Party-Line Vote Kills Teacher Hiring Plan

WASHINGTON —  Senate Republicans, stung by Democratic successes in altering President Bush’s education bill, closed ranks Tuesday to reject an initiative to bolster the teaching corps in needy schools.

On a 50-48 party-line vote, Republicans defeated an amendment offered by Democrats to add the Clinton-era program to the new bill.

The proposal by Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) sought to direct up to $2.4 billion in the next school year to help reduce class size by hiring thousands of new teachers in schools serving disadvantaged children.

The vote was a victory for the White House, which is working to pass a bipartisan bill that aims to give more federal assistance to education but with a greater flexibility in how states and local school districts can spend the money and an insistence on improved academic results.

The bill supported by the Bush administration would authorize $3 billion for states to reduce class size and take steps to improve teacher quality. The bill’s authors say local educators could choose how to spend the money.

While the Senate debate continues this week, the House is expected to vote by Friday on its version of the Bush education bill.

To Republicans, Tuesday’s Senate vote was a key demonstration of their party’s will to give local school officials more control over how they spend federal aid.

Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) said the vote struck a blow for local freedom. “It addresses the principle of who best decides how to accomplish the goal that we all agree to, and that is to boost student achievement,” Frist said. “Is it Washington, D.C., the federal government? Or is it parents, local communities, local schools?”

Republicans were relieved at the vote’s outcome. Since the Senate two weeks ago took up a bill to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, many GOP senators had become increasingly concerned that they were losing control of the debate through the passage of a string of Democratic amendments supported by some aisle-crossing Republicans.

One successful Democratic amendment would authorize more than $100 billion in additional spending over the next decade to help students in disadvantaged schools. Another would authorize $100 million for community technology centers. A third would redefine the kind of annual tests required by Washington of all students in grades three through eight and allow up to $200 million in additional funding to pay for them.

The parade of spending amendments was so lengthy that the White House issued a plea last week to stop the addition of new programs or expansion of old ones.

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.), who has opposed most of the amendments, expressed his frustration Monday.

“I don’t think that there’s any amendment that any senator could offer providing for any level of spending that would not pass the Senate,” Lott complained. “You know, it’s the same old deal. You know, in Washington, people think the cure to all problems is more federal dollars thrown at the problem.”

In Tuesday’s debate, Democrats backing the amendment said that, unless Washington specifies how the money should be spent, some school districts would not take the difficult and costly long-term step of hiring new teachers.

President Clinton’s program, begun in 1998, sought to fund the hiring of 100,000 teachers nationwide in elementary grades over seven years. Murray’s amendment would have continued that effort.

Democrats said Tuesday’s vote betrayed a movement gaining steam across the country to reduce class sizes to help children learn reading and mathematics. California launched its own class-size reduction program in 1996 under Republican Gov. Pete Wilson.

Murray said the vote would return to haunt Republicans in the 2002 elections. “Bipartisanship crashed in our kids’ classrooms today,” Murray said, adding that Republicans “put politics ahead of good principles.”

Two Democratic senators, Daniel K. Akaka of Hawaii and Zell Miller of Georgia, did not vote on the amendment.

But Miller did so only out of courtesy to his party. Miller, who was in the chamber during the roll call, initially voted against the measure, but he later withdrew his vote in a gesture that enabled Democrats to claim the action was party line.