Education Week - October 28, 2015 - 16

GOVERNMENT & POLITICS

Fate of Programs Complicates Path to ESEA Compromise
By Alyson Klein
Should there be a separate federal
program for school counselors in legislation to renew the Elementary and
Secondary Education Act? What about
community schools, and gifted education?
And just how many federal education
programs will conservative lawmakers
in Congress be able to tolerate without
putting the brakes on what will need to
be a delicately balanced compromise?
Those are some of the tricky-and
politically charged-questions top lawmakers on education must tackle as
they try to hammer out a final agreement on a reauthorization of the ESEA.
Over the summer, the Senate passed
overwhelmingly a bipartisan bill to
renew the law for the first time since
2001. Meanwhile, the House narrowly
approved its own bill, with just Republican support.
And while both measures seek to
scale back the federal role when it
comes to accountability, they take very
different approaches when it comes to
the myriad programs included in the
ESEA, the current version of which is
the No Child Left Behind Act.

clearly we want to have far fewer programs, more ability for states and school
districts to transfer money," he said.
But each of the programs that remains
in the Senate bill is there because it
has at least one "powerful champion" in
Congress-who could in turn consider
withholding support for the measure if
it doesn't include that favorite priority.
To be sure, being included in the ESEA
doesn't guarantee that a program will
actually get federal funding.
The ESEA measure is an "authorization" bill, which means that the programs in it are enshrined in federal law.
But an "authorization" doesn't mean that
the program will get federal money-
those decisions are made in spending
bills.
At the same time, being "authorized"
does put a program in a much stronger
position when it comes time to write
spending legislation, Packer said.
"If your authorization exists, it gives
you the opportunity to fight for funding
through the [congressional spending]
process," he said. "If your program is not
authorized, it's not impossible, but it's
significantly more difficult to get funding."

Asking for Inclusion

Cutting, Consolidating
The House bill would scrap-or consolidate-more than 20 existing education
programs, according to an analysis by
the Committee for Education Funding, a
lobbying coalition in Washington.
What's more, the House bill would call
for the Education Department to make
proportional staff cuts.
By contrast, the Senate measure would
eliminate only a handful of programs
that currently receive funding.
That puts negotiators in a tight spot,
said Joel Packer, the executive director
of the CEF.
"You have the House saying very

That's why supporters of programs
that are included in the Senate bill-
but not the House-are pleading their
case to the lawmakers hammering out
the compromise.
For instance, dozens of organizations, including the American School
Counselor Association, sent a letter
this month to the education committee chairmen in both chambers-Sen.
Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Rep.
John Kline, R-Minn.-and to the top
Democrats on K-12 policy, Sen. Patty
Murray, D-Wash., and Rep. Bobby
Scott, D-Va. The groups asked them
to make sure that the Elementary and

ON THE BRINK
Bills in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives to overhaul the Elementary
and Secondary Education Act differ on which targeted U.S. Department of
Education programs to retain. Here are a few notable programs that would be
eliminated under the House bill. Amounts reflect their current funding.

SCHOOL IMPR
OVEMENT GR
ANTS
Secondary School Counseling program
$505 million
for grants for
stays in the bill.
low-performin
g schools
The program "is the only dedicated
funding for schools to create or expand comprehensive school counseling
programs," wrote Amanda Fitzgerald,
21ST CENTURY COMMUNITY
ASCA's director of public policy, in an
LEARNING CENTERS
email.
$1.15 billion for after-school
Those professionals are key, she said,
and summer programs
to "early intervening services that
many schools are going without." That's
especially true, she said, in states with
ADVANCED PLACEMENT
particularly high student-to-coun$28 million for grants for Advanced
selor ratios. For example, Arizona's is
Placement and other programs that allow
880-to-1, according to ASCA, which rechigh school students to earn college credit
ommends a 250-to-1 ratio.
And a coalition of lawmakers supporting science, technology, engineerREADY TO
LEARN TELE
VISION
ing, and math education sent a similar
$25.7 milli
on
letter to the same top negotiators, asking them to look out for
resources supporting those
PROMISE NEIGHBORHOODS
content areas in crafting
$57 million to help schools pair academics
the compromise.
with support services such as health
Other programs
in similar straits
ELEM
ENTA
include Promise
S
CHOO RY AND SE
Neighborhoods, an
L COU
C
NSELIN ONDARY
Obama adminisG
GRAN
$52 m
TS
illion
tration initiative
that enables schools to
pair academics with other serSOURCES: U.S. Department of Education;
vices, like health, and reCongressional Research Service
PAGE 19 >

Some School Choice Backers Tepid on Title I Portability Proposal
House ESEA rewrite
contains provision
By Andrew Ujifusa
After years of success in statehouses from Florida to Nevada,
supporters of educational choice
might have seen this year's push
to reauthorize the Elementary and
Secondary Education Act as a way
to bolster K-12 choice options at the
federal level.
What they got instead has failed
to excite them-to the point where
some would prefer to gamble on the
election of a Republican president
who could promote school choice
more aggressively, rather than accepting the deal on the table.
The ESEA rewrite passed by the
House of Representatives has a provision that would give states the op-

tion to have their Title I aid, which
is earmarked for disadvantaged students, follow students to the public
schools of their choice. That option
is generally called Title I portability. (The bill also includes a provision that states would have to set

portability's chances of survival are
quite bleak. Yet, if it's not included
after ongoing negotiations between
House and Senate lawmakers to
craft a final ESEA bill, its absence
might become one more reason for
opposition from conservative House

argued that the proposal would unfairly redirect federal money from
high-poverty to low-poverty districts, ignoring the effects of concentrated poverty on students.
Although some lawmakers backing school choice might be irritated

You could see the whole choice issue taken off the table
for the next president's first term."
DAN HOLLER
Heritage Action

aside 3 percent of their Title I aid
for competitive grants that would
allow districts to offer school choice
or free tutoring services.)
Some observers believe Title I

16 | EDUCATION WEEK | October 28, 2015 | www.edweek.org

Republicans who want Title I aid extended to private schools.
Meanwhile, opponents of Title I
portability, including the Obama
administration, have consistently

if Title I portability is removed, moderate Republicans who might have
felt "queasy" about supporting portability will more likely focus on supporting the increased power over the

use of test scores and how to handle
low-performing schools that both
bills currently provide to states, even
if their appetite for broader K-12
choice isn't satisfied, said Michael J.
Petrilli, the president of the Thomas
B. Fordham Institute, which supports
school choice.
"There's just not a strong enough
argument for portability," Petrilli
said.

'Full' Disappointment
The Title I portability provision in
the House bill is a far cry, for example, from a previous plan backed by
Indiana GOP Rep. Luke Messer and
other conservatives that would have
allowed about $14.5 billion in Title
I funds to flow to private schools,
including religious ones, as well as
public schools.
Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.,
PAGE 19 >

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Education Week - October 28, 2015

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