Ed-Flex Bills Under Consideration in Senate and House

The Senate is currently debating, and the House will take up next week, versions of a bill that has the potential to affect the Eisenhower Professional Development program for teacher training in math and science. The “Ed-Flex” legislation would expand a program allowing states to waive some federal requirements and use federal education money to experiment with new ways to improve education. States would have to receive approval from the Department of Education, and would need to show accountability for their use of the money, but would then be able to apply federal money - which would otherwise be targeted for programs like Eisenhower - to their own experimental efforts. Some organizations have raised concerns that this could result in neglect of teacher professional development.

Both parties in Congress, and President Clinton, have claimed K- 12 education reform as a top priority for the year. A driving factor is the upcoming reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), the main legislation for federal K-12 education programs. The ESEA legislation will serve as a vehicle for debate over differing approaches to federal support of education. Already this year, President Clinton has announced initiatives to end social promotion, improve teacher quality and parent choice, hire more teachers, reduce class size, and modernize schools, among other things. Congressional Democrats are expected to support him on these proposals.

One of the major ideological differences between the parties revolves around state and local, versus federal, control of the use of federal funds. Republicans want to give states more discretion to use federal dollars (which make up less than ten percent of all education dollars) as they wish. Last year a Republican-backed bill to roll most federal education spending into block grants to the states passed the House. (See FYI #132, 1998 ). New Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL), a former high school teacher, is a proponent of block grants and wants to see similar legislation introduced again this year.

The Administration opposes incorporating most Department of Education funds into one large block grant. It is not, though, against all actions in this direction. Secretary of Education Richard Riley has stated that, as part of its proposal for ESEA reauthorization, the Administration will suggest merging the Eisenhower program, along with several others, into a new “Quality Teachers and High Standards” initiative beginning in fiscal year 2001. The Education Department also has the Education Flexibility (“Ed-Flex”) pilot program which has enabled 12 states to request waivers from some - but not all - federal education requirements in order to use the federal money for new and experimental programs.

Both the Senate and the House have moved out ahead of the ESEA reauthorization by introducing bipartisan bills that would expand the Ed-Flex program so all 50 states could apply for such waivers. The legislation has the support of the National Governors Association. President Clinton has promised to support it, but reportedly would prefer that it be taken up with his other education proposals as part of the ESEA reauthorization. However, groups like the National Science Teachers’ Association (NSTA) are opposed to the possibility that states could ignore teacher development in math and science. NSTA wants the bills amended to exempt the Eisenhower program from the waivers. Additionally, some Democrats, such as Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-MN) question whether the Ed-Flex waivers have been shown to improve education.

Floor debate on the Senate Ed-Flex bill (S. 280) began this week with high hopes for bipartisan comity. According to the BNN White House Bulletin, Senate Minority Leader Thomas Daschle (D- SD) called it “an opportunity for Democrats and Republicans to do what we both say we want to do; that is, work together.” But reports indicate that the debate has stalled due to Democratic attempts to add to the bill additional elements of the President’s education initiatives. The Washington Post quotes Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) as saying, “they’re playing a shell game on education.”

In the House, the Committee on Education and the Workforce passed its bill (H.R. 800) on March 3. There were reports that, in committee, freshman Rep. (and physicist) Rush Holt (D-NJ) might have offered an amendment to exempt the Eisenhower program from the Ed-Flex waivers, but it appears that such an amendment was not offered. The full House is expected to begin floor debate on H.R. 800 next week, probably on March 10.

Assuming that an amendment to exempt the Eisenhower program from the Ed-Flex waivers is not passed on the floor of either chamber, the current situation seems to be that both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue have plans to incorporate the program into a larger pot of education funds. The Administration has not put forth its ESEA proposal yet, but in March 3 testimony before the Senate Labor, HHS, and Education Appropriations Subcommittee, Secretary Riley said the newly-planned “Teacher Quality and High Standards” proposal would “replace the current Goals 2000, Title II Eisenhower Professional Development State Grants, and Title VI Innovative Education Program Strategies State Grants programs.” The initiative, he said, would continue to focus most of its resources on high-quality teacher development, but it does not appear that funds would be targeted specifically for science and math teaching.