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End of
the Session: An Entertaining Show but Mixed Reviews
By Jeff Simering, Director,
Legislative Services
 The first session of the 106th
Congress is finally over with the usual amount of crowing from all
sides about one political victory or another. The curtains fell on
this Congress with a flurry of press releases about who had gained
the upper hand politically on such critical issues as education.
In dollars spent on education, hats are tipped to the
GOP-controlled Congress, which increased total federal school
spending by $2.1 billion over last year and outpaced the Clinton
administration's budget request by nearly $1 billion.
The biggest education spending increases came in the following:
$679 million more for Special Education, $254 million more for 21st
Century After School Programs, $252 million more for Title I
Programs, $110 million more for the Fund for Education Improvement,
$100 million more for Class Size Reduction, $80 million more for
Gear Up, $24 million more for Bilingual Education, and $607 million
more for Head Start.
Most other school programs received negligible increases or were
frozen. In addition, a 0.38 percent government-wide spending
cut has yet to be applied to individual programs. And some of the
discretionary grant increases have been earmarked for specified
congressional constituents, meaning that they will be off-limits to
the competitive process.
In reducing class sizes, hats are tipped to the Clinton White
House. Congress made a variety of attempts to consolidate this
categorical program into a broader, more flexible block grant, but
came away from the fight having only increased the percentage of
funds that local schools could use on professional development from
the current 15 percent to 25 percent. The program remained a
categorical effort devoted to reducing class sizes.
The Title I program was subjected to a small skirmish at the end
of the session for which no hats are tipped. The Administration
requested a $200 million set-aside of Title I funds at the beginning
of the year for state discretionary efforts to hold local schools
accountable for performance. At the end of the session, the White
House and Congress had agreed on using $134 million of the total
$252 million increase for state discretionary grants, $50 million
for state discretionary comprehensive reforms, and $56 million to
grandfather previous concentration grant recipients. Only about $10
million went to increase regular Title I programming. The results
will likely effect discussions on rewriting the Elementary and
Secondary Education Act in the second session.
Budget negotiators ultimately resorted to some $40 billion in
budget gimmicks to make all the numbers add up, including pushing
over $12 billion in funding for Title I, IDEA, Class-Size Reduction,
Drug Free Schools, Goals 2000, Vocational Education, and Reading
Excellence into next year, risking an even harsher spending squeeze
in FY2001. Hats are off to everyone for creativity—until next year.
Finally, an attempt to restrict Medicaid reimbursements from
school-based health services was derailed. Hats off to all the Great
City School systems who voiced their concerns on this critical issue
The year-long stalemates ultimately accrued to education budgets,
but the growing politicization of school issues fractured the
debates and resulted in programs being segmented in ways that do not
serve the broader interests of
education. | 
