By Della B. Cronin

As the summer comes to an end, members of Congress will return to Washington to face a slew of spending issues and other matters. The presidential campaign is already stealing headlines and it will be interesting to see if that persists once Congress is back to doing the people’s business instead of visiting with constituents, traveling to learn more about policies and programs, and  taking time off. The first item that has little to do with education, but could affect the ability of Congress to do much in its wake, is the consideration of the deal President Obama would like to strike with Iran on the topic of nuclear weapons. As Labor Day approached, it looked like the White House would successfully prevent opponents of the Iran deal from reaching a two-thirds majority to override a presidential veto of legislation scuttling the deal. That’s significant for the White House, but could have some residual effects.

There will be more controversy straight ahead as federal spending bills will have to be addressed before October 1—the first day of fiscal year 2016. There has been much talk of a potential government shutdown, and Democrats and Republicans continue to disagree about how much money should be spent by federal agencies. In fact, Republicans and Democrats disagree within their own ranks on what federal programs should cost. The obvious short-term fix for these thorny issues is a temporary spending bill—or a continuing resolution (CR)—that will keep the government open and running at current spending levels for some number of months. Since Congress seems to like using holidays as motivators, a three-month spending measure that expires around Christmas seems likely, or leadership could try to get through the holidays and resolve FY 2016 spending in January. This could be temporary good news for the Department of Education, which would see significant cuts in the FY 2016 spending bills that have been proposed to date. Current funding levels would be better for professional development programs, Title I schools, and other programs that affect math educators.

In addition to spending, the education community is eager to see additional progress on efforts to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). The Senate passed its proposal to revise the No Child Left Behind Act in July. The Every Child Achieves Act (S 1177) includes provisions that NCTM and its allies in the STEM education community strongly support, such as a revised Math and Science Partnership program that supports math and STEM educators. The House-passed bill, the Student Success Act (HR 5), does not include such a program and instead would send state education agencies funds for teacher professional development with little to no direction or requirements, leaving it to states to decide how to spend those funds. NCTM is concerned that the House approach would short-change math educators and make it even more difficult for them to access precious professional development resources. The organization is working on a letter to House and Senate education policy leaders expressing its preference for the Senate professional development proposals.

While ESEA is the issue that is winning the most attention from the education advocacy community and lawmakers right now, the Higher Education Act will soon see discussion and there may even be a bill released by Hill leaders soon. While the issues that drive that debate center on access to student aid—grants and loans—and how to ensure students have access to the programs and are using them to get skills valued in the workforce, Title II of that law addresses teacher preparation programs. Advocates, including NCTM and AMTE, will be looking to modernize that program and discuss regulatory efforts from the Department of Education to hold colleges of education responsible for the success of their graduates in classrooms within the HEA debate. 

Summer is just ending, but Congress-watchers are already eyeing the end of the year and what might be achieved before then. If the August recess was instructive in any way, it was that the encroachment of the presidential campaign on congressional activities cannot be underestimated. NCTM hopes that at least a revised ESEA and spending on education programs can be resolved before the presidential campaign is all-consuming. Fingers crossed. 

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