By Della B. Cronin

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act is currently as close as it has come to getting revised in the last decade, and education advocates are waiting anxiously for word from the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee on the panel’s success in agreeing on a bipartisan reauthorization proposal. Ever since the House bill, the Student Success Act (HR 5), was attacked by conservative think tanks and bloggers and embroiled in a debate over immigration and the Homeland Security spending bill in late February, all education eyes have been on the Senate. HELP Committee chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and ranking member Patty Murray (D-Wash.) have been negotiating for weeks to develop a proposal that both Democrats and Republicans can support. The talks have been difficult, and one staffer recently described the likely result as an egg that would need to be handled delicately to endure a committee-level debate, let alone Senate floor consideration.

The big issues are the ones that have thwarted action all year, including many thorny issues: what to test and how often, how to ensure that schools are held accountable for teaching vulnerable student populations, what role (if any) the federal government should play in supporting early childhood education, how to support classroom and school leaders, whether Title I funds should be portable in any way, whether states or the federal government should decide how to spend the dollars associated with ESEA, and how much flexibility state and local leaders should have in allocating those funds. Other, supposedly smaller issues will not be the subject of the ongoing negotiations and are likely to be addressed on the floor. STEM education, after-school programming, and social and emotional learning are on this long list of issues. In an effort to emphasize the importance of STEM education in the debate, NCTM President Diane Briars recently participated in a briefing for Capitol Hill staff and shared experiences that illustrated the importance of high-quality professional development for math teachers. Briars cited research on the importance of early exposure to math skills and underscored the interdependencies of teaching and learning in math and science. 

The national organizations that represent the interests of teachers, principals, educators, administrators, state education leaders, and governors are almost desperate for action on a revised law. Before very long, Congress will be consumed by a presidential election. A failure to enact a new law before legislative activity slows to a crawl could mean that the nation will have a new president, a new secretary of education and a new Congress before a new K–12 education law is in place. A host of new players is likely to mean further delay. As a result, governors and other state leaders have been vocal in expressing their frustrations with a federal education law that doesn’t work and is currently running on waivers from the Department of Education. Education advocates are hopeful that Congress is listening.

While advocates wait for action on ESEA, the annual process of proposing spending levels for federal programs has begun. The House and Senate have each developed broad outlines to govern their spending ideas, and while details on education plans are scarce, the signs aren’t particularly encouraging. Sequestration limits what the legislators can spend, and some conservative Republicans would like to see even deeper cuts than required by the current spending caps. That means that congressional appropriators will face a challenge in divvying up a shrinking pot. NCTM and other education groups will be making the case for adequate investments in professional development supports and other programs as the process continues.

In other news, Lamar Smith (R-Texas), chairman of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, recently changed his tune about the peer review process at the National Science Foundation (NSF). The chairman has been very critical of the foundation and its process for awarding research grants in recent years, arguing that the process is not transparent and sometimes does not serve the country’s interests. At a recent hearing, Smith and NSF director France Cordova had an exchange that suggested that they agree more than they disagree on this point. After sending staff over to the foundation to review grant guidelines and decisions and asking them to report back on what they found, Smith said publicly that the foundation’s award process is a sound one. This shift raises hopes that efforts to reauthorize the America COMPETES Act this year could take on a softer tone than in the last Congress.

There’s much to watch for on Capitol Hill, and NCTM will continue to do just that. 

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