With Congress looking to rewrite the federal role in K-12 education, Democrats should strongly consider compromising with Republicans to get reform passed now. Otherwise, a more conservative alternative will likely get passed in the future.
Passing an education reform bill now would likely put the federal education issue to bed until Democrats are able to regain more power in the legislative branch. Although the federal education law, originally the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, was reauthorized every few years at first, reauthorizations are less frequent now. No Child Left Behind should have been reauthorized in 2007, but more than 13 years after it took effect, the law has yet to be reauthorized.
Democrats missed a good opportunity for reform in 2009 and 2010 when they had unified control of the government. No Child Left Behind was already due for reform, but the party that gets heavy support from teachers’ unions instead focused on other priorities.
Look at political reality: There’s a good chance a Republican will occupy the White House in 2017, and that the GOP will still control the Senate. Even if neither is the case, the GOP majority in the House of Representatives isn’t going away anytime soon. If Republicans are able to gain unified control of the government in the 2016 elections, they will likely pass something even more conservative than the legislation currently being considered.
Democrats oppose the current legislation because it reduces the federal role in education and would let low-income families take their federal funding to another school of their choice. With full Republican control of the government in the future, the federal role in education would likely be drastically reduced and some kind of voucher program using federal funds could be possible. The only thing keeping such legislation from passing might be very conservative members of Congress who refuse to vote for anything short of abolishing the Department of Education.
The current legislation was supposed to be voted on in the House last week but got delayed by the debate over Homeland Security funding. Even so, some very conservative Republicans were set to vote against the bill. Moderate Democrats should break ranks and support the legislation, especially if they convince Republican leaders to concede a point or two. The more moderate legislation would have a better chance of reaching the 60 vote threshold in the Senate anyway.
What gets lost in all this talk of politics is the very real, harmful effects of the status quo for students. If Congress and President Obama can’t agree on a fix to No Child Left Behind soon, students will still be subject to over-testing and unrealistic academic standards. Schools will suffer from the effects of being governed by an overbearing Department of Education making decisions that should be made by a local school board. The only beneficiaries are Obama and his Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, who have the power to attach their preferred education reforms to waivers from No Child Left Behind’s burdens.
In the meantime, the eyes of education reformers have turned to Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., who chairs the Senate education committee. Alexander is now working on bipartisan education legislation with Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., the committee’s ranking member. The result will have better odds of becoming law than the current House legislation, even though it may not be as beneficial for students.
While Obama is still in the White House, Democrats would be wise to do what it takes to get education reform passed. Doing so so would settle the education issue until they can regain more legislative power. The status quo only motivates Republicans to go more conservative on legislation once they have the opportunity. Either way, students are desperately waiting for help to arrive as soon as possible.
