House Committee on Education and Labor
U.S. House of Representatives

The Wall Street Journal editorial page today carries a harsh critique of congressional Democrats' plans to kill of the innovative Washington, D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. The program provides scholarships of up to $7,500 to low-income families in the nation's capital, helping them escape a troubled school system that is working hard to improve. But if congressional Democrats have their way, these children will be forced to return to unsafe, under-achieving schools. As the Wall Street Journal notes:

President Obama made education a big part of his speech Tuesday night, complete with a stirring call for reform. So we'll be curious to see how he handles the dismaying attempt by Democrats in Congress to crush education choice for 1,700 poor kids in the District of Columbia.

The omnibus spending bill now moving through the House includes language designed to kill the Opportunity Scholarship Program offering vouchers for poor students to opt out of rotten public schools. The legislation says no federal funds can be used on the program beyond 2010 unless Congress and the D.C. City Council reauthorize it. Given that Democrats control both bodies -- and that their union backers hate school choice -- this amounts to a death sentence.

This comes just a day after the Washington Post carried a similar editorial blasting the Democrats' decision and arguing that the phase-out of the program is an attempt to hide the truth about what they're doing.

CONGRESSIONAL Democrats want to mandate that the District's unique school voucher program be reauthorized before more federal money can be allocated for it. It is a seemingly innocuous requirement. In truth it is an ill-disguised bid to kill a program that gives some poor parents a choice regarding where their children go to school. Many of the Democrats have never liked vouchers, and it seems they won't let fairness or the interests of low-income, minority children stand in the way of their politics. But it also seems they're too ashamed -- and with good reason -- to admit to what they're doing.

Republicans created this program in 2004 with bipartisan support as part of a comprehensive plan to reform the District's school system. And since that time, we've been fighting to protect the program and ensure that while D.C. schools work to overcome decades of decline, students will have options today to access a quality education. Unfortunately, Democrats seem to be doing all that they can to take away those options.

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"There is no such thing as a permanent program. Every program needs to be authorized or re-authorized."  So said a top aide to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) when asked by the Examiner why Congressional Democrats inserted language into the omnibus appropriations bill that would phase out the popular D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program.

For the unfamiliar, a bit of background: The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program provides scholarships of up to $7,500 annually to low-income children in the nation’s capital.  Since 2004, the program has proven a lifeline for struggling parents who want to enroll their children in safer, higher-achieving schools; parents who have no other way to escape the D.C. public school system, which is among the lowest-performing in the country.

Of course, anyone familiar with Washington knows that there IS such a thing as a permanent program. Most federal programs are permanent, even if they are no longer useful. And federal programs tend to live on and on, even if they have not technically been reauthorized, despite the Speaker's aide's comments to the contrary. In fact, there are currently more than 100 programs under the jurisdiction of the House Education and Labor Committee that have not been reauthorized or reformed, some as far back at 1993.  Using the Democrats' logic, Congress would stop funding the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities (last passed by Congress in 1993), Americorps and other national service programs (last reauthorized in 1996), child care and development block grants (last examined in 2002), or those education programs that serve disadvantaged students in public schools under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (last reauthorized in 2001).

But in a way, this debate misses the point. The real issue shouldn't be technicalities of federal funding. What's at stake is the future of low-income children in the nation's capital. Low-income children who were trapped in dilapidated, dangerous, and dysfunctional schools. Certainly, the D.C. public school system has an ambitious leader who is committed to change. But in the mean time, do we really want to tear educational opportunity away from these children?

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This week, President Obama is set to release a “budget blueprint,” which will detail how much the federal government is going to spend in the upcoming fiscal year.  In recent press reports, the Administration has indicated that the blueprint will put the federal government on a path to fiscal responsibility by, among other things, cutting the deficit in half by 2013.

This commitment to fiscal discipline could not come at a better time, although it may be hard to take it seriously given the recent record of congressional Democrats.  Congress just passed a massive government spending bill cloaked in “economic stimulus” that will cost taxpayers more than $1 trillion.  And later this week, as we wait for the President’s new budget to be delivered to Capitol Hill, Democrats in Congress are preparing to pass an omnibus spending bill for the current fiscal year that could add another $400 billion or more in spending.

Just to put the government’s books in perspective, here’s an excerpt from an article that appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle entitled “Deficit breaks all the records” --

The Treasury Department reported Wednesday that the deficit for October through January totaled $569 billion, more than six times larger than the imbalance during the year-ago period.  The deficit for January alone totaled $83.8 billion, worse than the $78 billion economists expected. The government had run a surplus of $17.8 billion in January 2008.

With eight months left in the current budget year, the deficit already has surpassed the deficit for 2008, an imbalance of $454.8 billion that is the full-year record.

The Congressional Budget Office has forecast that the deficit for the current budget year will hit $1.2 trillion, but that estimate does not include the costs of the economic stimulus plan that President Barack Obama is pushing through Congress.  Many economists are forecasting the deficit for the current year will hit $1.6 trillion.

During the campaign and since taking office a little more than a month ago, President Obama has pledged that his Administration will embrace fiscal discipline by taking a scalpel to the massive federal budget and going through it line-by-line to “stop wasteful, obsolete federal government programs that make no financial sense.”  Republicans have been pursuing this goal for years, and we’re pleased to have the President join us.  To help out, we have a suggestion for where he might start to use that scalpel.

The federal government currently operates hundreds of education programs, spread out over multiple agencies.  This results in duplication, waste, and inefficiency, and it ties the hands of local school officials who must abide by stringent requirements to qualify for the multitude of federal programs.  A number of programs have been recommended for elimination by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) after national evaluations deemed them ineffective.  Other programs were pet projects created by members of the Congressional leadership or by past Administrations.  Programs like these are often highly restrictive, serving only a limited group of students, or are duplicative of existing, larger federal education programs.

There’s no doubt that the resources that the federal government provides to states and school districts are important to improving student achievement.  But in a time of limited resources, we should focus on programs that directly serve students, particularly disadvantaged ones, and serve the interests of the American taxpayer.  We urge the Administration to examine all of the programs administered by the U.S. Department of Education and other agencies and eliminate those that do not put students first.  We can support programs that serve students today without saddling them with overwhelming debt tomorrow.  With a new budget on the way, now is a perfect time to reevaluate how well we’re serving students and taxpayers.

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We’re not in the business of defending individuals who break state or local law, but something just rubs us the wrong way when parents are imprisoned for wanting the best education for their kids.  Last week, Yolanda Hill appeared in the Greece Town Court in New York for a preliminary hearing to answer charges that she illegally enrolled her children in Greece schools. Though she lives in Rochester, she used her children’s grandmother’s address to establish a false residency because the Greece school system could provide a better education for her kids.  According to her teenage daughter, Santazcha Hill, "My mom only did what was right because she loved us.  She's not a criminal." 

We’re not arguing about the merits of state residency programs, whether parents should be required to pay tuition charges to school districts if their kids aren’t residents, or the ability of states such as New York to set their own education laws.  But it sure doesn't say much about educational opportunity in this country when parents feel they have no choice but to break the law in order to ensure that their kids are achieving academically. 

For years, House Republicans have worked to ensure that parents are able to choose to send their children to higher performing public or private schools if their children’s schools fell short in providing a quality education.  From Cleveland and Milwaukee to Florida and Washington, D.C., Congress, states, and local communities have been embracing parental empowerment in education.  When Congress passed the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), it made it possible for students to transfer to better performing public schools – including charter schools – within the school district or receive additional educational services, such as private tutoring.  But even with these new options (which some in the education establishment are attempting to weaken, see here), it remains clear that there is more work left to do. 

If Democrats in Congress and the new Administration are truly serious about education reform, they must get truly serious about giving parents the tools they need for their children to thrive.  That starts by empowering parents with more choice.

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Yesterday Congressman Buck McKeon, the Senior Republican Member on the Committee, sent a letter to newly-installed U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan congratulating him on his appointment and confirmation as the new Secretary of Education.  The letter discusses Secretary Duncan’s long commitment to improving educational opportunity, particularly for disadvantaged students, during his tenure as Superintendent of Chicago Public Schools.

More importantly, and building on Secretary Duncan’s reputation as a “reformer”, the letter also calls on the Secretary to ensure that the public school choice and Supplemental Educational Services (SES) or free tutoring provisions that were included in the final Title I regulation and guaranteed under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) are not weakened so that parents have access to and knowledge of the parental choice options guaranteed under the law.  The letter states:

"Because of what I believe is our shared commitment to improving educational opportunity for disadvantaged students, I am writing to express my strong concerns over recent press reports that the Department is planning to weaken the public school choice and Supplemental Educational Services (SES) provisions that were included in the final regulation implementing Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).  This regulation is critically important to ensuring that parents have access to and knowledge of the parental choice options guaranteed under the law.

"President Obama spoke compellingly about the importance of parental empowerment in education during the campaign, saying that he believes we should “…foster competition within the public school system. Let's make sure that charter schools are up and running. Let's make sure that kids who are in failing schools, in local school districts, have an option to go to schools that are doing well.

"I could not agree with that sentiment more, which is why I am so troubled by reports that parental options may be in jeopardy.  I firmly believe that any attempt to weaken or failure to enforce the public school choice and SES provisions of ESEA would undermine both congressional intent and the spirit of reform championed by our new President."

Prompted by the education establishment--long resistant to the parental options requirements included under the law--various news reports have quoted senior Administration officials who have stated that they were reviewing the new Title I regulations and may consider possible changes that would weaken public school choice and free tutoring options.  Some have even suggested that weakening parental options is in the best interest of children, although we would argue that the opposite is clearly the case.  The letter, which calls on Secretary Duncan to reject these arguments, continues Congressman McKeon’s long-held belief that federal, state, and local policies must put the interests of students and parents first.  Parents must be made fully aware of the choices available for their children.  We hope that the new Secretary agrees.

To learn more about the Title I regulations and the letter to Secretary Duncan to support strengthening parental options, check out the letter, our press release, and information from last year regarding the regulations.

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This week, the U.S. Senate is expected to consider and pass its version of the so-called economic stimulus package.  If you're a regular follower of this blog, you know that this action follows House passage of a similar package that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and other experts say will not immediately stimulate the economy since the bulk of the spending in the bill will not occur until next year and beyond – with some of it not being spent until 2018.  Moreover, the bill devotes hundreds of billions of dollars to government spending programs rather than the job creation and economic stimulus our country truly needs.

Regarding the roughly $145 billion in education funding proposed under the bill, what has been lost is the fact this money is supposed to be temporary: it vanishes in 2 two years.  College freshmen who are slated to receive $500 more in Pell Grants to combat rising tuition rates will have to work longer in their junior and senior years to cover the shortfall.   Schools that have instituted new afterschool programs with the millions in new Title I funding will have to send those students home after two short years.  States that have enhanced their special education services for infants and toddlers with the new special education funding will have to pay for those services themselves. 

With such dramatic consequences occurring all over the country, we know what will happen.  We've been through this before.  Over the last three decades, Washington has created hundreds of “temporary” education programs, with the promise that it would be for one or two years, to provide seed money for "demonstration programs" until some fashion or fad can finally can get off the ground or to help states and school districts brave bad economic times.  Those federal programs, and the spending to go with them, are still with us today.

So regardless of the promises that have been made by the Congressional leadership, we know that this new "temporary" funding will be around long after the economic stimulus package has passed, long after our economy has rebounded.  This case is already being made by some in the education establishment who are arguing that we need to add the new temporary funding into the federal budget's "baseline" – a mechanism in federal budget law that assumes that all of the new funding will be provided by Congress each and every year.  While the “baseline” is arcane and not easily understood, it’s incredibly important in detailing what Congress has provided for all of its programs for the last fiscal year and what it is projected to provide for each program going forward.

Recently, the Committee’s Republican staff put together three charts demonstrating the impact that a new budget baseline, including the spending in the economic stimulus package, will have on the federal budget for the Pell Grant, Title I, and IDEA programs.  The funding increases for three programs alone would result in a doubling, tripling, or even quadrupling of the U.S. Department of Education’s budget in a few short years.

While no one is disputing that states and school districts rely on federal dollars, it’s important to remember that the federal government has a responsibility to balance its budget and to start paying down the more than $10 trillion debt (already more than $30,000 for each person in the country). The funding included in the so-called economic stimulus package isn't "free" money; our children and grandchildren are going to be the ones who are going to have pay for these massive increases in new federal spending.  It’s time for those in charge to restore fiscal discipline to Washington.

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