School Issue May Be Lesson for Bush

President-elect George W. Bush has chosen to top his agenda in Congress next year with education reform, an initiative that he hopes will spur the kind of bipartisanship seen as essential to the success of his presidency.

But on Capitol Hill, bipartisanship on education reform may not be as easy as it looks.

Both parties proclaim the need to improve the nation’s schools. But in recent years, some of the most emotional, protracted fights in Congress have been fought over exactly how to do that.

Vouchers. Testing. Religion in schools. Those are white-hot political issues that continually have split lawmakers.

The bickering was so bad that Congress, in the session that just ended, failed for the first time in 35 years to enact a routine reauthorization of the main federal education law. When centrists offered a compromise between feuding Senate factions, only 13 people voted for it.

Hoping to bridge those stubborn divisions, Bush invited a large, bipartisan group of senators and House members to Texas last Thursday for a meeting to discuss his education agenda. His main goals include giving states more flexibility in using federal education money, making schools more accountable for results and stepping up early education and literacy programs.

“There was a lot of agreement,” Bush said after the meeting. “There is no better place to start to show [America] that our Congress and the president can cooperate for the best of the country than education.”

But lawmakers from both parties warned that, if Bush wants to begin with a quick victory in Congress--rather than a big fight--he would be wise to soft-pedal one of his most ambitious proposals: vouchers. A key element of his effort to make schools more accountable is a plan to allow the families of disadvantaged students in failing schools to convert federal aid into a voucher that they could use for private education.

“Education could be a stepping stone to more bipartisanship--if we stay away from pitfalls like vouchers,” said Rep. Tim Roemer of Indiana, one of several Democrats invited to the meeting with Bush.

Whether to push for vouchers is part of a broader question of legislative strategy that Bush faces, one that also will affect such issues as tax policy and reforming Social Security. Does Bush want to begin his term aiming for smaller, bite-sized victories in Congress? Or should he fight for his more ambitious ideas during his first 100 days, when a new president’s political capital is traditionally at its peak?

Many Republicans in Congress endorse the more limited approach, urging him to put vouchers on the back burner, seek targeted tax cuts--such as repeal of the estate tax--rather than across-the-board reductions in tax rates and relegate Social Security reform to a study commission for now.

So far, Bush has insisted that he intends to press ahead with his more sweeping proposals. But at this stage of the political game, few would expect him to signal a willingness to settle for less.

At the least, the education meeting provided a window into how Bush plans to build bridges to the Democratic Party--by aiming straight for its conservative wing. Almost all the Democrats at the meeting in Texas were moderate-to-conservative “new Democrats.” Pointedly excluded was Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), the Senate’s leading liberal voice on education issues.

Kennedy did not comment on his exclusion. But his spokesman, Jim Manley, said that he did not believe the group Bush met with “represents all the interests that [will have] to be dealt with on the House and Senate floor.”

The course of this year’s education debate will provide a clear test of whether Bush’s administration can help break old partisan habits that have crippled an array of school reform initiatives.

It has not always been such a chore to find consensus on education legislation. For years it enjoyed broad bipartisan support. But that has changed as attention has focused on a handful of partisan issues.

The debate on education “has become more divisive,” said Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), who may become chairman of the House Education and Workforce Committee.

For instance:

* Efforts to abolish the Department of Education became an emotional centerpiece of the drive by Republicans to downsize government after they won control of Congress in the 1994 elections. Democrats fought back and used the issue to portray the GOP as hostile to education itself, not just the federal bureaucracy. Burned by that tactic, Republicans in recent years have stopped clamoring for the department’s elimination.

* Congress has twice cleared legislation to allow tax breaks for parents who save for their children’s education costs, but the measures failed to become law because tuition for private schools was included in their scope. Fiercely opposed by teachers’ unions, the bills were vetoed by Clinton.

* GOP efforts to establish school vouchers as a pilot project in the District of Columbia also have been resolutely opposed by Democrats and vetoed by Clinton.

* Recent year-end budget fights between Clinton and Congress repeatedly have come down to standoffs on education funding and policy. This year, the two parties eventually agreed on a substantial increase in education spending--although Democrats accused Republicans of reneging on an earlier agreement to boost the education budget even more.

The rancor and controversy that now enshroud the education issue were perhaps best illustrated earlier this year by the fight over reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the principal source of federal school aid for disadvantaged school districts. What should have been routine approval collapsed in the Senate in a spasm of partisan wrangling.

Democrats clamored for more money and threatened to offer amendments on gun safety and other contentious issues. Republicans pulled the bill from the floor rather than face a fight on those issues. The old law remained in force, under provisions that allowed for its automatic extension if the programs are not officially reauthorized.

An attempt at compromise was made by Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.) and other centrist Democrats. But their amendment, which would have balanced Democratic demands for more money with the GOP effort to provide more local control over those funds, was soundly defeated, with only 13 moderate Democrats voting for it.

Backers of the compromise blamed their poor showing on political pressures surrounding the 2000 campaign. They said that it may be easier for Bush and moderate Democrats to find common ground now that the election is over.

Given the recent turmoil, some key lawmakers--including Sen. James M. Jeffords (R-Vt.), chairman of the Senate committee that handles education legislation--say that Bush might be better off kicking off his education initiative in Congress with a targeted measure that is less likely to provoke partisan passions. One such measure, they say, could be Bush’s proposal to retool the popular Head Start program so that it more aggressively prepares preschool students for reading.

“The way you get an education victory . . . is that you don’t go for the major overhaul, you go for a victory. Make your mark, then build on that,” said a Jeffords aide.

While moderate Republicans such as Jeffords argue that Bush should put off the divisive voucher issue, others suggest that he simply needs to find a new way to talk about it.

“Vouchers--the use of the word conjures up all kinds of images,” said one conservative House Republican who asked not to be named. “I don’t think you can walk away from the debate. We have got to change the language and not be bashful.”