By Della B. Cronin
One month into the New Year and the headline-grabbing action
in Washington, DC has been snow. A storm
that dumped more than two feet of the white stuff onto a town not known for its
ability to deal with it left federal offices closed and Members of Congress
unable to return to the city. As a result, the biggest news from the Hill to
date remains the President’s State of the Union address. In early February,
NCTM will be eagerly awaiting the FY 2017 budget request that will follow.
In the weeks since the State of the Union address, the White
House has been following up on the ideas that the President outlined with
various announcements. A “Computer Science For All” initiative was unveiled. The
ambitious effort will include a request to Congress for over $4 billion to
support expanding computer science offerings in the country’s schools. In
addition, the cancer “moonshot” has been touted as an effort to marshal current
investments to make further progress in fighting the disease. The budget
request will also shed light on how new funding pots will work as the
Department of Education (ED) transitions from the No Child Left Behind Act to
the Every Student Succeeds Act.
Once the request is out, the appropriations process on
Capitol Hill will begin in earnest. The annual process has some parameters
already. The topline spending numbers were set in last year’s budget deal. House
and Senate staff who are tasked with developing a bill that outlines spending
for the Department of Education are already nervous that the dollars they will
be working with will be less than they—or the community—would like. They are
already saying that the FY 2017 budget process could end in a continuing
resolution—which means that Congress would punt any final spending decisions to
the 115th Congress that comes to town next January and a new White
House.
In the meantime, the House and Senate education committee
leaders are keeping tabs on the Department of Education’s efforts to implement
the Every Student Succeeds Act. Committee staff attended the two public
meetings that solicited comments from the field and are sifting through
hundreds of written comments (including NCTM’s). The House Education and the
Workforce Committee is expected to hold a hearing on ED’s efforts in February. That
proceeding will show exactly what House Republicans are watching for as ED
scrambles to get the new guidance into place. They likely will want fewer
regulations from the agency and will reiterate their intentions to leave most
decisions regarding K-12 classrooms to states and districts.
NCTM and the education community are hoping Congress will
address at least a few of the outstanding education policies this Spring. There
are several candidates for action—Carl D Perkins Career and Technical Education,
the Higher Education Act, the Education Sciences Reform Act, the America
COMPETES Act and legislation affecting child nutrition programs, to name a few.
It won’t be too long before the presidential election overtakes all of these
efforts. But, we’re not there yet.
Della B. Cronin is a principal at Washington Partners, LLC.