homeschooled families’ perfectly unique and mentally healthy brains intact, even with the push for ‘experts’ to poke around to determine whether they approve or not.

I’ve been following the increasing states-wide and federal convergence of social/emotional goals with the use of questionable surveys such as TeenScreen. In Indiana, without parental consent or knowledge, the results of the survey ended with 2 diagnoses of a 15 year old girl (and a federal lawsuit) that should get your attention. Missouri has legislation introduced by Senator Days to have children “ready to learn”. “Ready for school” takes on a new meaning when it revolves around newborns on up.
And what does it mean to a homeschooling family? Here’s a thought from NHELD:
Bulletin #37. Mental Health Assessment.

How does it affect homeschoolers? If first born and parents are screened, who is to say that the government funded mental health care provider will not determine that the parent is mentally unstable or deficient such that the parent is not competent to homeschool, or that such a parent must comply with government directives in order to homeschool? It is not a stretch to think that this is possible, because some state government regulations already prevent foster parents from homeschooling their children..

Illinois screens all children for mental health now who are in the ‘system’ . P.12 of ICMHP 2006 Annual Report-DCFS conducts a mental health screen of all children entering the child welfare system.

Illinois tells some foster parents that not only can they not homeschool the child(ren), but they must be enrolled in pre-school. Whatever happened to the compulsory attendance age of 7 years, one has to wonder?

New Jersey law now requires “health care professionals providing postnatal care to screen new mothers for postpartum depression“.

From HEM’s Larry and Susan Kaseman are Additional Reasons for Homeschoolers to Be Concerned

People who are considered to be marginal or “different” are particularly vulnerable in a program such as mental health screening. Professionals are eager to force them into conventional institutions such as public schools

Mental health screening provides a legally sanctioned way for professionals to interfere with or stop homeschooling. This is especially true because some children have, quite understandably, reacted to difficulties in school (such as problems with teachers, bullying, and labeling) by becoming anxious or developing other behaviors that are listed in the DSM-IV. Many parents have found that simply removing their children from school and homeschooling them has solved the problem and was far superior to labeling the children “mentally ill” and treating them with drugs.

Mental health screening of both children and parents could be required when complaints are filed against homeschoolers, including allegations of child abuse and neglect. (All states have laws against physical, mental, and emotional abuse and neglect. Some also have laws against educational abuse and neglect.) Mental health screening would make it more difficult to resolve such complaints.

In the MO piece of legislative documentation, the phrase is “school readiness” “for responding to children with social, emotional, or mental health problems, or a combination of such problems, that impact early learning”.And I see that in 2006, a new Missouri Office of Comprehensive Child Mental Health was established to lay the groundwork of what is firmly embedded in Illinois and other states, as well. In my (and others’) research, there have been noted tie-ins with ‘mental health screening’ and the Universal Preschool/Preschool for All push that the governors of our great states seem to have as their constant talking points. (Please visit the Universal Preschool site, founded by homeschooler, Diane Flynn Keith to learn more. Join her great discussion group that was started to fend off the Universal Preschool agenda in California, and other states.) This push for governmental oversight for all can be explained in many ways by ‘where’s the money’.
From Edwatch:

Federal grants for universal mental health screening programs are driving state policy all over the country. State legislatures are snapping up federal dollars for state universal mental health screening programs, frequently leaving elected legislators in the dark about what they are voting for. In both Illinois and Indiana, for example, the programs were well on their way to being implemented before the public or legislators knew about them. (See ” Myths and Facts Regarding Mental Health Screening Programs“.)

It would and should make you pay attention when the Nat’l Conference of State Legislatures has a Brief called Investing in Better Care for Infants and Toddlers: The Next Frontier for School Readiness.

The next frontier; even while I thought straying away from public schools was the new frontier. Makes you think about what the “next frontier” means to a legislator or bureaucrat as opposed to an independent homeschooler.

I’m sure the meal was delicious, but I would have lost my appetite as one NCSL Conference involved a luncheon/seminar on Financing Comprehensive Children’s Mental Health Programs. The advice was passed along by a fellow named Knute Rotto, the CEO of Choices, Inc. He had some experience with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation which was formed from the philanthropic diversification of a Fortune 500 company, Johnson and Johnson. J & J has run into some trouble and roadblocks leading the way along the TMAP. So what do you get when you cross an elephant and a donkey? $17,865,648 contributed to the 2006 campaigns from pharmaceutical companies.

See what’s what in your state regarding the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health State Implementation Activities.
From the Ounce of Prevention Fund Newsletter, here’s what they are excited’ about:

Ounce of Prevention Federal Legislation Update
The U.S. Congress is scheduled to return to work this week, following the mid-term elections. While the dramatic shift of power in Congress officially occurs with the swearing-in of the new 110th Congress in January, it is unclear what effect the elections will have on the lame duck session of the 109th Congress. Specifically, this Congress has yet to take action on an appropriations bill for the FY07 budget, which began on October 1. Programs have been granted continuing resolutions, which allow them to continue to function. Child advocates have been very concerned about the federal budget, as congressional leaders have publicly stated that program funding cuts are possible.

There have been a number of exciting federal bills introduced on early childhood health and well-being. Because some of the bills enjoy bi-partisan support, it is possible they will survive through the full process. Even if some of these bills do not make it through the full process, become enacted and provide funding, it is exciting to see these kinds of issues being raised at the federal level. If these bills are not enacted by the 109th Congress, they can be re-introduced in the new Congress.

Home Visitation Programs: The Education Begins at Home Act (S.503 / H.R. 3628) provides funding to states for quality early childhood home visitation programs such as Parents as Teachers and Early Head Start, among others. The Senate version, with Republican leadership and bi-partisan co-sponsors (including Senator Dick Durbin), has been referred to committee for consideration. Efforts in the House are being led by a bi-partisan group including Representatives Danny Davis (D-Chicago), Rahm Emmanuel (D-Chicago), and Ray LaHood (R-Peoria). For more information visit: http://www.fightcrime.org/ebah.php.

Children’s Mental Health : The Children and Adolescent Mental Health Resiliency Act of 2006 (S.3449), led by Democratic Senators Durbin and Dodd (CT), seeks to improve the quality and availability of mental health services for children and adolescents by encouraging states to develop comprehensive mental health plans, develop new programs and utilize early intervention and prevention services. The bill is designed to help address the difficulties in child mental health services identified by the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health and the U.S. Surgeon General. The bill has been sent to committee for consideration. There is no House version of the legislation at this time.

Perinatal Depression : The Mom’s Opportunity to Access Health, Education, Research, and Support for Post Partum Depression (MOTHERS) Act (S.3529) is designed to ensure that new mothers and their families are educated about postpartum depression, screened for symptoms, and provided with essential services. The bill also seeks to increase research on postpartum depression at the National Institutes of Health. The bill has been sent to committee for consideration. There is no House version of the legislation at this time.

Early childhood advocates are encouraged to contact their members of Congress and express their support for these bills. More information can be found at http://thomas.loc.gov/, or with the national advocacy organizations listed.

As ‘early childhood advocates’, please contact your members of Congress about these bills and similiar bills that might be in your state. That phrase may be used in a different sense than bureaucrats such as the Ounce of Prevention employees mean. And that would be the response that the primary experts of their very own children would be parents. They do a ‘mental health check’ on their families every day.

Posted by Susan Ryan

CCH Inc., Wolters Kluwer, 10 January 2006, SSA to implement portion of SSPA regarding report receipts

Section 432 changed the way the SSA decides if a claimant is eligible for the student earned income exclusion. Additionally, the agency will apply the student earned income exclusion when determining the countable income of an ineligible spouse or ineligible parent.

The SSA is also changing the SSI student policy to include home schooling as a form of regular school attendance in order to unify its policy on home schooling under Title XVI with the policy under Title II that has allowed home schooling.

…

Expansion of student earned income exclusion.

Recipients of Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits under Title XVI are subject to income and asset limitations in order to maintain eligibility. Ordinarily, if an individual has only earnings income, than he or she could earn up to $1,331 per month and still be eligible for an SSI benefit (although earnings above $900 per month would give rise to a presumption that the individual is engaging in substantial gainful activity and would disqualify the individual from receiving SSI disability benefits unless he or she were blind).

…

In an effort to further expand the number of persons who can benefit from the student earned income exclusion, the SSA is also amending Reg. 416.1861 to add home schooling conducted in accordance with a home school law of a state or other jurisdiction as a form of regular school attendance for purposes of student earned income eligibility.

Effective date

Unless otherwise specified above, the new regulations became effective December 18, 2006.