Expanding Opportunity through Quality Charter Schools Act
Latest action. Read twice and referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
Expanding Opportunity through Quality Charter Schools Act
Revises subpart 1 (Charter School Programs) of part B (Public Charter Schools) of title V (Promoting Informed Parental Choice and Innovative Programs) of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, including by subsuming subpart 2 (Credit Enhancement Initiatives to Assist Charter School Facility Acquisition, Construction, and Renovation) under subpart 1.
Replaces the current charter school grant program with a program awarding competitive grants to state entities (state educational agencies, state charter school boards, Governors, or charter school support organizations) and, through such grantees, competitive subgrants to charter school developers to open new charter schools and expand and replicate high-quality charter schools.
Requires grantees to use at least 7% of the grant funds to: (1) provide technical assistance to subgrantees and authorized public chartering agencies, and (2) work with those agencies to improve the charter school authorization process.
Permits the Secretary of Education to waive certain statutory or regulatory requirements if the waiver is requested by a grant applicant and promotes the purpose of the Charter School program without tampering with what is definitionally required of charter schools.
Requires the Secretary to award at least three credit enhancement grants to public entities, private nonprofit entities, or consortia of such entities that have the highest-quality applications. (Currently, the Secretary is required to award at least three grants, including at least one to a public entity, one to a private nonprofit entity, and one to a consortium of such entities, provided an application from each merits approval.)
Revises the per-pupil facilities aid program (under which the Secretary makes competitive matching grants to states to provide per-pupil financing to charter schools) to allow states to: (1) partner with organizations to provide up to 50% of the state share of funding for the program; and (2) receive more than one program grant, so long as the amount of the grant funds provided to charter schools increases with each successive grant.
The summary continues for 7 more paragraphs. Read it in full on Congress.gov
Written by analysts at the Congressional Research Service and published on Congress.gov, not by Civibrief. Summarized at the "Introduced in Senate" stage on January 29, 2015. It describes the bill, it is not the legal text.
Where is it in the process, and what happens next?
4 steps remain before this bill could become law.
The record's latest action, on January 29, 2015: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
- Clearing the committees it was referred to, and being scheduled for a floor vote
- Passage by the Senate
- Passage by the House
- The President's signature. If the President vetoes it, two-thirds of both chambers must vote to override.
How likely is it to become law?
Civibrief does not forecast outcomes and this page has no opinion about this one. What the record supports is a base rate, which is a fact about the whole pile, not a prediction about this measure.
In the 114th Congress (2015-16), 329 of the 10,233 bills and joint resolutions introduced became law, about 3.2 percent. That count covers every measure at every stage, including the many that never left committee.
This one is not there yet: 4 steps are still outstanding, listed above.
Has anyone actually voted on it?
No. No roll call in this Congress cites this measure. That is the ordinary outcome: most measures never reach a recorded floor vote, and a committee ends most of them simply by not acting.
A vote is not the only thing that happens to a measure. Hearings, markups, and referrals are all recorded actions, and none of them is a vote of the full chamber.
Who is behind it?
MARK KIRK (R-IL) introduced it on January 29, 2015, and 12 members have since signed on as cosponsors.
They come from both major parties: 5 Democrats, 7 Republicans.
Cosponsoring is a formal signature on the text. It is not a commitment to vote for the measure, it does not bind anyone's party, and a long list of cosponsors is a measure of attention rather than of prospects.
How long has it been in play?
It was introduced on January 29, 2015, 4242 days ago. The most recent recorded action was 4242 days ago, on January 29, 2015.
Measures do not carry over. Anything the 114th Congress has not finished by January 3, 2017 dies when the term ends, and has to be introduced again from the start in the next Congress.
Every answer above is assembled from this measure's own record on Congress.gov and from published counts of what Congress has passed before. Civibrief does not predict outcomes and takes no position on any measure.
Vote history
- SenateIn committee, no floor vote yet
- HouseAwaits Senate passage
- PresidentAwaits both chambers