NSBA Editorial/Boards' Eye View: Congress adjourns with a sputter, a spurt, and an opportunity
By Michael A. Resnick
02/08 -- The first session of the 110th Congress ended with final action taken on one of three major pending measures affecting K-12 education.
On the positive side, after President Bush’s veto of a domestic spending bill that included education was sustained, Congress came back with a broad governmentwide, omnibus spending bill that met the President’s bottom-line number for total government spending.
Although $17.5 billion was trimmed from the total, local Title I grants fared well. The program (which is the primary funding source for the No Child Left Behind Act) was increased by $1.1 billion -- or by 8.4 percent.
Further, we are disappointed that funding for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) was only increased by $165 million or by 1.5 percent. However, the amount was $456 million over the President’s proposed cut of $291 million for the program.
Following several years of near level-funding for Title I, the increase is welcome. Hopefully, the grassroots momentum that school boards established in their advocacy for greater funding will carry forward into 2008 and create a foundation for placing a higher priority on education when a new president takes office next year.
Unfortunately, the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act sputtered out but the flame for action in 2008 is still flickering. Early last year, the House and Senate committee chairs forecasted floor action by year’s end, but fell short of introducing bills in their committees. The good news is that they are still seeking to introduce bills early this year.
Like funding, continuing the grassroots momentum that school boards have established on NCLB will be important if the law is going to be reauthorized now -- rather than being delayed until after the election.
Timing is important because waiting will cause school systems to labor under this flawed accountability program to the detriment of students, educators, and taxpayers through at least the 2009-10 school year.
But even if the reauthorization fails in 2008, the effort will not be lost since it will build the pressure for the goals that school boards are seeking -- rather than releasing members of Congress from committing themselves to action.
Action to extend the SCHIP program, including expanding publicly financed private health care insurance to more uninsured children of lower wage-earning families, was vetoed twice by President Bush in the closing weeks of the session.
Before adjourning, Congress passed and the President subsequently signed a temporary measure to extend the program in its current, more limited form until early 2009.
In so doing, a provision was kept alive to temporarily bar the administration from implementing its recently formalized rule to cut off more than $600 million per year of Medicaid reimbursements to school districts for administrative and certain transportation costs.
Since the cutoff could have begun this February, the provision helps. However, the Medicaid cutoff could still be implemented during the 2008-09 school year without permanent action.
In addition to this mixed scorecard on “must do” legislation, much discussion earlier in the year to connect globalization and American competitiveness with education resulted in the America COMPETES Act, but the education elements were not especially comprehensive.
Regardless of whether these congressional initiatives involve preschool, higher achievement in math and science, or strengthening high schools, the lesson of NCLB should be clear to federal lawmakers: Get it right.
To do that, they will need to be more responsive to the priorities, practical insights, and wisdom of local school people. While action in these areas might not occur until after the election, for their part local school board members will need to lay a proactive foundation so that a new administration and Congress are more prepared to effectively address these areas than they were with NCLB in 2001.
Although the high expectations of 2007 fizzled, the stage is set for promising results in both the 2008 election year and 2009.
NSBA will be taking the school board agenda to Capitol Hill beginning in early February when more than 900 school board members and state school boards association leaders will be meeting with members of Congress during the association’s Federal Relations Network (FRN) meeting.
Throughout this year, the FRN, as well as National Affiliate Advocacy Network (NAAN) members will be called upon to make their agenda a reality.
We encourage school boards to be engaged in the process to ensure that federal policy will make a positive difference in the education of our nation’s schoolchildren.
| Reproduced with permission from School Board News. Copyright © 2008, National School Boards Association. Opinions expressed in this newspaper do not necessarily reflect positions of NSBA. This article may be printed out and photocopied for individual or educational use, provided this copyright notice appears on each copy. This article may not be otherwise transmitted or reproduced in print or electronic form without the consent of the Publisher. For more information, call (703) 838-6789. |