The House rejected a Republican plan for private school vouchersyesterday before overwhelmingly approving bipartisan legislation thatcould boost spending on the main program of federal aid to localschools.
The bipartisan bill, which passed 358 to 67 and is supported bythe administration, would renew the Title I remedial program, whichprovides federal funds for disadvantaged students, for another fiveyears.
While the GOP defeat on voucher amendments came as littlesurprise, Republican leaders were unexpectedly forced to retreat onanother education bill, which would have permitted states toconsolidate various federal aid programs into one education 'blockgrant' that states could spend as they saw fit. That bill was scaledback to a limited pilot project after party moderates objectedbecause federal help could be diverted from disadvantaged students.Last night, the compromise bill narrowly passed 213 to 208, in a votemostly along party lines.
This is the first Republican-controlled Congress with anopportunity to rewrite the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of1965, the Great Society legislation that firmly established a federalrole in education. The House has taken the nontraditional approach ofsplitting the law into several separate pieces of legislation,including the two debated yesterday. House Republicans describe theunusual procedure as an effort to give greater scrutiny to theindividual federal programs, but Democrats have derided it as apublic relations strategy designed to exaggerate GOP educationefforts.
Several studies have shown limited academic results from the TitleI program that was reauthorized yesterday. The program, which is thecenterpiece of the 1965 law, spent $7.7 billion this past year on 10million students in nearly every school district in the country. TheHouse bill would authorize annual funding of nearly $10 billion.
'Now, we are beginning to fix the programs,' said Education andthe Workforce Committee Chairman William F. Goodling (R-Pa.) afterthe bill passed.
Earlier in the day, House Majority Leader Richard K. Armey (R-Tex.) had tried to take the House in a more conservative direction,proposing to spend $100 million a year on vouchers that students infailing public schools could use to pay for tuition at privateschools. Students would have been eligible to receive a voucher if agovernor had declared their school an 'academic disaster' or if theyhad been harmed by school violence.
But Democratic critics argued that vouchers would not help thelarger number of students who would remain behind in troubled schoolsand would divert resources from public to private schools. Armey'samendment was defeated, 257 to 166, with 52 Republicans joining 204Democrats and one independent in opposing vouchers.
An amendment proposed by Rep. Thomas E. Petri (R-Wis.) toexperiment with vouchers in 10 states was also defeated, 271 to 153,with 66 Republicans crossing party lines.
Despite the rejection of the voucher amendments, the Title Ilegislation takes a limited step to broaden the choice of publicschools available to disadvantaged students. Under the bill, thoseenrolled in low-performing schools--currently about 20 percent ofTitle I-supported schools--would be able to transfer to anotherpublic school within the same school district. Federal funding wouldnot follow students who transfer, but districts could use Title Imoney to pay for their transportation.
Under another provision of the bill, parents of bilingual studentswould be given the right to approve the language in which theirchildren receive instruction, a change made in response to someHispanic parents whose children were channeled into Spanish bilingualclasses despite being proficient in English.
The limited block grant bill approved yesterday, commonly called'Super Ed Flex,' would give 10 states even more latitude in spendingfederal funds than a similar 'Ed Flex' law that Congress passed withbipartisan support and President Clinton signed in April. The earlierlaw allowed waivers of federal rules, but did not permit funds fromdifferent programs to be combined and used for a single purpose asthe new legislation would.
House Republicans had timed action on the education bills tocoincide with wrangling with the White House over spending bills inan effort to blunt anticipated attacks from Clinton on educationissues. GOP leaders hoped the party would come across as standing fora distinctive education policy, but instead its failure on vouchersand retreat to a pilot program on block grants sent mixed messagesthat left some conservative members fuming.
'This makes me boil, when we tell young children who can't read,write and add, 'Just be patient,' ' said Rep. John R. Kasich (R-Ohio).
Unlike the House, the Senate plans to renew the Elementary andSecondary Education Act in a single bill, probably next year. Sen.James M. Jeffords (R-Vt.), chairman of the Health, Education, Laborand Pensions Committee, has circulated draft legislation that differssignificantly from the House bills. It proposes a new federalpreschool program, for example, and lacks any measure comparable tothe House bill's right to transfer.
