Monday, August 27, 2007

Reports Add to Budget Debate

The top priority for Congress when it returns in September is to finish work on the fiscal year 2008 (FY08) appropriations bills. When the August recess began, Congress had not fully completed any of the twelve spending bills, although the House made significantly more progress than the Senate. Congress’s job will not be easy, considering the time constraint of the September 30th deadline, coupled with veto threats from the White House. In an attempt to preempt the battle over the veto, law makers are spending the recess in negotiations on spending levels as well as stumping for support against the Presidential vetoes.

Earlier this month, the House Budget Committee released The President’s 2008 Appropriation Veto Threats: What’s at Stake? A State-by-State Analysis. The committee claims that if the President’s vetoes are upheld, it could mean funding for 9,200 fewer classroom teachers. The committee also claims that the President’s proposed budget levels also reduce per-child funding to schools for special education by an average of $125 per child and keep 19,900 children from participating in Head Start as compared to the House-passed appropriations bills. The committee provides data for what it believes the President’s proposed spending levels would mean for various programs. The table below shows how many teachers will not be funded if the House-passed numbers are cut back to the president’s proposed levels for Title I spending.

Adding fodder to the budget debate, on Thursday, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released updated numbers for fiscal year 2007 (FY07) spending. The budget deficit for FY07 is expected to be $158 billion, which is $19 billion less than what CBO projected in March, $47 billion less than the administration’s estimate and $90 billion less than the fiscal year 2006 deficit. By 2012, CBO projects, the government will be running a $62 billion surplus, growing to $109 billion by 2017. Both sides of the spending debate are using these numbers to cement their own points. Republicans see the data as vindication of their tax policies, but also warn that the positive future is endangered by the ever-expanding entitlement programs. To stay on the path to a surplus, Republicans are calling for a pull back on spending, as well as extension of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts.
Inversely, Democrats see the numbers as both a warning and a reminder that the government was operating under a surplus before President Bush took office. The CBO estimate, of course, relies on many variable assumptions, including that Congress will do nothing to increase or decrease spending or revenue from present levels, which assumes that current tax cuts will expire at the end of 2010. Unlike the Republicans, Democratic leaders are focusing on the revenue aspect of the equation, as opposed to the spending. While the alternative minimum tax and future spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will also impact the budget numbers, the immediate concern for both parties is spending levels for FY08. As previously reported, Congress still has a few options if it is unable to gather enough votes to override a Presidential veto, but is operating under a very tight schedule, and there are still many uncertainties for when and how the final spending levels will make it through Congress and the President.
Resources:
Budget Chairman John Spratt (D-SC) , “The President’s 2008 Appropriation Veto Threats: What’s at Stake? A State-by-State Analysis,” House Budget Committee, August 3, 2007.
http://budget.house.gov/analyses/0802state_report%20(2).pdf
Richard Rubin, “CBO Projects Lower Fiscal 2007 Deficit,” CQ Today, August 23, 2007.
Author: SAS

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HQT Comes to Forefront of NCLB Debate

Teacher quality was the reauthorization topic of the week in Washington. The Center on Education Policy (CEP) released Implementing the No Child Left Behind Teacher Requirements, a report that examines how states and school districts have implemented the law’s highly qualified teacher (HQT) requirements and whether or not, according to state and district survey respondents, the HQT requirements have been beneficial to instructional practices, student academic achievement and the equitable distribution of teachers as required by the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB).

In summary:
• Most districts, but only about a third of the states, reported that they were on track to be in full compliance with HQT requirements by the end of the 2006-07 school year;
• A majority of state and school district officials believe that the law has had minimal to no impact on student achievement;
• HQT requirements have not had a major impact on teacher effectiveness in the view of state and district officials; and
• States reported varying degrees of progress toward an equitable distribution of experienced, well qualified teachers in high poverty and high minority enrollment schools.
Drawing from the report, CEP made a number of recommendations that fuel the performance pay debate, which has received considerable attention recently. At the center of the recommendations is the conclusion that many state and district officials felt the NCLB definition of HQT was too narrowly focused on content knowledge and not on the ability to effectively teach students. The responsibility for crafting the requirements for effective teachers, concludes CEP, should be driven by a state innovation and not federal requirements. The recommendations include that the reauthorized law should:
• Encourage states to develop methods to measure teacher effectiveness;
• Refine the current federal definition of a highly qualified teacher to address the special circumstances of certain kinds of teachers;
• Adopt a comprehensive approach to recruiting and retaining teachers in high-need schools; and
• Provide federal assistance to states to develop and implement comprehensive data systems.
As policy makers digested the CEP report, they also read about Sonya A Renee v. Margaret Spellings, a complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California by Public Advocates on behalf to a coalition of parents, students, community groups, and legal advocates.
The complaint argues that a regulation issued by the U.S. Department of Education (ED), 34 C.F.R. § 200.56(a)(2)(ii), addressing the requirements of the state certification prong of the law’s highly qualified teacher requirement, is outside the scope of ED’s authority under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). Specifically, the complaint alleges that allowing a teacher who is participating in an alternative route to certification and who has not yet obtained full teaching credential to be a highly qualified teacher violates the APA because the definition of HQT in the regulation is arbitrary, capricious, contrary to law, and exceeds the agency’s scope of statutory authority (5 U.S.C. §§ 701-06). The regulation, according to the complaint, flouts the letter and spirit of NCLB.
As a legal matter, courts grant agencies great deference and the likelihood of success on the merits in this case, if it survives procedural challenges, is not good. Yet, as a political matter, the suits will likely have considerable impact since the Chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor, Representative George Miller (D-CA), is an original architect of the highly qualified teacher provisions of the law and he has stated his intent to focus his committee’s work on drafting a bill that improves on the existing HQT provisions. On July 30th at the National Press Club, Chairman Miller stated that the bill his committee will introduce this fall will, “ensure that poor and minority students are taught by teachers with expertise in the subjects they are teaching.” That Chairman Miller chooses the word “expertise” is important. As demonstrated by the CEP report and the Public Advocates lawsuit, the focus on “qualified” has not captured the human capital benefits the Miller likely sought when he first drafted the law’s HQT requirements. It is certain, then, that his committee’s reauthorization bill will make considerable revisions to the HQT definition with more attention to expertise and effectiveness.
Resources:
Jennifer McMurrer, Implementing the No Child Left Behind Teacher Requirements (Center on Education Policy: August 2007), http://www.cep-dc.org.
“U.S. Department of Education Waters Down Teacher Quality, NCLB Lawsuit Charges,” Public Advocates, News & Views, August 21, 2007, http://www.publicadvocates.org/
Code of Federal Register, 34 C.F.R. § 200.56(a)(2)(ii), Revised July 1, 2006, http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_06/34cfr200_06.html
Author: DAD

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COMPETES Act Provides Conflict of Interest Safeguards

Congress recently passed the America Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technology, Education, and Science (America COMPETES) Act. Passed as Public Law 110-69, the America COMPETES Act is a large omnibus piece of legislation, the law’s purpose is to invest in innovation through research and development in math and science as covered in previous Updates. The law provides a significant amount of funding to a number of federal agencies, including $33 billion over the next three years to the U.S. Department of Education (ED), to support 25,000 new math and science teachers through professional development and graduate education assistance. ED is authorized to award grants, on a competitive basis for 3 years to state educational agencies (SEAs) for the purpose of awarding subgrants to eligible local educational agencies (LEAs) to carry out teacher assistance and professional development for teachers in elementary, middle and secondary schools. SEAs must submit separate applications for grants for: 1) elementary and middle school programs (K-9) and 2) secondary school programs.

A significant portion of grants to SEAs will be for the purpose of hiring private contractors who possess expertise in math to provide technical assistance and professional development for math teachers in high-risk, high achievement schools. Each SEA applying for a grant must submit an application to ED that includes a process to safeguard against conflicts of interest and a State peer review process for contractors applying to provide services.
Private contractors providing services under both elementary and middle school programs and secondary school programs must be required, by contract, to screen for conflicts of interest when hiring its employees. The law also requires that any contractor subcontracting must require its subcontractor to similarly screen for conflicts of interest. The minimum requirements of the screening process include a review of the following:
• Each individual performing duties under the contract or subcontract for connections to any State’s professional development and technical assistance program under this law;
• Each individual’s potential financial interests in, or other connection to, products, activities, or services that might be purchased by an SEA or LEA in the course of the agency’s implementation of the program;
• Each individual’s connections to teaching methodologies that might require the use of specific products, activities, or services; and
• Ensuring that individuals performing duties under the contract do not maintain significant financial interests in the products, activities, or services supported under the program.
The Secretary of ED, in consultation with ED’s Office of the General Counsel, has discretion to waive the screening requirements for individual contractors and subcontractors.
Any recipient approved for an America COMPETES Act grant or contract must submit a statement to the Secretary of ED, certifying that no funds derived from the grant or contract will be made available through a subcontract or in any other manner to another person who has a financial interest or other conflict of interest in the person awarded the grant or contract, unless the conflict is previously disclosed and approved in the process of entering into a contract or awarding a grant. Within 60 days of receipt of this certification, the Secretary must make all documents received that relate to the certification available to the public. This requirement applies to all recipients of funds under the America COMPETES Act, not only those funded by ED.
The Secretary of ED is required to establish peer review panels to review SEA applications (for both elementary and middle school programs and secondary school programs) and must consider the recommendation of these peer review panels in deciding whether to approve the applications. The Secretary is also required to establish a process through which individuals on the peer review panels to review SEA applications are themselves screened for potential conflicts of interest. The screening process must:
• Be reviewed and approved by ED’s Office of the General Counsel of the Department;
• Include, at a minimum, a review of each reviewer’s—
o Professional connection to any SEA’s program, including a disclosure of any connection to publishers, entities, private individuals, or organizations related to such SEA’s program;
o Potential financial interest in products, activities, or services that might be purchased by an SEA or LEA in the course of the agency’s implementation of the programs; and
o Professional connections to teaching methodologies that might require the use of specific products, activities, or services; and
• Ensure that reviewers do not maintain significant financial interests in products, activities, or services supported under the program.
The Secretary of ED, in consultation with ED’s Office of the General Counsel, has discretion to waive these screening requirements of review panel members. However, the Secretary must establish criteria for waivers and report any waivers allowed to the House Committee on Education and Labor and the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP).
Author: CWP

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ED Issues Guidance Letter on FERPA Issues regarding SES Providers

The U.S. Department of Education (ED), Office of Innovation and Improvement (OII), recently issued a guidance letter stating that it is not a violation of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) for supplemental educational services (SES) providers to contact parents and guardians of students served in SES programs in previous years. The issue of FERPA and SES providers arose because an anonymous school district contacted OII with a concern about this issue.

The school district sent a memorandum to OII, in which it cited FERPA as possibly prohibiting SES providers from contacting parents and guardians of the district’s students served in SES programs last year or in previous years. OII’s letter states that FERPA does not prohibit SES providers from using contact information for parents of students they previously served to contact those parents again regarding their services. However, FERPA does not permit a provider to disclose to third parties the identity of any student who is receiving services under the SES program, without the written consent of the student’s parent.
Under 34 CFR § 99.33(a)(2), information disclosed to third parties, such as SES providers, may be used only for the purposes for which the disclosure was made. For an SES provider, the information is disclosed for the purpose of providing educational services to students. In its memorandum to OII, the school district stated that “[A] small number of [SES providers] may be in violation of [FERPA] which states that the disclosed information cannot be used for any other purpose than the purpose disclosed and [contacting parents] are ‘other purposes.’” The school district opined that recruitment of students could be considered an “other purpose” than providing educational services.
However, OII interpreted the intent of that regulatory provision as ensuring that personally identifiable information from student’s education records is not redisclosed to other parties for other purposes. OII does not interpret this to mean that a third party, such as an SES provider, may not use the information it legally obtained under FERPA to contact parents in regard to the services it provides. As a result, it concluded that the school district “has no legal basis in saying that FERPA does not permit SES providers to utilize the information they received from [the District], with parental consent, to contact the parents for the purposes of recruitment.”
OII also gave an alternative explanation for its rationale. OII noted that § 99.33(a) clearly states that the recipient of education records may not redisclose the information to any other party without the prior consent of the parent or eligible student. A parent or eligible student does not have to consent for information to be provided to them. Because a parent or eligible student is not a third party, there is no redisclosure. As a result, OII concluded that no improper disclosure would take place when a party contacts a parent or eligible student.
Resources:
http://www.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/ferpa/library/ses081007.html
Author: CWP

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ED Releases Updated Title I Data

This week, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) published Fiscal Year 2007 Title I allocations by school district. ED reminds districts that they must use up to 20% of their Title I, Part A allocation to cover school choice-related transportation costs and pay for supplemental educational services:
Districts have some discretion to determine the allocation of funds between the activities, but they must use at least one-quarter (5%) of the 20 percent "reservation" on each activity if there is demand for both. For supplemental educational services, districts are required to pay the lesser of the actual cost of the services or an amount equal to the district's Title I, Part A allocation divided by the number of poor students in the district, as determined by Census Bureau estimates.
ED posted the individual state tables at: http://www.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/titlei/fy07/.


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August Recess

On August 4, 2007 the Senate passed SCR 43, a concurrent resolution providing for a conditional adjournment or recess of the Senate, and a conditional adjournment of the House of Representatives. The resolution made the August recess official:
Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring), that when the Senate recesses or adjourns…it stand recessed or adjourned until 12 noon on Tuesday, September 4, 2007, or such other time on that day as may be specified by its Majority Leader or his designee in the motion to recess or adjourn, or until the time of any reassembly pursuant to section 2 of this concurrent resolution, whichever occurs first.
Congress, even with this resolution, managed to draft language that is open to interpretation. We look forward to the fall.

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Posted by Legislative Department at 1:14 PM 0 comments

August Recess

On August 4, 2007 the Senate passed SCR 43, a concurrent resolution providing for a conditional adjournment or recess of the Senate, and a conditional adjournment of the House of Representatives. The resolution made the August recess official:
Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring), that when the Senate recesses or adjourns…it stand recessed or adjourned until 12 noon on Tuesday, September 4, 2007, or such other time on that day as may be specified by its Majority Leader or his designee in the motion to recess or adjourn, or until the time of any reassembly pursuant to section 2 of this concurrent resolution, whichever occurs first.
Congress, even with this resolution, managed to draft language that is open to interpretation. We look forward to the fall.

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NCES Report On American Competitiveness

On Tuesday, August 14, the National Center for Education Statistics released a report comparing education systems in the United States to other “Group of 8 (G-8)” countries. Comparative Indicators of Education in the United States and Other G-8 Countries: 2006 is intended to show how American education stacks up against other economically developed countries, as a sign of where the U.S. stands in global competitiveness. Just one week after the president signed H.R. 2272 into law (P.L. 110-69), this report helps to frame the debate on American Competitiveness by pinpointing how the country has fallen behind its competitors.

The report compares data gathered from three primary sources: the Indicators of National Education Systems (INES) project, conducted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD); the 2003 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA 2003), also conducted by the OECD; and the 2003 trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS 2003), conducted by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA). These studies look at data in the U.S. as well as Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, the other G-8 countries.
The data shows that, in many cases, the U.S. still leads other nations. At a time when the number of people seeking higher education outside their own borders has swelled to 2.7 million in 2004, the year examined in the NCES study, about two-thirds were enrolled in the G-8 countries. Of those students, 22% were enrolled in the United States, followed by 11% in the United Kingdom. However, given the large enrollment of American colleges and universities, the U.S. has one of the smallest proportions of foreigners in its mix of students, with foreign students making up just 3%. The United Kingdom leads this category with 16% of their total enrollment, with Canada, France and Germany also finishing ahead of the U.S. with 11%. The U.S. also continues to spend more money per capita on higher education (and education generally) than its European peers and Japan, spending a total of $24,100 per person on higher education and a total of $37,500 on education over all in 2003. Over all, the U.S. spends about 7% of its gross domestic product on education, with 2.9% going to higher education. None of the other countries that submitted budgetary information spent more than 1.4% of its GDP on higher education.
Statistics related to educational attainment, however, are where the U.S. begins to lag behind other G-8 nations. In the U.S., 39% of citizens in the 25-64 age group have a college degree, trailing both Canada (45%) and the Russian Federation (55%). Data regarding the number of Americans entering scientific disciplines also seemed somewhat disappointing, a fact that drove Congress to pass H.R. 2272, which authorizes funding for programs designed to recruit more effective math and science teachers. Only 17% of “first university degrees” awarded in the United States in 2004 were in science, mathematics and engineering related fields, putting the U.S. near the back of the pack compared other G-8 countries. The growing concern over American competitiveness finally pushed Congress into actions. Following the President’s 2006 State of the Union address, Congressional leaders began work on legislation that would encourage more young Americans to enter into career fields dealing with science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), as well as recruit more qualified teachers in those same subjects. H.R. 2272, the America COMPETES Act, is intended for those very purposes. The bill:
• Authorizes $33 billion over the next three years to support 25,000 new math and science teachers through professional development and graduate education assistance;
• Authorizes grants to support baccalaureate degrees in math and science with concurrent teacher certification, and establishes a public-private partnership with the business community to identify high-needs fields;
• Reauthorizes the National Science Foundation at $22 billion from fiscal 2008 to 2010, spread over several grant programs intended to encourage more students to teach math and science, as well as grants for college and graduate student science research;
• Authorizes $2.7 billion for the National Institute of Standards and Technology from fiscal 2008 through 2010, including funding for the institute’s laboratories;
• Authorizes $372 million from fiscal 2008 through 2010 to establish the Technology Innovation Program, intended to help turn cutting-edge research into commercially viable products;
• Authorizes almost $17 billion for the Energy Department from fiscal 2008 through 2010; and
• Establishes a new cutting-edge energy research agency, the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy.
Lawmakers are hoping that once the programs are fully implemented, future studies will show the U.S. leading in more categories regarding global competitiveness.
You can view a copy of the report at: http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2007/2007006.pdf.
Resources:
Doug Lederman, “Matching Up to the Group of 8,” Inside Higher Ed, August 15, 2007.
Author: SAS

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Census Conundrums

This week, the Center on Education Policy (CEP) Released Title I Funds -- Who's Gaining, Who's Losing: School Year 2007-08 Update. The report reviews the funding for states and districts for the federal Title I, Part A programs for the school year 2007-08 and highlights the trouble caused by the combination of flat funding levels, the mandatory state reservation of funds for school improvement activities, the hold harmless condition of that reservation and the impact of the fluctuating annual poverty count updates on the distribution of Title I-A funds.

For school year 2007-08, the total appropriation for Title I-A grants to local educational agencies (LEA) was $12.8 billion, which is an increase of $124 million over the previous year’s funding. Of that funding, each state is supposed to set aside 4% of the total dollars allocated by the U.S. Department of Education (ED) to districts in the state to carry out the activities under school improvement, corrective action and restructuring under section 1116(b); and 95% of the 4% must go directly to the LEAs. State educational agencies (SEAs), then, can reserve 5% of the 95% to carry out their responsibilities under sections 1116 and 1117 and to provide statewide technical assistance and support to LEAs. Yet, there is a catch: the 4% reservation “shall not decrease the amount of funds each local educational agency receives […] below the amount received by such local educational agency […] for the preceding fiscal year.” (Section 1003(e)). In short, the low funding levels for school year 2007-08 restricts the SEA ability to set aside the 4% and that, in turn, strains the ability of the LEAs and SEAs to provide the necessary school improvement services.
It gets worse. The report observes that the amounts of Title I-A general funding that some states and school districts receive have fluctuated from year to year due to annual updating of Census estimates of the number of children in poverty. The swings have been dramatic ranging from a 30.4% increase in Title I-A funding in Wisconsin to a 13.8% decrease in funding in Hawaii.
Indeed, many LEAs and SEAs have brought these matters to the attention of Congress by requesting that Title I-A receive funding that is commensurate to its expectations, that Congress continue to appropriate separately and substantially for school improvement. The report’s support of these positions is important but not novel. The CEP report, however, is unique in that it is one of the first to propose, publicly, a national solution to the volatility created by the annual Census estimates of the number of children in poverty: To require the U.S. Department of Education (ED) and the U.S. Census Bureau to thoroughly review the accuracy of these estimates and to consideration other options, such as using the average of the two most recent Census estimates to calculate LEA grants. The idea is a welcomed contribution to a technically difficult matter.
Resource:
Title I Funds -- Who's Gaining, Who's Losing: School Year 2007-08 Update (Center on Education Policy: August 2007), www.cep-dc.org.
Author: DAD

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NCLB and Performance Pay

Washington education pundits continue to analyze Chairman Miller’s National Press Club (NPC) speech on the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind (NCLB). Last week, we covered the building debate on multiple measures for the purposes of measuring adequately yearly progress (AYP). The debate is critical because the chosen measures will determine the law’s academic rigor. It is also important because the discussion assumes the expansion of the data points gathered by a school and district and those data points could be linked to an analysis of teacher effectiveness and to teacher pay.

The analysis of teacher effectiveness and pay is becoming a contentious topic in the reauthorization debate. In his NPC speech, Chairman Miller stated that the bill under construction in the House Committee on Education and Labor will include considerable support for teachers and principals, including “the performance pay for principals and teachers based on fair and proven models.” All parties involved in the reauthorization discussion would like to increase teacher pay, but how to do it is a matter of vociferous debate. The meaning of a “fair and proven model” depends upon who you ask. For example, the National Education Association (NEA) argues that merit pay, if not carefully done, would provide disincentives for teaching in challenging schools and in subjects that are not tested as frequently as math and reading/language arts. Proponents of performance pay, such as the Commission on No Child Left Behind (Commission), argue that pay for performance and other salary incentives are required in order to provide effective teachers for all students.
The debate remains contentious, but it is no longer the taboo subject that it was just ten years ago. Earlier this year, presidential candidate Senator Barrack Obama (D-IL) told the NEA at their national conference in Philadelphia that, “If you excel at helping your students achieve success, your success will be valued and rewarded as well,” and then mentioned merit pay in the question and answer session. Note that Senator Obama also sits on the Senate Committee on Health Education Labor and Pensions (HELP) which has just begun to draft language for a reauthorized NCLB. Earlier this month, Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) introduced S.2001, a bill to amend the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, which is the vehicle for the Commission’s teacher effectiveness and performance pay proposals. Most important, Chairman Miller and his staff are entertaining creative pay for performance models and the most influential this year has been the report published by the Center for Teaching Quality in Hillsborough, North Carolina, Performance-Pay for Teachers.
The report, which has been presented to the House and Senate Education committees, was drafted by a bipartisan group of 18 teachers who have been district, state and national teachers of the year, Presidential Award winners, Milken honorees and National Board Certified Teachers. It has, in short, bipartisan practitioner clout and it uses that to detail a framework for performance pay that is attracting support from both liberal and conservative education advocacy groups alike. That is no small feat in Washington and that makes it a plan worth monitoring as the education committees in the House and Senate continue to draft and debate reauthorization language that includes the “performance pay for principals and teachers based on fair and proven models” promised by Chairman Miller.
Resources:
Ruth Marcus, “From Barack Obama, Two Dangerous Words,” Washington Post, July 11, 2007.
Performance Pay for Teachers (Center for Teaching Quality: 2007), http://www.teacherleaders.org.
Author: DAD

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SCHIP Deal Unlikely Before Deadline

As Congress remains in recess this August, advocates for the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) are beginning to realize that lawmakers are not likely to reconcile the House and Senate versions of a reauthorization bill before the program expires on September 30. Both chambers of Congress will return to session on Tuesday, September 4, leaving less than a month for reconciliation, final passage, and a showdown with the White House over a threatened veto. Considering all the other items on the legislative calendar for next month, the chances of passing a bill the President will sign before the deadline are not good.

The first obstacle is to reconcile the various differences between the House and Senate version of the SCHIP reauthorization. The Senate bill contains a $.61 increase on cigarette taxes, bringing them to an even $1.00. The House proposes a smaller increase of only $.45, but also includes spending cuts for Medicare Advantage, a program in which private managed-care plans provide benefits to seniors in place of the government. The cuts in the House bill would raise $157 billion over 10 years that, along with the tobacco tax increase, will pay for the increased expansion. Many Senate Republicans who voted in favor of SCHIP reauthorization say that they will not vote for a bill that includes cuts to Medicare Advantage. Southern Democrats in the House are reluctant to approve a larger tax increase. While staffers are working on a compromise over the August break, the delicate situation is going to require full participation by the Members themselves. Therefore, no progress is likely until legislators return from the recess. Once they return, conferees need to find a compromise that can pass through both chambers.
If conferees reach a compromise and a conference report passes through both chambers, Congressional leaders still have to deal with a threatened Presidential veto. The White House called for a $5 billion expansion and has voiced opposition to the large increases proposed on Capitol Hill. While the Senate vote indicates it will have the 60 votes necessary to override a veto, the House fell far short of the 290 votes required to fight off a veto. If the conference report is able to pull in the additional votes in the House, conferees run the risk of alienating too many Republicans in the Senate, thereby taking away their ability to fend off the veto. At this same time, legislators have all twelve fiscal year 2008 appropriations bills to worry about, leaving a rough road ahead for SCHIP reauthorization.
Resources:
Stephen Langel, “Agreement on Expanding SCHIP Unlikely Before Sept. 30 Sunset, Sources Say,” Congress Now, August 13, 2007.
Author: SAS

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Labels: Posted by Legislative Department at 1:05 PM 0 comments

NCLB: Calm Before the Storm

Key staffers in the House Committee on Education and Labor are on vacation this week. They are, we hope, taking time to step away from Congress’s frenetic pace to freshen their perspectives. When they return, the pace will quicken because September will be absolutely critical for the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) in both the House and Senate. We expect Chairman George Miller (D-CA) to soon introduce his bill and possibly bring it to the House floor and for the Senate to begin drafting its version in earnest.

Most in Washington expected Chairman Miller to introduce his reauthorization bill before the August recess. That, as we have covered in previous Updates, did not occur. Instead, Chairman Miller delivered a speech on the emerging framework of his Committee’s bill at the National Press Club (NPC) on July 30.
There are many reasons why the Committee did not meet its August deadline; lack of effort is not one of them. The technical and political challenge of drafting language that would grant states more flexibility while preserving the academic accountability of the law is the primary culprit, with many components. The matter of multiple measures of accountability is an illustrative example. In his NPC speech, Chairman Miller noted that his bill would base school progress on more than single test results and would use multiple measures to gauge student progress (academics, critical thinking, teamwork). This statement created a firestorm of debate on the wisdom of using multiple measures for the purposes of measuring adequate yearly progress (AYP) because, like many parts of the reauthorization debate, the devil is in the details.
The idea of multiple measures of accountability to inform AYP is broadly accepted, but its design can either enhance or eviscerate academic accountability. This is the point that Bill Sanders, Director of the Value-Added Research and Assessment Center at the University of Tennessee, made in his letter to Chairman Miller soon after the NPC speech. In it, he expressed concern that the addition of non-academic criteria and academic portfolio materials could, potentially, reduce the validity of AYP as a rigorous measure of academic accomplishment. Yet, the inclusion of academic measures, such as those endorsed by Harold Doran, in his March testimony before the House Committee on Education and Labor, would enhance academic accountability. Those measures include end-of-course examinations, the inclusion of National Assessment of Education Progress exams to facilitate the examination of proficiency levels across states and the inclusion of growth model analysis for the purposes of determining AYP.
The components of AYP are, of course, the crux of the law’s accountability and so the House Committee staffers quickly realized that the balance of flexibility and accountability is a task that does not lend itself to speedy drafting. Not to be left out of the debate, the Committee’s Ranking Member, Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-CA), made it clear that the political balance will be just as difficult. “Changes to the law that weaken any of these three pillars of NCLB – accountability, flexibility and parental choice – will be met with strong opposition from House Republicans and are likely to be a fatal blow to the reauthorization process.”
The August recess, then, provides a much welcomed resting point for the emerging debate on multiple measures. When staffers return later this month, they will reengage the issue and, no doubt, be greeted by lobbyists and interest groups who have spent these days sharpening their arguments. The stakes are quite high because this is just the foundation for upcoming debates on merit pay and measures of teacher effectiveness, all of which may be tied to the measures of AYP now under fire.
Resources:
“NCLB Speech: Chairman George Miller (Edited Version),” EdLaborDemocrats, YouTube.com, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PctbxKrYodY
Author: DAD

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Labels: Posted by Legislative Department at 1:03 PM 0 comments

President Bush Signs Competitiveness Bill into Law

On Thursday, August 9, President Bush signed H.R. 2272, the America Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technology, Education and Science (America COMPETES) Act, despite concerns that the bill “leaves some of the key priorities unfulfilled and authorizes unnecessary and duplicative programs.” The bill marks the first major step in the President’s American Competitiveness Initiative, first introduced in his 2006 State of the Union. Despite a wide margin of bipartisan support, some Republicans in Congress greeted news of the president’s signing of the bill with skepticism and misgivings.

H.R. 2272 does the following:
• Authorizes spending $33 billion over the next three years to support 25,000 new math and science teachers through professional development and graduate education assistance;
• Authorizes grants to support baccalaureate degrees in math and science with concurrent teacher certification, and establishes a public-private partnership with the business community to identify high-needs fields;
• Reauthorizes the National Science Foundation at $22 billion from fiscal 2008 to 2010, spread over several grant programs intended to encourage more students to teach math and science, as well as grants for college and graduate student science research;
• Authorizes $2.7 billion for the National Institute of Standards and Technology from fiscal 2008 through 2010, including funding for the institute’s laboratories;
• Authorizes $372 million from fiscal 2008 through 2010 to establish the Technology Innovation Program, intended to help turn cutting-edge research into commercially viable products;
• Authorizes almost $17 billion for the Energy Department from fiscal 2008 through 2010; and
• Establishes a new cutting-edge energy research agency, the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy.
House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) criticized the bill for authorizing new programs without the necessary funds. Under the House Pay Go rules, any new funding must be offset, either through program cuts or raising taxes. Although Congress has authorized spending for these programs, actual spending levels are determined each year through the appropriations cycle, therefore it is not clear how much money these new programs will actually receive.
Despite some Republican objections, the President joined a bipartisan group of Congressmen, as well as the National Association of Manufacturers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, in applauding the steps H.R. 2272 takes in helping American stay competitive in the global market. Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK), a cosponsor of the bill, noted that, “by increasing our investment in basic research and the teaching of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, America is addressing the serious competitiveness challenges that it faces in today’s global economy.”
Resources:
John McArdle, “Bush Will Sign Competitiveness Bill Despite Some Misgivings,” Congress Now, August 9, 2007.
“Bush Signs Measure to Promote Competitiveness,” CQ Today, August 9, 2007.
Author: SAS

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Labels: , , Posted by Legislative Department at 1:02 PM 0 comments

Late Liquidation Policy

The U.S. Department of Education (ED) issued an updated policy memorandum entitled: Extension of Liquidation Periods and Related Accounting Adjustments for Grantees in Department of Education State-Administered Programs. The memo lays out a new late liquidation policy that will begin on October 1, 2007.

The current policy will remain in effect until September 30, 2007. It allows grantees in state administered programs to make late liquidation requests in two phases. Phase I requests cover liquidations up to one year after the end of the “Tydings period,” which is the 27-month period for obligating state administered program funds (or 9 months after the end of the normal liquidation period) if the requests meet certain criteria outlined in the memorandum. Phase I requests are approved by ED’s program offices and in theory are fairly routine, but in practice, they are sometimes denied. Phase II requests cover liquidations more than one year after the end of the Tydings period and must be approved by the Office of the Chief Financial Officer. Approval of Phase II requests is extremely rare.
The new policy, beginning on October 1, extends Phase I requests and eliminates Phase II requests. Now grantees may request to liquidate funds up to 18 months after the end of the Tydings period (or 15 months after the end of the normal liquidation period). In general, ED will not grant extensions beyond then “except under extraordinary circumstances or in cases involving lengthy construction contracts.”
This official policy change does not come as a major surprise and better reflects ED’s actual practice. ED has been cracking down on late liquidation requests, toughening the standards for Phase I requests and all but refusing to grant Phase II requests. As a practical matter, this policy change may have an important impact on state administered programs. ED is under tremendous pressure (both internal and external) to minimize “lapsed funds” (program funds that remain unspent and revert to ED and ultimately the U.S. Department of Treasury). ED views lapsed funds as a significant risk factor that may indicate systemic problems that prevent grantees and subgrantees from efficient operation of their programs. Late liquidation requests have been a way to avoid lapsing funds. With ED’s stricter policy in place, it is more important than ever to ensure funds are obligated and spent timely.
Lapsed funds have also been a powerful political tool. Several years ago, when states complained about the level of funding for No Child Left Behind programs, ED and Congressional officials pointed to the high level of lapsed funds as proof that states did not need more funding. With NCLB reauthorization looming, funding debates may heat up again, and if so, lapsed funds could become an issue.
There are numerous tools state and local educational agencies can use to ensure they obligate and spend federal funds in a timely manner. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you would like additional information.
Authors: DAD, SLK

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Labels: , , Posted by Legislative Department at 1:01 PM 0 comments

Changes to EDFacts

The U.S. Department of Education (ED) published a notice in the Federal Register on Thursday, August 9 regarding proposed changes to the information collected through EDFacts. EDFacts is ED’s centralized data collection system (formerly known as EDEN) designed to reduce reporting burdens, improve data reliability, and increase the usefulness of the data collected by allowing ED to better evaluate the results of the programs it administers.

ED proposes to change the data it will collect in 2007-08, 2008-09 and 2009-10. ED eliminates some categories that were collected in 2006-07, adds new categories and changes the definitions of others. The proposed revisions are available at: http://edicsweb.ed.gov/browse/downldatt.cfm?pkg_serial_num=3334 in attachments B (listing all of the data ED intends to collect) and C (explaining the differences from prior years).
This notice is noteworthy because it is one of the first tests of ED’s new regulatory authority to sanction states that do not submit data in the format (and timeframe) ED requires. Once ED’s proposed changes are approved, states that fail to submit the required information through EDFacts are subject to penalties, including the withholding of funds. While ED pledges to take a practical approach to data collection, it stated that “there will be no ‘free pass’ given to the states on any obtainable education data required to manage federal programs and meet the goals of the No Child Left Behind Act.”
Data continues to be one of ED’s key priorities. As noted by ED, “the Secretary has determined that complete, accurate, and reliable data are essential for effective decision-making and for implementing the requirements of the Nation’s education laws.” Not only is ED committed to collecting information about federal programs, it is also committed to using such information to evaluate program performance. ED plans to use the information collected through EDFacts to make program management decisions. In the future, ED may share the information it collects with members of Congress and other stakeholders.
Author: SLK

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Labels: , , Posted by Legislative Department at 12:59 PM 0 comments

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