ON THE HILL

Most schools are in recess, but Congress is not. Summer promises to be hot in Washington, D.C. ESEA reauthorization…Dollars to the Classroom Act…Straight A’s Bill…Education Savings Accounts…Modern Schools for Better Learning…Budget Caps and Education Funding Cuts. One pundit has already suggested the Election 2000 campaign mantra: “It’s education, Stupid!”

JUVENILE JUSTICE BILL ON HOLD

House leaders have not sent the House-passed juvenile justice bill (HR 1501) to Conference Committee. The House and Senate have each passed a juvenile justice bill that must be reconciled in conference before the House and Senate final vote. The bills largely emphasize trying juveniles as adults and tougher mandatory sentences. The Senate bill includes NEA-supported gun safety provisions and background checks for gun show sales, measures that were defeated in the House. “We’re not ready to appoint conferees,” Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX) said.

NEW NAME FOR BLOCK GRANTS

In a news conference, House Education Committee Chairman Bill Goodling (R-PA) announced the “Academic Achievement for All Act (HR 2300), also known as Straight A’s or Super Ed Flex. In a letter to all House Republicans, he pitched the bill as a new education funding strategy that would give states absolute control over federal dollars. The “new strategy” would essentially transform the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) into a massive block grant. This is ESEA renewal or “reauthorization” year and a window of opport-unity for public education’s critics’ agenda. The House and Senate debate may include vouchers, questionable teacher “quality” and “accountability” initiative proposals.

The 34 year-old legislation is the nation’s main K-12 education support. Title I, the landmark program that provides supplementary reading and math instruction for economically disadvantaged children, is the best known ESEA program. ESEA includes, however, more than 40 programs--such as professional development, magnet schools, educational technology, bilingual education, testing, after-school programs, reading excellence, and safe and drug-free schools--that receive some $12 billion in annual funding. [go to http://www.doe.gov/ESEA]

ESEA targets dollars to specific programs for high needs children. The emphasis is on accountability, with standards and curriculum aligned, school report cards, paraprofessional training and teacher licensure require-ments, an end to social promotion and intervention when failing schools do not improve. Within Title I, 98.5 percent of every federal dollar goes to the local school district.

Academic Achievement for All Act (HR 2300) shifts control from local schools to governors and state legislatures that would determine how the funds are spent. Acceptable use would include any educational activity permitted by state law. U.S. Secretary of Education Richard Riley calls the proposal a threshold to vouchers since it opens the door to federal dollars subsidizing private, religious and home schools where state law allows, as in Florida, Ohio and Wisconsin. The bill, in essence, “charters” entire states. The concept, the Secretary said, is “anti-accountability” and an “experiment in revenue sharing.”

The bill was developed for the Education Leaders Council (ELC) by Nina Rees, Heritage Foundation education policy analyst. Seven state superintendents (AZ, CO, FL, GA, MI, PA, VA) broke with the national association of Chief State School Officers and formed ELC to advocate their education agenda. The bill’s supporters include Americans for Tax Reform, Christian Coalition, Family Research Council, Heritage Foundation, and the Home School Legal Defense Fund.

ESEA programs play a critical role in helping states and school districts improve public schools. NEA has urged Congress to maintain ESEA integrity and reauthorize and improve the legislation, building on the standards-based direction of 1994.

FIVE DOLLAR ($5) FEDERAL TAX CREDITS

The House Ways & Means Committee, considering tax reduction proposals, included “education incentives,” i.e., Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) that allow families to use tax-free interest dollars for K-12 costs, such as religious and non-public school tuition and home schooling.

The average annual benefit: $5 for families with children in public schools and $37 for families of private school students. The National Coalition for Public Education (NCPE) and Rebuild America’s School Coalition (NEA is an active member of both groups) supported tax incentives for school modernization. The House school modern-ization bills H.R. 1660 (Rangel, D-NY) and H.R. 1760 (Johnson, R-CT) use tax credits to leverage school con-struction bonds. The benefit: $25 billion for safe, modern school buildings. New math or old, ESAs vs. better schools don’t compute!

INTERNET FILTERING IS BACK!

One of the little noted provisions of the House-passed Juvenile Justice Bill, H.R. 1501, is a provision to require e-rate schools to install software that blocks materials “deemed harmful to minors.” Local authorities would decide what material is harmful to their students. Now a Senate measure, S. 97, also calls for denying federal Internet subsidies to schools and libraries that do not use software to block children’s access to indecent material. A similar measure proposed last year unleashed a storm of arguments, ranging from censorship issues to the imper-fect nature of software that filters out legitimate sites to unfunded mandate issues.

REPORT LINKS TEACHER SHORTAGE TO SALARIES

A new report released by the American Federation of Teachers links the strong economy to teacher shortages. In the 1997-98 school year, the average beginning teacher salary was $25,735. In contrast, new recruits to engineering received offers averaging $42,862; computer science, $40,920; math and statistics, $40,523; chemistry, $36,036; and business administration, $35,831. The job growth in other sectors has caused average teacher pay to lag even farther behind. Average teacher's salary is $39,347, while accountants earn $45,919; computer system analysts, $63,072; and attorneys, $71,530. Connecticut has the highest average teacher salary at $51,727.

In this sluggish salary scene amidst a booming economy, Congressional lawmakers last week considered strategies to lure talented people into K-12 science and math teaching jobs and keep them in the classroom. John Staver, professor of science education and director of the Center for Science Education at Kansas State University, noted that after scientists and doctors, teachers make up the third most respected professional group in American society. However, the conditions in which they work are “anything but professional.”

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