04-08-2000

EDUCATION: Clinton School Plan Sent to Back of the Class

Brushing off Democratic attempts to advance President Clinton's school
initiatives, the House Education and the Workforce Committee on April 6
continued work on a sweeping, GOP-backed education bill that Republicans
hope will reshape the way federal aid to schools is distributed.


In a quarrelsome opening session on April 5, the two parties jabbed and
bickered for hours over major changes that the GOP wants to make in the
landmark Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Then the panel voted,
along partisan lines, to reject the President's proposals to help
cash-strapped schools rehabilitate rundown buildings and to preserve a
number of categorical student aid programs.


In addition, the committee deflected a highly controversial gun control
amendment offered by Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y. The amendment would
have required that all new guns be sold with safety locks and that a legal
loophole be eliminated that allows some buyers at gun shows to avoid
criminal background checks. But committee Republicans ruled the amendment
out of order because it exceeded the panel's jurisdiction. McCarthy lost a
procedural appeal and then shot back with a more-limited amendment to
require safety locks. But Republicans watered down her amendment on a
25-21 vote, and the final version simply called for a study of the
effectiveness of gun safety locks.


Chairman William F. Goodling, R-Pa., outlined the bill's "concept of
transferability," which would allow local school districts to shift
up to 35 percent of their aid from one program to another. If a state
approves, local schools could transfer 100 percent of the money slated for
categorical programs to other purposes. The only exception, according to
Goodling, would be the ESEA's Title I programs, which cover lower-income
children.


Congressional Republicans consider the transferability provision a
keystone of their bill, because it would put into law their long-held
belief that federal aid to schools should be provided in block grants with
few, if any, strings attached.


But Education Secretary Richard Riley said the transfers would undercut
the federal role in establishing national education goals and would weaken
state and local accountability for how the federal money was spent. The
committee rejected, 23-19, a Democratic bid to kill the transferability
provisions.


In another key vote, the committee rejected, 27-21, a substitute bill by
Democrats that would have embodied virtually all of Clinton's education
proposals. The committee will resume work on the bill on April 12.


David Hess

National Journal