By Della B. Cronin

Each year, the House and Senate see a flurry of activity just before August. That’s because August brings their annual month-long recess and they are eager to leave Washington, for the states and districts. 

NCTM and the education advocacy community were thrilled to see efforts to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act make promising progress in July. The House passed its bill—the Student Success Act (HR 5) on July 8 by the thinnest margin possible—218-213. (Mathematical minds know that 218 is the lowest number of votes a bill can win and still pass the House.) Just a few days later, the Every Child Achieves Act (S 1177) passed the Senate overwhelmingly by a vote of 81-17. The difference in margins to some extent reflects the contrasts in the two bills.

The two bills are quite different. The House partisan proposal essentially block grants most federal funds and programs and lets states decide how to spend the monies locally. That approach means the end of the Math Science Partnership (MSP) program that has been so important to math teachers in return for a reliance on state and local education leaders to invest adequately in math and science teachers. In contrast, the Senate bill includes a revised program to replace the MSP to focus on STEM educators, but modernizes the approaches supported by the professional development program. NCTM joined forces with the National Science Teachers Association to urge Senators to retain that program during floor debate. Their effort was successful.

What’s next for these bills? A House-Senate negotiation that will have members of the respective education committees trying to work out what are significant differences. The accountability provisions of the two bills are controversial, and there is a move to change the formula that drives allocation of Title I funds. Those will be the big issues, for sure, but NCTM and others will be looking out for the second tier issues, like supports for math and other STEM educators. Staff are expected to use the August recess to get organized and identify the easy and more difficult issues, with members of Congress getting more involved in the fall. 

Some of the other pieces of legislation that are of most interest to NCTM and its members haven’t made much real progress so far in the 114th Congress. There have been hearings on the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act in the House and Senate, although the teacher preparation issues haven’t been front and center often, with student aid programs getting most of the attention. The House has passed a controversial proposal to reauthorize the America COMPETES Act, but the Senate is taking a much slower and arguably more deliberate approach.  After making some progress on developing and passing the annual spending bills early in the year, the familiar debate of the size and cost of the federal government has slowed down progress and it looks like a continuing resolution is almost inevitable. 

While Washington will be slow during the month of August, NCTM will be steeling itself for a busy fall. In September, Congress will return and be forced to wrangle with federal spending decisions before the end of the current fiscal year—which is September 30. In addition, Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) has announced that he would like to have a HEA reauthorization bill developed by September and debated by the Committee during a markup in October. Senators Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) and Gary Peters (D-Mich.) have been hosting a series roundtable discussions around various topics related to the programs and agencies affected by the America COMPETES Act and intend to take what they learn to inform proposed revisions to the law. NCTM President Diane Briars was invited to the second of those closed-door discussions and was the sole voice for K-12 STEM education among the seven panelists. NCTM will continue to share its priorities on all of these issues. Stay tuned for what is expected to be a busy fall when Congress returns in September. 

Della B. Cronin is a principal at Washington Partners, LLC.