As the 110th Congress prepares for reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act, today's contentious environment is in stark contrast to the collaborative relationship that existed among key lawmakers during the 2001 debate over the law.
Two of NCLB's four original cosponsors -- Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Rep. George Miller, D-Calif. -- will be back at the negotiating table. Sen. Michael Enzi, R-Wyo., and Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon, R-Calif., will replace Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., and Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, as lead Republican representatives.
Moreover, newly elected members unfamiliar with the 2001 negotiations will join the discussion, adding fresh ideas and concerns.
Even champions of school reform admit the NCLB needs adjustments. Difficulties of measuring student progress and sanctioning underperforming schools -- foreseeable from the start -- have developed into serious obstacles for reauthorization.
Still, even with its problems, most stakeholders view NCLB as a monumental and irreversible change to the national education policy that began shortly after a U.S. Supreme Court decision resolved the extraordinary uncertainty of the 2000 presidential election.
The key question is: Can President Bush and lawmakers reestablish the cooperative working relationship they formed in 2001 in creating NCLB? Although both parties begin the year with lofty promises to work together toward reauthorization, the durability of those vows remains to be seen.
2001: Concessions on both sides
Shortly after winning the 2000 election, President-elect George Bush acted on two campaign promises: Institute Texas-style education reforms to hold schools accountable and engender bipartisan support for compassionate conservative initiatives.
It was a new day and a new opportunity for action. Partisan disputes in 2000 had defeated attempts by the 106th Congress to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. Education had been a central issue in the presidential campaign -- and the economy had afforded the new Congress a massive surplus to use as it wished.
In late 2000, Bush invited more than 20 Hill members to his
"That was the kick off, right there," said Rep. McKeon, the ranking member of the House Education and Labor Committee (formerly the House Education and the Workforce Committee).
Several White House meetings with Sens. Kennedy and James Jeffords, R-Vt.,
and Rep. John Boehner and others followed in January 2001, as did a visit to a
Throughout 2001, interest groups were pretty much determined to kill the effort:
Furthermore, the parties brought conflicting agendas to the table. Democrats
fought for money for smaller class sizes, school construction, and teaching
preparation. Republicans proposed Bush's private school choice option,
consolidating programs into block grants, and expanding a Straight A's pilot
program to
Despite the challenges, Republicans and Democrats managed to clear a compromise with overwhelming support. The House passed the final bill, 381-41 vote; the Senate followed with an 87-10 vote.
Lead negotiators say what mattered is that lawmakers maintained cooperative relations throughout the process, coping with disputes and finding alternatives.
"We had a little more harmony then, and I think that helped us overcome the challenges," said Sandy Kress, a former senior education advisor to Bush who led White House lobbying efforts for NCLB in 2001. "I felt at the time, the president got 90 percent plus of what he wanted."
But to the dismay of conservatives, Bush had ceded ground on a central tenet of his initiative: He abandoned the fight for private school vouchers for parents with children in schools needing improvement. The option of private tutoring surfaced as a byproduct of those talks, satisfying leaders from both sides.
2007: GOP regret; Democratic resolve
Today, not even halfway through NCLB's goal of ensuring all universal proficiency by 2014, partisanship in Congress has swelled to a new -- and some would say unprecedented -- level. Bush's popularity rating has fallen dramatically, voters have given Democrats control of both chambers of Congress, and congressional Republicans who traditionally have opposed the federal role in education have returned to their roots.
Lead Republicans like House Minority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo., and former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, who say they supported NCLB only to give the new president a legislative victory on a key campaign promise, now have regrets.
Even Boehner, the bill's primary sponsor, appears to lament his role in pushing the bipartisan NCLB through the 107th Congress. It's no wonder: It nearly cost him last year's GOP leadership race. Boehner reportedly secured the then-no. 2 party post only after making amends to conservatives, who complained that NCLB resulted in the "largest federal expansion" of education policies.
McKeon, meanwhile, views NCLB reauthorization as a top priority, but admits "it's going to take a great deal of work" to win the support of his caucus.
Democratic demands
Rank-and-file Democrats have complaints too. Although Democrats in the evenly divided Senate took lead roles in shaping the legislation, House Democrats say they were significantly outnumbered in the committee's markup. Party-line votes ruled the day, they've groused.
"We were outvoted in a very partisan manner," said Rep. Rubén Hinojosa, R-Texas. "Now, it's going to be the other way around."
Democrats will determine when to hold hearings, which experts will be invited to testify, when to mark up legislation, and how to hold conference committee negotiations. Kennedy and Miller played major roles in the process in 2001, and will have even more say over the agenda this year as they assume the reigns as chairs of the education committees in their respective chambers.
The new chairmen staunchly support the law. Miller intends to make it a key priority item and fight harder for teacher training initiatives. While he promises "to proceed in an orderly fashion this year," he'll be busy with other domestic priorities: labor, pensions, higher education, and early childhood policies.
Democratic leaders have vowed to open the legislative process to greater debate and more transparency. Doing that could foster a richer dialogue, but also slow down the process.
Many of the 55 incoming House freshmen -- 42 Democrats and 13 Republicans -- possess limited knowledge of NCLB goals, having heard from school teachers and administrators much more about the law's faults than its successes.
"They are going to be coming into Congress saying 'we want changes,'" said Jack Jennings, president of the Center on Education Policy That means leaders will have to spend much of their time briefing new members, particularly about the law's overarching goal of providing equitable services to all students.
Bush-Kennedy break-up
As chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, Kennedy will lead the Senate's consideration of NCLB -- just as he did in 2001. Kennedy remains a strong advocate for the law and says he welcomes the opportunity to strengthen its accountability measures.
However, circumstances have changed dramatically since Bush and Kennedy first broached reforms in 2001. Kress, Bush's lead negotiator at the time, suggested it was clear that initially Kennedy "thought he had a partner in President Bush." The partnership grew stronger throughout the year as the legislation developed.
In contrast, Kennedy now admonishes Bush for turning NCLB "into a political slogan, rather than the solemn oath it was intended to be." Kennedy has implied he won't move on NCLB reauthorization until he is certain Bush will allocate the necessary funds.
But even if Kennedy does begin the reauthorization, it will likely take senators longer than their House counterparts to reexamine the law. Miller's predecessors' -- McKeon and Boehner -- held numerous hearings on NCLB over the last two years, providing members with solid information to begin debate. Sen. Enzi, however, held no NCLB hearings during his chairmanship.
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., predicted Kennedy will hold intensive hearings on NCLB -- as well as on several other legislative fronts -- before drafting a reauthorization bill. That would push consideration back until at least the fall of 2007, leaving Congress little time to address it before the 2008 presidential campaign eclipses all policy matters.
Though it is too soon to predict the strength or direction of momentum for reauthorization, lawmakers say they have one advantage that they lacked in 2001: The education community now supports the underlying objective of NCLB.
That gives supporters reason to believe that it will be easier to reauthorize the reforms than it was to enact them. Armed with rich data about the law, Congress is in a much stronger position to extend elements that work and revise dysfunctional pieces.
"There was pretty much a consensus against" NCLB in 2001, McKeon said. "In the years since, that's totally changed."
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Reprinted with permission from Education
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