EDUCATION - Summer Is Here, Schools Are In
By Siobhan Gorman, National Journal
© National Journal
Group Inc.
Saturday, July 03, 1999
It was a sunny, upbeat, and colorful scene as Republicans
unveiled their latest education proposal on June 22 in front of
the Capitol. Cheering kids in bright lemon-colored T-shirts
crowded around a shiny yellow school bus and craned out its
windows as GOP leaders mounted a lectern to tout the Academic
Achievement for All Act--with the catchy shorthand name of
Straight A's. Surrounded by House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, R-
Ill., and nine other GOP luminaries, Rep. William F. Goodling, R-
Pa., chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee,
explained that Straight A's would allow states the flexibility to
combine funds from more than 30 federal programs, as long as they
promised higher student achievement. Senate Majority Leader Trent
Lott, R-Miss., declared education ''No. 1 on the agenda for
Republicans in Congress this year.''
Featured guest speaker Chris Webster, a fifth-grader from
Chantilly, Va., heartily endorsed Straight A's: ''I've always
liked the idea of being free to do whatever I want,'' Webster
intoned into the cluster of microphones. ''If there are some good
ways for Congress to give schools the freedom and tools to help
me and my school friends and not raise my parents' taxes,'' he
paused for the laughter to subside, ''then I think that is
great.'' Out of view of the TV cameras, a yellow cue flag went
up, the children roared their approval, the videocams recorded.
This little show was part of what may become the central
issue in the 2000 elections: Which is the real education party?
For years, conservative Republicans won a measure of public
support by touting themselves as educational reformers and the
Democrats as defenders of a corrupt and incompetent education
establishment. But President Clinton, with this issue as with so
many others, has effectively co-opted the GOP's position. The
President, not the Republican opposition, has been the more
successful in shaping the national education agenda for years,
and for years surveys have consistently shown that voters trust
Democrats over Republicans to improve the nation's schools. In
May, the President rolled out his latest education proposal, a
set of comprehensive reforms that called for higher standards,
smaller classes, and more accountability. (See NJ, 5/22/99, p.
1406.)
The Straight A's proposal is the third, and so far most
sweeping, in a multipart series of GOP school reform proposals
that represent the Republicans' effort to reclaim the issue. Both
the White House proposals and those of the Republicans are likely
to generate much heat (if not necessarily light) and attendant
publicity in Congress this year and next, as both parties vie to
recapture the education flag in the 16 months leading up to the
November 2000 elections.
Some of the proposals will be freestanding. Many will be
linked to the mandatory reauthorization of the 34-year-old
Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), which controls
most federal spending on K-12 education. And some might actually
pass.
Although both parties are riven by ideological divisions
over education, the dominant view among experts and officials is
that both parties will see it in their interest to pass major, if
not revolutionary, education bills. Republicans are likely to go
along with a Democratic push for more national standards and
accountability; Democrats are likely to accept some GOP demands
for more local and state flexibility within the confines of new
higher standards.
''This time around, we're going to see a very pragmatic
approach from both the Democrats and Republicans to make sure
there is a significant and substantial elementary and secondary
bill that goes through, rather than having just an ideological
clash that could result in no bill going through,'' said Gordon
M. Ambach, executive director of the Council of Chief State
School Officers, which represents state school superintendents
from around the country.
Both parties can read polls, and can see that education
usually falls within voters' top three domestic concerns and
often makes No. 1. ''Education is undoubtedly going to be one of
the biggest debates that Congress will have over the next 16
months, and the (Elementary and Secondary Education Act) is as
close to a must-pass bill as authorizing legislation can be,''
said White House domestic policy adviser Bruce N. Reed. ''If
anything, the education issue is more prominent than in 1994
(when the ESEA was last reauthorized), and the need for action
more apparent to the country as a whole.''
Most people who are polled still give Clinton and the
Democrats an edge when it comes to whom they trust to reform
education, but the gap between how much they trust Democrats on
the one hand and Republicans on the other has been closing. The
gap has narrowed from 30 percentage points in a postelection 1996
NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll to 13 points in a recent Pew
Research Center for The People & The Press poll.
But in terms of ideas, Americans seem to like both
parties' approaches. In a poll last year by two Washington firms,
the Tarrance Group and Lake Snell Perry & Associates, 48 percent
supported Clinton's ideas for tougher national standards and new
spending for more teachers and smaller classes, and 47 percent
agreed with Republican ideas of sending more money to local
communities for them to decide how to lift academic achievement.
Said Sen. Paul Coverdell, R-Ga., a member of the Senate's
education task force: ''I'd say (the Democrats) are still ahead,
but not by much.''
GOP Makeover
Since their takeover of Congress in 1995, and their
subsequent unsuccessful attempt to scrap the Education
Department, Republicans have been groping for a better image on
education. In the 105th Congress, they embraced school choice,
vouchers, and block grants for states to let them do what they
want with federal money. But now even those issues have become
politically passe. Vouchers have been declared a state issue by
Republicans. And Clinton's emphasis on setting national standards
and holding schools accountable for meeting them has caught on
across the country and made the idea of block grants less
tenable. ''Block grant(ing) is one that we recognize that there
are even members on the Republican side of the aisle that say
we're nervous about handing money over,'' said Rep. Pete
Hoekstra, R-Mich., who is overseeing Republican message
development on education. ''That's where the accountability came
in. I think what many of us are saying is, this is not bad.''
So in the 106th Congress, ''flexibility'' is the new GOP
education mantra. Republicans hope to build on the momentum
gained by their recent victory in passing the 1999 Education
Flexibility Partnership Act (''Ed-Flex''), which allows states to
seek waivers to loosen the strings on seven federal programs. The
flexibility message not only appeals to the GOP's less-is-more-
in-government believers, but also echoes the programs of some
popular Republican Governors. ''Governors are asking for more
flexibility with their dollars,'' Hoekstra said. ''The Governors
are talking about moving responsibility to the local level and
making parents have more responsibility in the process.''
But the re-imaging of Republicans on education is very
much a work in progress. For one thing, House leaders and
Goodling still don't agree on which bills should come up first.
Leadership wants to start with Straight A's and a proposal for
education savings accounts, which would allow parents to save
money tax-free for their children's education. Goodling and GOP
staffers would rather start with the reauthorization of the 1965
Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
Disagreement on the education timetable has some outside
conservatives grumbling. ''If they're serious about making
education their issue, I think they should sit down and decide
what key things they're for,'' said Nina S. Rees, an education
policy analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation.
And some conservatives question whether flexibility is a
substantive enough message. Programs such as Straight A's are
voluntary, and the states don't have to participate, says Chester
E. Finn Jr. of the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Foundation in
Washington. In addition to flexibility, he said, Republicans need
to comprehensively address the Elementary and Secondary Education
Act, which will determine federal policy for states that choose
not to participate in the Ed-Flex-type programs.
''It's untidy and kind of vague and kind of nebulous,''
Finn said of the Republicans' approach. ''It seems to me to be
vulnerable to the charge that you can't fight something with
nothing.'' On the Democratic side, Finn noted, both the President
and the Progressive Policy Institute, a New Democrat think tank,
have already offered comprehensive options of their own. ''It's
like I invited you over to dinner, and I only produced nuts and
celery,'' he analogized. ''You might say, Where's the rest of the
meal?''
The other problem facing Republicans is internal
division. Republican staffers note that both Goodling and Sen.
James M. Jeffords, R-Vt., who chairs the Senate Health,
Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, have their hands full
with highly polarized committees. Arnold F. Fege, president of
Public Advocacy for Kids, a nonprofit public education and child
advocacy firm, said the committee leaders will somehow have to
satisfy their most conservative members if they are to pass
significant legislation. ''In order to pass a bill, they have to
have (the conservatives) on board,'' Fege said.
But Republicans do have incentives to unite: such as
losing the House if they don't, says John F. ''Jack'' Jennings,
director of the Center on Education Policy, a Washington-based
group that lobbies for more-effective public schools. With a six-
seat margin, the House Republicans cannot afford to break apart
on this issue. ''I'm sure they're whispering under their breaths,
'Wait till we get (George W.) Bush as President and we get the
Congress in our hands, then we'll do what we want to do,'''
Jennings said. But first things first.
Democrats Promise Unity
Knowing that they're not alone in the unity challenge,
Republicans hope they can split moderate Democrats away from
liberal ones on the issue of flexibility. And that strategy could
work, noted one Democratic staffer. That was the strategy with
the Ed-Flex bill.
But the Democrats have honed their defensive tactics
during their recent years in the minority, said Jennings, who
spent 27 years as a Democratic staffer on the House Education
Committee. Fege agreed that, at least on the need for more
national accountability, both the White House and Capitol Hill
Democrats are trying hard to display unity. ''You can't
underestimate the White House team,'' Fege said. ''There's a
determined, calculated strategy to extend an arm of cooperation
to the Democrats in Congress to a greater extent than I've ever
seen before.''
Still, underlying tensions remain among Democrats, too.
On the House side, Rep. William ''Bill'' Clay, D-Mo., the
ranking, and one of the more liberal, members of the committee,
submitted the President's bill only after making changes that
water down the accountability section.
That kind of soft approach fuels moderates' frustrations.
''Right now, the Democrats don't have a lot of good answers
besides 'Let's throw more money at the problem,' '' said an aide
to a moderate Democratic Senator, warning that Democrats risk
losing public support if voters see them as failing to promote
serious, systemic change.
For the Democrats, political pragmatism may be the
strongest glue, just as it is for the Republicans. ''I think the
Democrats smell victory in 2000,'' Fege said, and if they can't
agree among themselves, ''that may be interpreted by the American
public as a weakness, that the Democrats can't govern.''
The Radical Middle
Most analysts say the pressure of time, next year's
elections, the narrow GOP majority, and the threat of a
presidential veto will eventually force a charge to the middle by
both parties, perhaps more by Republicans than Democrats.
''They're all going to want to reach the middle ground,''
said Rees of Heritage. ''The Democrats are probably going to be
reluctant because they don't have much to gain and Republicans
have a lot to lose, so (Republicans are) probably going to
accommodate Democrats a lot more than they probably would
otherwise.''
And, said Fege, ''there's a radical middle developing
that is going to box out the extremes.'' One example of that is a
bipartisan working group of moderate Democratic and Republican
Senate staffers who have bypassed the traditional education
interest groups such as teachers' unions and instead teamed up
with think tanks on the right and the left.
''The good news is, there is a convergence (of views)
going on that is really conspicuous,'' said Dan Gerstein, a
member of the policy group and the press secretary to Sen Joseph
I. Lieberman, D-Conn. ''We'll give you a wide latitude for where
you want to go, in exchange for holding (you) accountable for
strict performance standards.''
But as the group's members worked to put together a white
paper with policy suggestions, they missed their Memorial Day
deadline. ''The bad news is, there's still some honest
philosophical disagreements,'' Gerstein said. ''We struggled a
little bit. I think it's going to be a question whether we can
hold together.''
And working groups aside, the legislation has to make it
out of committee, and the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and
Pensions Committee is highly partisan, said the aide to the
moderate Democratic Senator. ''The breakdown is akin to the
division on the House Judiciary Committee. It doesn't have the
greatest track record of producing compromises.''
Chairman Jeffords is already pledging a steer-the-middle-
course strategy. ''If I have any ability, it's to get people
of . . . even radical divergences to sit down and reason. . . .
All the education bills we got out last year, all of them were
98-2s. It should give you some confidence that we might end up
with something that's agreeable.''
The Coming Fights
Here then, in the order they are expected to come up, are
the education bills and where the battle lines are being drawn:
nTeachers. The Republican Teacher Empowerment Act folds three
federal programs, including Clinton's class-size reduction
proposal, into a single program that would give states more
choice in the kinds of teacher-improvement programs they use, but
with the stipulation that schools must improve student
achievement. The President's teacher-quality plan also
consolidates several federal programs, but the $ 1.2 billion
class-size-reduction proposal would be left as a freestanding
program.
Democrats think they have a winner in this issue because
reducing class sizes in first, second, and third grades is so
easily understandable and specific. President Clinton spotlighted
this proposal in his radio address last Saturday. And some
Republicans agree that Democrats have the political edge on this
issue. ''Because of the sloganeering (Democrats have) done . . .
which certainly does test well, they've hit a political 10-
strike,'' said Victor F. Klatt III, education policy coordinator
for the House Education Committee. ''Policywise, it's a dopey
idea, but politically it's very smart.''
''For some reason, Goodling lets class size whip him in
the butt every single time,'' quipped one House Democratic
committee staffer. ''We're going to fight about class size the
whole Congress. . . . They're not thinking big picture,
politically. Killing class size is enough to get us into the
House. That's probably enough to get us six seats.''
The GOP teacher bill, which passed the House Education
Committee, 27-19, on June 30, is expected to come up for floor
debate after the July 4 recess.
* Title I. Debate on this part of the Elementary and
Secondary Education Act, which pays for programs for students
with low incomes, will center around the President's
accountability measures, which include turning around low-
performing schools, ending social promotion, and requiring 95
percent of teachers in Title I schools to be certified.
Republicans, who are still drafting their Title I legislation,
say Clinton's proposals are too prescriptive and Washington-
focused.
Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., is planning to propose a measure
that would make Title I funds ''portable.'' Instead of having the
Title I money go to a school district, Republicans argue, it will
follow the child. The details of this measure are still being
discussed, but the concept has already come under criticism by
Democrats on and off the Hill as an attempt to ''voucherize''
Title I.
* Safe and Drug-Free Schools. This subject has taken on a
higher profile in the wake of the Columbine High School
shootings, and depending on the final outcome of the juvenile
justice bill, this could be the venue for a new guns and Ten
Commandments debate.
* Bilingual Education. This topic has been contentious in
the past, and it could tie Congress up for weeks. But there's
been less discussion of it recently, because bilingual critics
fear being labeled as ''anti-Hispanic,'' especially in an
election year.
* Social Issues. Depending on the length of leash the
Republican leadership gives its conservative rank and file,
social issues ranging from school prayer to sex education could
emerge as they did during the last reauthorization in 1994. Rep.
Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., whose district includes Columbine, plans
to introduce an amendment that would require schools to notify
parents of ways their children can express their religion in
school.
* Straight A's. This proposal enjoys a unique spot on the
Republican agenda because it is high on the priority list for the
leadership, both House and Senate. Senate Majority Leader Lott
declared the bill to be his party's ''next and most important
step'' on the education agenda. House Speaker Hastert said the
bill would serve as a ''solid foundation'' on which ''to raise
student achievement and build schools at the local level.''
Republicans say it builds on the charter-school idea by
asking states to draw up a contract under which they can get more
freedom to use federal money in exchange for promises to raise
student achievement. Democrats on the Hill and in the executive
branch complain that it leaves no room for accountability and is
another route to block grants, which they vehemently oppose.
Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., said Straight A's sounds
too much like the status quo. ''I think (Straight A's) is like
taking a drug addict and pouring heroin out on the floor in front
of him, (and saying:) 'Reform thyself.' I'm not sure that the
real world works that way.''
Republican staffers admit Straight A's will be a tough
sell in the highly polarized House committee, but they say it
might have a better chance on the floor. The measure will also
face skepticism from the President. Education Secretary Richard
W. Riley has dubbed Straight A's ''the Anti-Accountability Act.''
Some Democrats charge that the GOP's pursuit of Straight
A's is intended mainly to give right-wing members an easy vote.
They say Republicans are hoping a vote on Straight A's, which
even Lott has called ''block grants,'' will satisfy conservatives
enough to dissuade them from bringing up other divisive issues
that could bog down education reform.
Straight A's could be one of those votes that come at the
end of the session, said Andrew Rotherham, director of the
Progressive Policy Institute's education project. ''People are
happy; they get their vote, but everyone knows full well it's not
going anywhere.''
The Clock Is Ticking
Members on both the House and Senate sides have expressed
consternation with the task of passing such major legislation
during the approach to an election year. While Goodling maintains
it's possible for the House to pass all of the Elementary and
Secondary Education Act reauthorization bills by the end of this
year, many committee Democrats question whether that is
realistic. Starting with the Teacher Empowerment Act, Goodling is
breaking up the Elementary and Secondary Education Act
legislation into smaller bills to route them consecutively
through the congressional process. This will ''give us a chance
to deliver our message repeatedly,'' explained committee staff
director Kevin D. Talley.
On the Senate side, however, Sen. Jeffords said he plans
to finish up only the hearings by year's end, and not take up the
bills until January.
The White House would like a faster pace, especially for
the overall Elementary and Secondary Education Act. But Democrats
say progress could be slow. ''It's going to be difficult to
complete this year,'' said Rep. Tim Roemer of Indiana, a moderate
Democrat on the Education Committee. ''If we don't get it done
now, we have an election year. We have a close margin in the
House. We have a presidential election, and we have contentious
issues.''
A more practical point, though, is that an election year
translates into fewer business days in Congress. By the end of
this year, Congress will have spent about 150 days in session,
but next year, the number will probably be fewer than 100.
Overall, most experts say the need for both parties to
have something to run on will outweigh partisan considerations.
Both Clinton and Goodling want to make their marks on elementary
and secondary education before leaving office in 2000, Jennings
said. (See box, pp. 1941-44.)
And the Republicans cannot risk being cast as anti-
education, he added. ''I'm sure that the Republican Congress
doesn't want Gore to stand up and say, 'The Republican Congress
killed the education bill,' '' Jennings said. ''It just says to
me that Goodling and Jeffords will do everything they can to get
a bill, and I think the party leaderships will do everything they
can to get a bill.''
In the end, Jennings said, the election-year education
reauthorization bill will most likely consist of moderate
changes, not radical ones. It will focus on holding children to
higher standards with a little more accountability than currently
exists in law and a little more consolidation of programs than
the President has proposed.
As President Clinton's adviser Reed said, ''On something
like this, sooner or later, members of Congress will want to do
the right thing and get something done for the folks back home.''
