Legislative Hot Topics: Blog

All eyes are now on the debt ceiling discussions. You can follow the big picture debate on the news; they are discussing revenues and spending. In the category of spending we are in the area of domestic discretionary spending. This was the general area that was cut in the funding debates for FY 11 this winter and spring.

Now the discussions are working on where cuts will come from, generally speaking the president is in favor of not cutting education, but the overall levels on the table will mean that there will be cuts to education – somewhere. In addition, the House appropriations measure has allocated 18% less for the departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education. And, their balanced budget amendment is proposing to roll back the percent of spending by the government to 18% of GDP. This is what was in 1964.

In reauthorization news, the Senate education committee postponed their markup of the Workforce Investment Act to mid-July. This means that getting an ESEA bill this year is becoming less likely. The House education committee is hoping to move one more of their five bills, the one they would like to move is their flexibility proposal, which is being introduced today. (Linked below is a summary from the committee.) The fourth measure will be a teacher bill. It is expected in September.

The idea of Secretary Duncan to move with a de-facto reauthorization through the use of waivers is getting more congressional criticism. The House education chair, Chairman Kline (R-MN) issued a press release saying that this was not within his authority to change specific requirements in the statute.

State and Local Funding Flexibility Bill Summary

June 21^st – The Senate is moving their version of the Workforce Investment Act. Contained in this job training package is the Adult and Family Education Act, which provides resources to support adult basic education. This measure is expected to be revised and voted on in committee on June 29^th. What this also means is that, in the Senate, the rewriting of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) is being pushed back again, at least by a few weeks.

The Senate education's committee's work on ESEA is said now to be on two tracks. One is a long-standing discussion between the chair and the ranking republican on the committee. They are said to be working on a core set of principals. The majority democrats are also said to be working on a draft that will be used either in place of an agreement or in addition to the agreement.

On June 22^nd the House committee on Education and the Workforce is scheduled to take up what they are calling the second of five reauthorization bills. This one is on charter schools. It was introduced by Representative Hunter. This is from the committee's press release:

The Empowering Parents through Quality Charter Schools Act (H.R. 2218) will modernize an outdated federal law to help facilitate the development and expansion of high-quality charter schools. This is the second in the committee’s planned series of education reform bills; The Setting New Priorities in Education Spending Act (H.R. 1891) was introduced on May 13 and approved in committee on May 25.

We are expecting the House version of the LEARN Act to be introduced shortly. It will be very similar to the Senate version.

June 7, 2011 – Progress on the LEARN Act (Literacy for Every American, Results for the Nation) continue.  The Senator Murray (D-WA) has reintroduced the measure, with some changes from the version introduced in the last Congress.  It is expected to be included in debate on rewriting the Elementary and Secondary Education Act when it comes before the Senate education committee.  Currently, the Senate education committee (Health, Education, Labor and Pensions – the HELP Committee) is expected to take up the reauthorization by the end of June.  According to staff members of the committee, the chairman and the ranking minority member are meeting to draft a basic agreement.  If this fails, the democrats are expected to move their version in committee.

 

On the House side, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce has begun their reauthorization process with the reporting out of the first of five measure, HR 1891.  HR 1891 deauthorizes 43 elementary and secondary education programs.  Several of these are literacy programs, such as striving readers, the National Writing Project, and Reading is Fundamental.  The senior democrats on the committee offered a series of amendments to replace the programs with new authorizations.  The literacy amendment, as did all but one of the amendments failed on a party line vote.  The one amendment that passed was to support parent programs.

 

The LEARN Act is expected to be reintroduced on the House side within the next several weeks.  It will be very similar to the version introduced in the Senate.

 

The LEARN Act would provide funds to states to support literacy professional development programs in schools with large numbers of families living in poverty.  Some of the work done by the Striving Readers Comprehensive Literacy Program (state applications were submitted to US ED on May 9^th), such as that state literacy teams meeting and submitting reports would flow into the work of this bill. The majority of these state literacy plans focus on developing a broad knowledge of literacy and literacy instruction from age 0 to grade 12.  They make use of evidenced based information but are not pushing or outlining the purchase of any set of programs, adoption of any specific techniques or assessments.