Senate poised to take up education bill

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate, for the first time in 14 years, will debate an all-new federal education policy this week.

The bipartisan proposal would do away with the No Child Left Behind law and reduce — but not end — the federal government's role in public elementary and secondary education.

Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., hope to preserve their compromise that won unanimous approval in April in the Senate Health, Education Labor and Pensions Committee, where Alexander is chairman and Murray is the top-ranking Democrat.

But controversial amendments on funding, discrimination and accountability are looming.

"The consensus that Sen. Murray and I, along with the entire Senate education committee, have found is this: Continue the law's important measurements of academic progress of students but restore to states, school districts, classroom teachers and parents the responsibility for deciding what to do about improving student achievement," Alexander said in a recent statement.

No Child Left Behind, the name of the elementary and secondary education law passed in 2001 under then-president George W. Bush, grew increasingly unpopular for its high-stakes standardized testing. It was allowed to expire in 2007, but Congress has been unable since then to pass a new K-12 policy.

House Republicans have their own version, which includes a provision that administration officials argue would divert federal money away from schools in high-poverty areas.

But only the Alexander-Murray legislation has a chance to avoid a veto from President Obama. In fact, lawmakers from both parties see the bill as a chance to make education reform the most significant domestic policy achievement of the year.

"There are two things that nearly everyone across the country agrees on: Every child in America should have access to a high-quality education, and our existing federal education law, No Child Left Behind, needs to be fixed in order to make that promise a reality," Murray said.

Alexander is expected to emphasize how the bill he wrote with Murray would weaken the U.S. Education Department and empower state and local leaders. For example, state and local governments, not Washington, would set academic standards and decide how to hold schools accountable.

Alexander, who was education secretary under President George H.W. Bush, has complained that No Child Left Behind turned the federal agency into a national school board with too much authority.

The Alexander-Murray compromise would maintain the current federal regimen of reading, math and science tests in grades 3 through 12, but states would decide how to use those test scores for accountability purposes. Advocates say they hope it would encourage state and local school boards to drop any additional testing they may have added over the years to gauge whether students are prepared for the all-important federal tests.

School districts identified by their states as under-performing would be eligible for federal grants to make improvements, but the federal government wouldn't prescribe which reforms are necessary.

"A generation of students has already suffered 13 years of test-and-punish," Lily Eskelsen García, president of the National Education Association, said last weekend at a national conference in Florida. "We have the opportunity to end the federal nightmare of toxic testing."

To shore up support among conservatives, Alexander also will emphasize that the Every Child Achieves Act wouldn't allow federal education officials to offer incentives to states to adopt certain standards, and would provide more support for charter schools.

The legislation has been endorsed by a wide range of groups representing teachers, administrators and businesses. But some especially controversial amendments will test its potential to pass the Senate.

Conservatives are expected to pursue ideas such as giving vouchers to public school students to use at private schools, or redistributing federal education dollars to more schools than just those with higher concentrations of poorer students.

On the left, civil rights groups and their Democratic allies want schools held accountable based on the academic performance of racial minorities, disabled students, students from low-income families and English learners. White House officials on Monday said they want the Senate to add requirements that states intervene to improve the worst-performing schools, especially those with huge achievement gaps and high dropout rates.

"Everyone deserves to know if students in certain groups are falling behind in school and what steps will be taken to help them improve," said Education Secretary Arne Duncan.

White House Domestic Policy Director Cecilia Muñoz said the president wants to work with the Alexander and Murray. She did not say the president would veto the bill if it doesn't include such changes.

Other proposed amendments would protect LGBT students from discrimination and steer more federal dollars to states with fast-growing populations.

Alexander and Murray are expected to guard their bipartisan deal from changes that could sink it. It's unclear whether such controversial amendments would have the required 60 votes to pass anyway.

"All signs point to everybody trying to get to yes," said Lanae Erickson Hatalsky, director of social policy and politics at Third Way, a centrist think tank in Washington. "There is so much agreement here, it's just a matter of these last few details."