11/9/04 — With a strengthened Republican majority in both houses of Congress, President Bush’s agenda is expected to meet with increased support.
During his campaign, Bush repeatedly pointed to the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) as one of his top accomplishments.
The President has not yet announced education goals for his second term. Among the proposals he has put forth during the campaign are expanded testing under NCLB to include annual testing for high school students and exit exams; more assistance to middle and high school students who lack reading skills; and pay raises to teachers who are successful in raising student achievement.
Bush also supports the use of public funds to provide vouchers for religious and other private schools, although he did not make that a major education priority during his first term.
Congress did, however, approve a voucher program for the District of Columbia last year, and a more conservative Congress would be more likely to favor a broader federal voucher program.
Although NCLB was passed with bipartisan support in 2002, it has come under increasing attack from both Republican and Democratic members of Congress, as well as local and state policymakers.
President Bush has rejected calls to revise NCLB and says more time is needed to prove its effectiveness. He argues that it is working to raise student achievement and reduce the achievement gap and rejects complaints by school officials across the nation that the act is underfunded.
Nevertheless, Congress is expected to hold hearings on NCLB and consider revisions in the law in 2005.
It’s been speculated in the media that Education Secretary Rod Paige is likely to step down. According to the Dallas Morning News, a possible successor could be Margaret Spellings, White House policy adviser and a former education adviser to Bush when he was governor of Texas.
“The growth of Republican majorities in Congress — the GOP achieved a net gain of four seats in the Senate and up to three in the House — means President Bush will have more support for his legislative initiatives in Congress,” says NSBA Associate Executive Director Michael A. Resnick.
In the Senate, Republicans won five seats from the South previously held by retiring Democrats. Several of the more conservative newly elected senators have expressed support for vouchers and school prayer.
Among incoming senators are U.S. Rep. Jim DeMint (R) in South Carolina. He defeated the state’s education chief, Inez Tenenbaum, for the Senate seat held by retiring Democrat Ernest “Fritz” Hollings. In the last Congress, DeMint led an unsuccessful effort in the House to have IDEA funds be used to support private school vouchers for students with disabilities.
Georgia voters elected U.S. Rep. Johnny Isakson (R) to fill the Senate seat vacated by Sen. Zell Miller (D). Isakson, a strong supporter of NCLB, is a member of the House Education and the Workforce Committee and is a former chair of the state board of education.
“The fact that the Republican majority in the Senate is not only larger but more conservative diminishes the ability of the more moderate Republicans to play a leveraging role,” says Resnick.
“There will also be more pressure on the four remaining Democratic senators from the South to take a more conservative stance,” he says.
There are might be some key leadership changes in the committees that deal with education issues. Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), chair of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee (HELP), might take on the chairmanship of the Budget Committee.
If that happens, Sen. Michael B. Enzi (R-Wyo.) is likely to become the next chair of the HELP Committee.
Enzi is a strong advocate for rural education issues and has pushed for giving rural schools more flexibility in implementing NCLB. Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) might take over from Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) as chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
On the House side, Rep. Ralph Regula (R-Ohio) is expected to succeed Rep. C.W. Bill Young (R-Fla.) as chair of the Appropriations Committee, and Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) will retain the chairmanship of the Education and the Workforce Committee.
“Given the federal deficit and the slightly more conservative tilt in the Congress,” Resnick says, “school board members are going to need to be fully engaged in priority issues like education funding.”