House Republican leaders handed conservatives a small victory on Tuesday by allowing votes this week on amendments to an education bill that will let states ditch federal education programs, and let parents opt out of federally required testing.
But the debate shaping up in Congress is likely to yield legislation to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act that rejects more conservative language in favor of legislation that could end up passing with significant Democratic support. That means conservatives may end up either shooting down the final bill, or watching it pass over their objections.
The House this week is slated to vote on the Student Success Act, which would reform the George W. Bush-era No Child Left Behind law that has grown unpopular and elicited a backlash against federal interference in local education.
The House bill was written without input from Democrats, who oppose the legislation. But House GOP leaders had to pull the Student Success Act from the floor in February after conservatives withheld support, saying the legislation did not go far enough to end federal oversight of local education.
To pass the bill in the House, Republican leaders on Tuesday decided to permit a vote on the A-Plus Act, which would allow states to “opt out” of federal education programs and use federal dollars on other school spending priorities. Republicans will also permit a vote on an amendment to allow parents to opt their children out of federally mandated tests.
But the amendments aren’t likely to make it into law, and the underlying House bill will likely be pushed to the left by House and Senate leaders eager to move the bill out of Congress and onto the president’s desk for signature.
House leaders know their version of the legislation can’t make it into law. “This bill is not going to be the bill the president signs,” a GOP aide, speaking about the House bill, told the Washington Examiner.
The bill more likely to win bipartisan support is under debate in the Senate this week.
Authored by Sens. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Patty Murray, D-Wash., the Every Child Achieves Act is a bipartisan agreement that is far less conservative than the House bill, but it’s on track to pass in the Senate after passing in committee with the backing of all panel Democrats.
House and Senate lawmakers will eventually have to find a compromise bill based on both the House and Senate versions. The end result will have to appeal to Senate Democrats, who have the power to filibuster, as well as President Obama, who said he won’t sign the House version.
It will also likely require significant support from House Democrats, because House conservatives are not expected to accept the terms of a House-Senate compromise.
The Senate bill lacks several key conservative provisions found in the House bill, including the elimination of some federal testing requirements and a provision allowing Title I funding to follow students to public charter schools. It also leaves out House language that eliminates some federal achievement metrics, and lets the states develop their own accountability systems.
Alexander, who is chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said the legislation he wrote with Murray does rid local education of Washington oversight by allowing states to decide education standards, for instance. But he also acknowledged the bill does not include all of the Republican priorities for reforming No Child, because in the end, Democrats and President Obama must also support the bill.
“We want the president’s signature,” Alexander said Tuesday. “We want to fix No Child Left Behind, not just make a political statement.”
Murray, during debate on the Senate bill, warned against conservative Senate lawmakers trying to amend the bill to push it further to the right.
She called a Title I funding portability amendment, for example, “just a nonstarter.”
