09-09-2000

EDUCATION: A Bush-Lieberman Education Ticket?

Don't expect any bear hugs, but Republican presidential hopeful George W.
Bush and National Education Association President Bob Chase have found
something they agree on: Joe Lieberman. Both say that a comprehensive
education proposal sponsored by Al Gore's running mate would stand a
better chance of passage under a Bush-Cheney Administration than under one
bearing Lieberman's name.


Much has been made of Lieberman's differences with Gore on school
vouchers. Less attention has been paid to the Connecticut Senator's
education reform bill, which would restructure the federal involvement in
elementary and secondary education by consolidating the 50-plus federal
programs into five "performance-based grants" and by increasing
federal spending $35 billion over the next five years.


"It would pass under Bush," says Bush adviser Nina Shokraii
Rees, a senior education analyst at the Heritage Foundation, when asked
how Lieberman's bill would fare during a Bush Administration. The bill,
she said, "has the skeleton of everything that encompasses his
[Bush's] vision of education reform, which is focusing on results,
increasing freedom at the state level, and parental choice."


Would the bill pass under Gore-Lieberman? No, says Chase, who furrows his
brow when asked about the Lieberman bill. "I think Gore's beliefs and
positions are well-known." The NEA has lobbied heavily against
Lieberman's plan because of what Chase calls the "block grants,"
or the consolidation of programs.


New Democrats who helped shape Lieberman's proposal had a different
prediction. Will Marshall, the president of the Democratic Leadership
Council's Progressive Policy Institute, said that Lieberman's No. 2
position on the Democratic ticket would boost the bill's chances. But
Senate staffers pushing the bill were more equivocal about its prospects
under Gore-Lieberman, as opposed to Bush-Cheney. "I don't know which
[candidate] would be better," said one.


When Lieberman was touting his bill on Capitol Hill, Bush's support for
his idea was often cited. Before Lieberman introduced his bill last fall,
he floated his proposal by the Gore campaign but heard nothing back. (See
NJ, 10/16/99, p. 3000.)


As it turned out, no education bill cleared Congress. Partisan bickering
stalled the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act,
and the matter will come up again next year. Lieberman's bill won only 13
votes in the Senate, an outcome bill supporters chalk up to election-year
positioning.


At a hearing on Lieberman's bill last spring, Gore education adviser
William A. Galston said the Gore campaign had "real discomfort"
with Lieberman's consolidation plan because it curtails the federal
government's ability to dictate what funds are used for. By contrast,
William J. Bennett, a Bush adviser and former Reagan Education Secretary,
termed the plan "a brilliant idea."


Lieberman's plan would consolidate the federal programs under the
education act into grants for disadvantaged children; teacher quality;
bilingual education; public school choice; and "innovative
strategies." It requires states to write up a contract detailing
their goals in each category and to include a plan to attain them.


Similarly, Bush's proposed overhaul merges funding into five categories:
disadvantaged children; teacher training and recruitment; English fluency;
character-building and school safety; and parental choice. Under both
plans, states that meet their annual goals get more money, and states that
don't will lose administrative funding.


Gore's proposals do not consolidate funding. Instead, he supports new
programs for universal preschool, teacher recruitment, and school
construction. Gore also wants to require states to show that children are
learning more or risk losing administrative money.


Rees predicted that Bush would make a version of the Lieberman bill an
early priority. She said he would want a big bipartisan win at the outset
of his Administration to show that his "compassionate
conservatism" is more than a campaign slogan.


And there's still the matter of the 2.4- million-member NEA, which has
endorsed Gore. (Of note, the NEA couldn't quite fit Lieberman's name on
the pro-Gore pins it distributed at the Democratic National
Convention.)


Marshall said that if Gore wins, he might be able to shift some of his
campaign positions as he moves from campaigning to governing.
"Campaign tactics are one thing, and the realities of governing are
another," Marshall said. "That's one reason why I'm hopeful that
the basic elements and principles of the Lieberman bill will be
incorporated in whatever a Gore-Lieberman Administration puts forth."
He argued that a President Bush would have a tough time selling his ideas
to congressional Republicans.


Interestingly, the group of New Democrats pushing the proposal last spring
found a sympathetic ear among Republicans. "We came very close to
reaching a deal with the Republicans," one New Democrat Senate aide
said. "But I think there are some key differences that cannot be
resolved in an election year."


Either way, the prospect of another divided Congress heartens New
Democrats, because it will force a more centrist approach. "If
anything is going to get passed, regardless of who the next President is,
it will need to be along the lines of what we have proposed," said
Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., a co-sponsor of the bill. And Bayh's scheduling a
meeting to talk to Bob Chase.


Siobhan Gormann

National Journal