By Anne L. Bryant
11/23/04 -- After President Bush was re-elected, he delivered a victory speech with these statements:
"Today I want to speak to every person who voted for my opponent. To make this nation stronger and better, I will need your support and I will work to earn it. I will do all I can do to deserve your trust. A new term is a new opportunity to reach out to the whole nation."
And in his concession speech, Sen. John Kerry said:
"We are required now to work together for the good of our country. In the days ahead, we must find common cause, we must join in common effort, without remorse or recrimination, without anger or rancor. America is in need of unity and longing for a larger measure of compassion."
After the bitter, grueling, divisive campaign rhetoric of the past few months, these statements offer at least a glimmer of hope that we can come together to move our nation forward.
President Bush and Sen. Kerry ran for the presidency with passion. They each view the state of our international and domestic agenda quite differently. Did they want the same results? In some cases, yes, such as democracy in Iraq. But in other cases -- Social Security, health care, and the environment -- no.
But instead of talking about their differences, I'd rather focus on what we can do as leaders to improve and expand educational opportunities for all of America's children.
First, a few realities: A lame-duck session of the 108th Congress began Nov. 16. When the 109th Congress convenes in January, it will be controlled by a Republican leadership that has gained additional seats in both the House and Senate.
The lame-duck session, a terribly named event considering its importance to NSBA and to public education as a whole, is expected to consider several major issues crucial for school board leaders.
We have long labored over the reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), and congressional conferees approved this bill just as this issue of School Board News was going to press.
This bill contains many improvements in the special education program, and it goes a long way toward ensuring that children in special education receive the same disciplinary treatment as other children -- while ensuring that all children have due process protections.
We are also pleased the conferees approved provisions in the Senate bill that recognize the unique characteristics of special education teachers in addressing the definition of highly qualified teachers under the No Child Left Behind Act.
Schools cannot afford to delay these needed changes. The current law eats up educators' valuable time with paperwork and bureaucracy and causes unnecessary expenditures of funds.
Another legislative priority for us is a push for increased funding for Title I and special education. At this point, the Senate appropriations bill is slightly more favorable than the House bill. It would increase funding for Title I by $1.1 billion and special education funding by $1.26 billion.
We are also urging Congress to restore President Bush's request of $290 million for Title V, which provides flexible spending to school districts for innovative education programs. The House bill includes just $20 million for this program, and the Senate bill has no money at all for Title V.
Finally, we hope the lame-duck session will approve an "emergency fix" for the e-rate program. Since August, the Universal Service Administrative Co. (USAC) has had to cease issuing letters of commitment to school districts and libraries for the next fiscal year because the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) changed both the accounting rules guiding the Universal Service Fund, which funds the e-rate, and capped the collection rate from the telecommunications companies.
This caused a major delay in getting urgently needed funding to school districts for discounted telecommunications services.
The FCC ordered USAC to stop its commitments after determining that the Universal Service Fund must comply with the Anti-deficiency Act and the letters of commitment must be treated as cash obligations under that act.
The telecommunications industry, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, and the entire education community is united in support of legislation to be taken up during the lame-duck session to exclude the Universal Service Fund from the Anti-deficiency Act. This would allow USAC to distribute e-rate letters of commitment as it has done until recently.
As school board leaders, we must stand united and make our voices heard -- right now with the current members of Congress.
Turning to the future, as we welcome the new members of Congress to Capitol Hill and craft our NSBA agenda for the 109th Congress, be assured that we will focus on the changes needed in the No Child Left Behind Act.
We've reached out to thousands of you across the country. We've listened to your state association leaders and the changes you told us are needed. We've also looked at what will make the education accountability system in NCLB work better for positive change.
Many of you are using NCLB to your advantage, focusing on closing the achievement gap and aligning teacher professional development, curriculum, and new pedagogy.
Others have told us, in no uncertain terms, that the bill is hampering your efforts to provide these changes and unfairly labeling schools as failing when the truth is otherwise.
We will work together to convey our legislative changes beginning with the 2005 Federal Relations Network (FRN) Conference Jan. 30-Feb. 2. We hope many of you will be able to join us for this important meeting. (If you'd like to be involved, contact your state school boards association. The state associations appoint FRN delegates.)
We must stand together to support our nation's public schools. School board members are Republicans and Democrats. You come from every walk of life. You hail from red states and blue states. You volunteer countless hours for your local schools. You care passionately about our children's future. You are the uniters for public education. We are counting on you.