Legislation and Guidance
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Legislation and Guidance
Senate Passes Emergency Supplemental Spending Bill
On late Thursday night, the Senate passed the emergency supplemental spending bill by a vote of 92-6. The emergency supplemental would provide $165.4 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and $21 billion in domestic spending. The House and Senate have been debating the emergency supplemental for months and we have monitored Congressional efforts to include the Medicaid moratoriums and a $400 million one-year extension of the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act (SRS). Most of the moratoriums survived the process, but the one-year extension for the SRS did not.
The moratoriums extend until April 1, 2009 and cover six of the rules proposed by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), a division of Health and Human Services. The six propped rules subject to the moratorium include targeted case management, rehabilitation, school-based services, public provider costs limit, graduate medical education, and provider tax. Only the reimbursement for outpatient services proposed rule was excluded.
Last Friday, the House passed the emergency supplemental bill that included a moratorium on proposed Medicaid changes but left out the $400 million for a one-year extension of SRS. The President is expected to sign the bill, despite previous veto threats against any domestic spending included in the package. "Even though this action comes more than 500 days after the President’s initial request, lawmakers ultimately passed a bill that achieved the President’s three principles: meeting the needs of our troops, not tying the hands of military commanders, and not exceeding his requested discretionary spending levels," said the Office of Management and Budget Director Jim Nussle.
Resources
"Crapo Make Strong Case for County Payments," Senator Crapo (R-ID), News Release, June 26, 2008.
Ashley Roque, "Senate OKs War Supplemental; Bush Expected to Sign It," Gallery Watch, June 26, 2008.
"U.S. Senate Toll Call Votes 100th Congress – 2nd Session," United States Senate, June 26, 2008.
Ashley Roque, "Nussle Pleased with War Supplemental but Blasts Congress for Delay," Gallery Watch, June 27, 2008.
Bickering Halts House Appropriations
On Thursday, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved its fiscal year 2009 (FY09) program appropriations for Labor, Health and Human Services (HHS) and Education. The bill would provide $9.5 million above the President’s request for the agencies. According to published summary tables, the Senate appropriations will provide some increase over FY08, including a 4.54 percent increase for Title I, an 18.82 percent increase for Pell Grants, a 32.79 percent increase for school leadership programs, a 104.40 percent increase for Statewide data systems, and a 4.36 percent increase for special education grants to states. The Senate appropriators, like the House appropriators, have also chosen to eliminate funding for Reading First. According to Mark Laisch, a staff member on the Senate Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education appropriations subcommittee, the line item details will not be released until after the July 4th recess, but that the future of the Senate's work is contingent upon the House completing its work, an outcome that was thrown into question yesterday.
The House Appropriations Committee was also working on its Labor-HHS-education appropriations bill on Thursday, but without resolution. The committee adjourned after Chairman David Obey (D-WI) became frustrated with Republican efforts to amend the bill to add provisions permitting offshore drilling. "Such cheap political stunts are the reasons Americans hate Washington," fumed the Chairman. He then told the ranking member Jerry Lewis (R-CA) that he would see him in September, suggesting that committee would not meet again on the appropriations until the fall and that this year's work would be largely done through continuing resolutions. "It should come as no surprise to anybody that Dave Obey has no patience for B.S.," said Obey’s spokesperson Kirstin Brost.
Prior to the House adjournment, the chairman did release a report of the committee appropriations detailing the increase for the Department of Education over FY 08. Some highlights of the report include:
Report of the Committee on Appropriations, Department of Education FY2009 |
|||
|---|---|---|---|
FY08 |
FY09 |
Difference |
|
U.S. Department of Education (total) |
$59,181,466,000 |
$63,615,623,000 |
$4,434,157,000 |
Education for the Disadvantaged, Grants to Local Education Agencies |
13,898,875,000 |
14,454,901,000 |
556,026,000 |
Even Start |
66,454,000 |
66,454,000 |
0 |
School Improvement Grants |
491,265,000 |
600,000,000 |
108,735,000 |
Reading First State Grants |
393,012,000 |
0 |
-393,012,000 |
Early Reading First |
112,549,000 |
112, 549,000 |
0 |
Striving Readers |
35,371,000 |
39,371,000 |
4,000,000 |
Math Now |
0 |
0 |
0 |
State Grants for Improving Teacher Quality |
2,935,249,000 |
2,960,249,000 |
25,000,000 |
Educational Technology State Grants |
267,494,000 |
272,250,000 |
4,756,000 |
21st Century Community Learning Centers |
1,081,166,000 |
1,131,166,000 |
50,000,000 |
State Assessments |
408,732,000 |
408,732,000 |
0 |
Javits Gifted and Talented Education |
7,463,000 |
7,463,000 |
0 |
Foreign Language Assistance Grants |
25,655,000 |
25,655,000 |
0 |
Troops-to-Teachers and Transition to Teaching |
14,389,000 |
14,389,000 |
0 |
Charter School Grants & Enhancement for Facilities |
211,031,000 |
236,031,000 |
25,000,000 |
Teacher Incentive Fund |
97,270,000 |
112,337,000 |
15,067,000 |
Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities: State Grants |
294,759,000 |
294,759,000 |
0 |
Special Education, State Grants: Grants to States |
10,947,511,000 |
11,551,511,000 |
604,000,000 |
Career and Technical Education: State Grants |
1,160,911,000 |
1,160,911,000 |
0 |
Tech-Prep Education State Grants |
102,923,000 |
105,000,000 |
2,077,000 |
Resources
Vicki Needham, "House Appropriators Halt Work After Dispute Over Off Shore Drilling Provisions," Congress Now, June 26, 2007.
"CEF Alert, House Labor/HHS/ED Markup," Center for Education Funding, June 27, 2008.
News
National Charter School Conference
This week, the National Alliance of Public Charter Schools hosted the National Charter School Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana. The Alliance hosted over 3,000 attendees and paid particular attention to two critical themes: the importance of self-policing and the strategies to develop excellent schools at scale.
Of the many breakout sessions covering the intricacies of self policing, the conference organizers offered two documents that charter school authorizers and operators may find useful. The first is the Framework for Academic Quality (Outside Source; PDF; 1.11MB; 20 pp). The report is an initial consensus, intentionally broad in scope, which is intended to serve as a foundation and starting point for assessing academic quality in charter schools across the nation. The second is the Principles and Standards for Quality Charter School Authorizing (Outside Source), which focuses on the question of quality and replication onto charter school authorizers. Both documents generated much discussion.
The "excellence at scale" thread included many breakout sessions covering every imaginable challenge of school planning, implementation, replication of success, and all the steps that could be involved, which are many. The fate of No Child Left Behind was one of the sessions and, in full disclosure, David DeSchryver, Legislative Counsel for Brustein & Manasevit, presented during this session. So what is the future? It is a two-track process. First, Congress is deliberating on the law’s key provisions, in particular the state accountability systems that are now in sections 1111 and 1116. This deliberation will be technical and it will take time, but Congress does not have too much time. With each passing year, the law will identify more and more schools for school improvement and corrective action and alternative governance. Congress is well aware of this and that is why Congressmen Graves (R-MO) and Walz (D-MN) introduced the NCLB Recess Until Reauthorization Act (H.R. 6239) on June 11th. The bill calls for a suspension of the evaluation and labeling of schools for improvement, specifically calling for a suspension of the sanctions imposed upon such schools. The bill also halts the identification of schools for corrective action and restructuring as well as the implications and sanctions following such labels. The bill is not retroactive and ensures that any identifications or sanctions previously imposed be upheld. It is not likely to gain any traction this year, but the longer Congress waits (into 2009 and 2010) the greater the opportunity for momentum.
Administrative regulation is the second track. In March, Spellings announced the differentiated intervention pilot program under ESEA. Under the pilot, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) will approve up to 10 states to operate their own differentiated accountability systems. On April 23rd, ED published a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) to amend the regulations governing Title I of ESEA with particular attention to the school choice and the supplemental educational services provisions and the methods of calculating the graduation rate. Finally, on May 2nd, ED released a notice of proposed interpretation for Title III of ESEA, regarding the annual administration of the English language proficiency assessments.
These two tracks, Congressional deliberation and Administrative regulation, will define the fate of NCLB and will have considerable impact on the work of charter school operators and authorizers in the coming years.
Resource
National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (Outside Source), visited June 27, 2008.
What Works Web Site Re-Launched
The "what-works" clearing house has been under development for sometime and it has recently received a significant upgrade with additional new materials in the subjects of early childhood education, English language learners and math and science instruction. The goal of the clearinghouse is to support No Child Left Behind by creating an online library of resources that may help educators implement research-based instructional practice. Learn more about the site by visiting the new "Doing What Works."
Resource
Doing What Works (Outside Source), visited June 27, 2008
