First Lady Joins Education Funding Fray

First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton threw her weight behind efforts by Senate Democrats to boost spending for education programs Friday and got a little lift for her likely bid to become one of them.

Clinton joined several senators at a Capitol Hill event to criticize Republican proposals to bundle federal education money into block grants that would give states flexibility on how it is spent.

President Clinton and congressional Democrats have called for a boost in education spending with the money to be earmarked to hire more teachers and for school construction projects.

“Congress, under the leadership of the Republicans, have denied hundreds of schools the resources that they need,” Clinton said. “Today, just half the schools that need help are actually getting the extra help that they require for preparing some of our most disadvantaged children.”

Education has become a major battleground between the White House and the Republican-led Congress as the two sides push to complete the spending bills that fund the government for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1.

Hillary Clinton has yet to formally announce plans to run for the U.S. Senate from New York, but Democratic senators made clear Friday they would be happy to have her join them.

“I want to thank Sen. Clinton, I mean the first lady, for being here. It has a nice ring to it,” Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa quipped at the education event.

“She has championed children’s issues, she’s championed education issues, and when she comes here to the Senate of the United States, she will be the education senator,” said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts.

Hillary Clinton spokeswoman Marsha Berry said it was not unusual for the first lady to join lawmakers to weigh in on issues of importance to her.

“There are some issues obviously she has worked on for years,” Berry said.

Her appearances on Capitol Hill to push specific legislation have been relatively rare since her ill-fated drive to get Congress to pass major health care reform early in her husband’s first term.

But in recent weeks she has also joined lawmakers at the Capitol to show her support for a $1 per hour increase in the minimum wage to $6.15 an hour. Kennedy said her appearance to support Congressional Democrats on education was important.

“We welcome her, she knows about it, feels strongly about it and people pay attention to her,” Kennedy told reporters after the education event.

President Clinton also made a push Friday for his cherished program to help states hire more teachers.

In a speech to the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, the president joined in the criticism of Republicans, saying they were trying to erase the program to hire 100,000 teachers only a year after Congress approved money for the first tranche of 30,000.

“Now, I don’t understand exactly what’s going on, but I do intend to stop it if I can because I think that’s a mistake,” the president said. “That’s bad educational policy. We need to help the school districts hire more teachers.”