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The Missing Piece of the Puzzle: The Intersection of Race and Special Education
No full textThe privileges allotted to Americans cannot be compared to any other country’s citizens. Americans have the liberty of saying what they want, thinking what they want, and acting freely in public. Nebiyat Shiferaw (“Nebiyat”) is a thirty-year-old African American man who is unable to speak and live independently because he has autism, also known as autism spectrum disorder (“ASD”). Nebiyat does not experience the same liberties as most Americans; he has gone through special education programs and has overcome discrimination, not because of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (“IDEA”), but because of his parents advocating for him. As a substitute special education teacher, I witnessed what takes place when children do not have advocates. In 2017, I met two young boys of color named Jordan and Manuel who endured the discriminatory practices of a flawed special education system. Jordan was African American and was pulled out of class repeatedly for not raising his hand to speak. Manuel was a Latino immigrant placed in the special education class because he was still learning the English language. Unfortunately, the special education system has failed children of color, primarily African American boys, which results in young African American boys being vulnerable and experiencing more discipline throughout their childhood and into adulthood. The school-to-prison pipeline is an issue that is inadvertently leading to a ‘school-to-death’ pipeline
Performance Oversight Hearing for the Metropolitan Police Department , February 17, 2022
No full textStatement of the District Task Force on Jails and Justice Before the Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety of the Council of the District of Columbia. Performance Oversight Hearing for the Metropolitan Police Department. February 17, 2022
Statement of the District Task Force on Jails and Justice. Before the Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety of the Council of the District of Columbia
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Statement of the District Task Force on Jails and Justice Before the Committee on Transportation and the Environment of the Council of the District of Columbia. Budget Oversight Hearing for the District Department of Transportation
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Direct Cash Transfers and Tax Policy: Reporting Cash Transfers for Maximum Benefit to the Recipients
No full textUnconditional direct cash transfers (DCTs) are supported by a vast national and international evidence base. They have been shown to have a positive impact on health outcomes, school attendance, child development, household spending, and poverty reduction (Morton et. al., 2020). For young people experiencing homelessness or housing instability, DCTs offer a promising approach for moving swiftly to safe, permanent housing and starting on pathways to independence. While a DCT can be an important source of support and financial safety net, there is currently no express exemption from income for DCTs, potentially impacting a young person’s tax burden. Ultimately, this could erode the net benefit of a pilot program and possibly produce new forms of inequality (Baker et al., 2020).
Currently, several cities and counties throughout the U.S. are considering DCTs as an intervention to end youth homelessness. Many are designing these interventions as a cash gift, structured so that the regular cash payment from a nonprofit to a young person experiencing homelessness proceeds from “detached and disinterested generosity” and “out of. . . charity or like impulses” (Commissioner v. Duberstein, 1960; Kahn, 2018).2 This paper analyzes this interpretation and current income exclusions in the tax code analogous to DCTs. There is not an explicit tax code section that directly addresses the tax treatment of DCTs. However, existing exemptions from income provide a framework for supporting the exclusion of DCTs from gross income, so long as the payments are not compensation for services, and are distributed out of detached, disinterested generosity to address a recipient’s financial need. Ideally, express federal and state legislative guidance will be forthcoming to direct revenue agencies, DCT providers, and fund recipients how unconditional DCTs should be treated
