Legislation and Guidance
- Congress Finally Passes Budget Resolution
- ED Expands SES Pilot Program
- House Passes new School Facilities Bill
- Rural Schools Funding Sees Setbacks
- HEA Negotiations Continue Without Kennedy
News
Legislation and Guidance
Congress Finally Passes Budget Resolution
Congress finally passed a joint budget resolution for fiscal year 2009 (FY09). This is the first budget resolution (BR) passed in an election year since 2000. Now that the BR is agreed to by both chambers, the appropriators can begin working on FY09 spending bills before the July 4th recess. According to the House leadership, subcommittee and full committee markups are slated to begin next Wednesday and are expected to run through July 23. Despite this schedule, the political landscape in Washington is likely to make this appropriations season carry over into next year.
The House adopted the $3.07 trillion BR yesterday by a vote of 214-210. No Republicans supported the BR and fourteen Democrats, which included nine Blue Dogs, voted against the budget plan. The Senate passed the BR on Wednesday, by a vote of 48-45. This is the second consecutive budget resolution passed by the Democratic majority. Although both votes were very close, Democrats consider this a victory since the ability to pass a budget is considered a clear indication of a party’s ability to govern the legislature.
The BR includes $1.016 trillion in discretionary spending, which is $24.5 billion above President Bush's $991.6 billion request. Democrats claim the approved budget shows a $340 billion deficit next year, but it would reach a $22 billion surplus in 2012 and a $10 billion surplus in 2013. The Democrat’s budget plan estimates $15.6 trillion in revenues over the budget's first five years, a 2.9 percent increase over the administration's estimate of $15.2 trillion. In addition, the budget provides an $8.4 billion increase in education, 11 percent more than the administration's request.
Tentatively, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor-HHS-Education plans to markup its bill on Thursday, June 19th, with a full committee markup scheduled for Wednesday, June 25. While the House Majority Leader is hoping to have all of the House’s appropriations work finished by the end of July, the Senate Majority leader is a bit more hesitant. With certain key Democrats notably absent from the Senate, Reid fears that he does not have the votes necessary to pass the spending bills.
With Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) and Hilary Clinton (D-NY), if she becomes the nominee for Vice President, on the campaign trail, Reid will basically be working with a 49-49 split in the Senate. Considering that both Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and Senate Appropriations Chairman Robert Byrd (D-WV) recently fell ill, both of their schedules for returning to the Senate are uncertain. This is possibly four very key votes Senator Reid is missing. Two Republicans voted “present” on the budget, to offset the two missing votes of Senators Byrd and Kennedy, which is common when members are unable to vote due to illness.
Regardless of when Reid is able to move forward in the Senate, House Appropriations Chairman David Obey (D-WI) is considering holding off on sending final appropriations bills to the White House until there is a new President. After failing to override the President’s veto last year, Chairman Obey was forced to bring spending levels down to what the President requested in his fiscal year 2008 budget. Not wanting to repeat that same losing battle, Obey will likely pass a continuing resolution to last through January 2009, finally sending appropriations to the new President, whoever that may be.
Resources
Vicki Needham, “Senate Approves Budget Resolution, 48-45, Bringing Start of Appropriations Process Nearer,” Congress Now, June 4, 2008.
Vicki Needham, “House Narrowly Adopts $3.07 Trillion Budget Resolution,” Congress Now, June 5, 2008.
ED Expands SES Pilot Program
On Wednesday, the United States Department of Education (ED) sent a letter to state chief school officers announcing the expansion of the supplemental education services (SES) pilot program. In the 2005-06 school year, Secretary Spellings began the pilot program in four local educational agencies in Virginia, which made SES available to students attending Title I schools in their first year of improvement. In 2006-07, the Secretary extended the pilot by adding districts in Alaska, Delaware, Indiana and North Carolina. This week’s invitation lifts the cap on the number of states and districts within the state that can apply and it will allow participating districts to count money they spend on parent outreach for SES toward the 20% Title I set-aside for SES and school choice. There are, of course, eligibility criteria. Eligible States must:
- Have a fully approved standards and assessment system;
- Demonstrate that it is conducting an evaluation of the effectiveness of its SES providers;
- Have made AYP determinations for 2006-07 and 2007-08 before the start of each school year; and
- Document how participation in the pilot will increase SES participation.
States must apply for the pilot on behalf of their districts by July 2.
Resources
Sarah Sparks, “Education Department Expands SES ‘Switch’ Pilot,’ Education Daily, June 6, 2008.
House Passes new School Facilities Bill
On Wednesday, the House passed House Resolution 3021, the 21st Century Green High-Performing Public School Facilities Act, by a vote of 250-164. The bill authorizes $6.4 billion for fiscal year 2009 to help school districts modernize facilities to improve the learning climate, promote student and teacher health and make schools more energy efficient. Supporters claim the bill will lead to roughly $20 billion over the next five years to help states build and renovate schools. The bill, facing a Presidential veto threat, is now ready for Senate review.
Democratic supporters cited studies that a green school uses 35 percent less energy than a conventional school, reduces carbon dioxide emissions by 40 percent, uses 30 percent less water and has better lighting and temperature controls that encourage student achievement. According to House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller (D-CA), the bill will "not only save them energy, not only will it make the facilities safer, cleaner and better for the learning environment these children need, it will also dramatically change the cost of running a school district."
Republicans, on the other hand, see the bill as another federal intrusion into education matters traditionally under the jurisdiction of states and local governments. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) claims that, "the Democrats' massive $20 billion 'green scheme' would place faceless Washington bureaucrats in charge of priorities historically and best handled by states and local school districts." Republicans also fear that any funding appropriated for this program will pull money away from existing programs that serve poor and disabled students. If the bill makes it through the Senate and to the President, then based on this week’s vote the House Republicans have enough votes to sustain a Presidential veto.
Resources
Jim Abrams, “House approves funds for 'green' schools,” Associated Press, June 4, 2008.
Rural Schools Funding Sees Setbacks
As the House and Senate negotiated on the emergency supplemental appropriations bill this week, funding for rural schools suffered a defeat in the House. Even though independent legislation to fund rural schools failed to pass the House, Congressional leaders struggled to find offsets for new domestic spending proposals in the House, which may provide a one-year extension of rural school funding. While the brief extension may still pass through Congress, the long term solution proposed in House Resolution 3058 suffered a defeat in the House, just one day after the White issued a veto threat against it.
House Resolution 3058, the Public Land Communities Transition Act, would provide for a renewal of government transition payments to communities that had economies long dependent on the timber industry. When that industry began to decline, Congress passed the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self Determination Act, which attempted to fill the void of the much needed funding caused by the ailing timber revenues. The funds from this program go to help rural communities provide necessary services, especially in regards to public education. The program ended in 2006, but Congress was able to pass a $425 million one-year extension as part of last year’s emergency supplemental act.
While efforts for a long term solution continued, the Senate placed an additional $400 million in the current supplemental package in order to keep the program funded for an additional year. The House did not include the funding in their supplemental, but Senate leaders are hopeful that the final bill will include the extension. The President has already threatened to veto any supplemental bill that includes domestic spending, so the chance of the extension becoming law remains uncertain. As such, House leaders decided to move forward on independent legislation to reauthorize the program through 2012.
House Resolution 3058 would create a new “conservation of resources fee” for certain non-producing oil and natural gas leases in the Gulf of Mexico. The new fee would be used to offset the cost of renewing the rural schools funding. House leaders attempted to pass the bill under a suspension of House rules, which requires two thirds of the chamber in order to pass. The vote failed even with a 219-193 majority, still short of the two thirds that is required. Advocates for the rural schools funding are now relying solely on appropriators being able to pass the one year extension as part of the supplemental.
Resources
Niels Lesniewski, “White House Issues Veto Threat Against Suspension Bill on Timber Payments to Rural Communities," Congress Now, June 4, 2008.
Niels Lesniewski, “One Day After Veto Threat, House Fails to Pass Rural Payment Bill,” Congress Now, June 5, 2008.
HEA Negotiations Continue Without Kennedy
Aside from the worry of losing a strong ally on Capitol Hill, many higher education advocates worried that when Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Chairman Edward Kennedy (D-MA) was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor, any chance of having a reauthorized Higher Education Act (HEA) this year was quickly fading. While Senator Kennedy recovers from his illness, his staff is working diligently with other key Senators to ensure that committee priorities are not lost in his absence. With Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) poised to act as the interim committee chairwoman, the HEA reauthorization movement may still have a chance in the 110th Congress.
Senator Kennedy’s staffers are helping to work out the differences between the House and Senate proposals to reauthorize the HEA. The key difference between the two is that the House bill is more aggressive than the Senate in penalizing colleges for providing insufficient options for affordable education. Aside from that, the two bills are largely similar. The House passed House Resolution 4137 on a 354-58 vote in February. The Senate passed their own HEA last year. Conferees were appointed for the bill in February, but have been sidetracked with a number of other issues since that time. Since it appears work on No Child Left Behind reauthorization is not going anywhere, Congress seems to have a renewed dedication to passing a final HEA bill.
While Kennedy remains involved remotely, through phone calls and emails, Senator Mikulski will oversee member-level negotiations on Capitol Hill until Kennedy returns. Conferees are going to be on a bit of a tight time table, seeing as how appropriators are finally cleared to begin work on fiscal year 2009 appropriations this month. If Mikulski cannot pass an HEA conference report before the July 4 recess, then the effort may get lost in the shift to appropriations negotiations in July. Once August comes around, most members of Congress are going to become entirely focused on the 2008 elections, leaving little time for the HEA.
Resources
Stephen Langel, “Higher Education, Mental Health Parity Bills Near Resolution Despite Kennedy's Absence,” Congress Now, June 3, 2008.
News
Presumptive Nominees
On Tuesday, Senator Barack Obama became the presumptive Democratic nominee, setting up a contest between two Senators for the Presidency this November. The conventional wisdom has been that the Senate is not a good launching pad for the Presidency. Throw that maxim out for the 2008 Presidential election. This is the first time that two sitting U.S. senators will run head to head as the nominees for the two major parties.
What do we know about their education platforms? Not much at this point, but there are clues. Each has a page on their Web site dedicated to education. Obama’s page (Outside Source) lays out some general priorities that reveal his allegiance to the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Health Education Labor and Pensions, Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA). There is no mention of stepping away from the accountability program of No Child Left Behind. Obama’s position is that the law should be funded and approved and considering Kennedy’s critical endorsement of Obama earlier this year it is very likely that the presumptive nominee with two years experience in the Senate will defer to the “Liberal Lion” of the Senate when he returns to work. Senator McCain’s page (Outside Source) has a more general narrative of his beliefs that attempts preserve the benefits of NCLB’s emphasis on standards based accountability while also advocating for more school choice and parental options. Both sites are, frankly, pretty vacuous, but they do indicate an open minded (non dogmatic) approach to education policy that should give both policymakers and practitioners some encouragement.
As far as education speeches, Obama has spent more time on the topic. Last week, Obama delivered a speech on education in Thorton, Colorado. According to the Washington Post, the speech covered a range of topics that focused on increased federal funding but, in the end, the human capital issue was most important: the development of great teachers and administrators to lead our schools.
So all the stuff I was talking about in terms of scholarships and master teachers who are mentoring students and all that stuff, that's all designed to just create the human capital to populate all these schools all across the country and get them moving in new and exciting directions. That's going to be the most important challenge that we face in the next few years.
McCain’s most significant speech on education to date, delivered on April 1st in Virginia, also addressed the importance of quality teachers, but from a more conservative angle.
We should reward the best of them with merit pay, and encourage teachers who have lost their focus on the children they teach to find another line of work. Schools should compete to be innovative, flexible and student-centered institutions, not safe havens for the uninspired and unaccountable.
The candidates will, we hope, continue to develop their education platforms leading into the November election. As that happens, we will continue to provide analysis and commentary on how it their policies will shape the future federal role in education.
Resources
“Service to America: Episcopal High School in Alexandria, Virginia,” Speech (Outside Source), JohnMcCain.com, April 1, 2008.
Karl Vick, “Obama Wonks It Up in Education Speech (Outside Source),” Washington Post, The Trail [Blog], May 28, 2008.
David Rogers, “Who said senators can't be President? (Outside Source)” Politico.com, June 5, 2008.
