Parties Back to Jousting on School Funding

A year and a half after President Bush signed a landmark school-reform bill that promised to “leave no child behind,” Democrats and Republicans in Congress are again trading fire over federal funding for education.

The new initiative allows up to $18.5 billion in federal education aid for disadvantaged schoolchildren in the fiscal year that begins in October. And Republican lawmakers -- with Bush’s backing -- are proposing to spend two-thirds of that amount in a bill now moving through the House.

Democrats charged Wednesday that the funding bill would fall $6.15 billion short of what the No Child Left Behind law prescribed for schools serving children from low-income families. They proposed an amendment -- which was not expected to be adopted -- that would increase the funding by $5 billion and offset the spending with reduced tax cuts for the wealthiest taxpayers.

The education funding is part of a Republican-drafted bill that also funds labor and health programs; the $138-billion appropriation is expected to be approved by the full House today.

Rep. George Miller of Martinez, Calif., one of two leading Democrats who worked with the administration to pass school reforms, said Bush promised him “the resources would be there” after the education bill became law.

“Those promises have turned out to be empty rhetoric,” Miller added.

Republicans responded that there was never any guarantee to spend the full amount and that their budget would continue years of increases for the Education Department that have been the envy of other agencies.

“They hate the fact that Republicans are head to head with them on this,” said Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee. “They think we stole this issue from them -- which we did. It just drives them crazy.”

The resumption of the education debate was, in some ways, predictable for a Congress dominated by partisanship. But many education officials nationwide, hammered this year by state and local revenue shortages, are clamoring for more help from Washington.

States, following enactment of the reform law in January 2002, have filed plans with the federal government to improve teacher quality, expand testing of students in reading and math and demand better results from low-performing schools.

Now many education officials are wondering how the ambitious agenda set by Washington will fare at a time when budgets are pinched. A principle of the federal school reforms calls for progressively stiffer penalties for schools that fail to improve.

In California, which faces a budget shortage of $38 billion, some schools have been forced to lay off teachers this year and curtail participation in a popular program to shrink the size of elementary school classes. More cuts in after-school programs, libraries and other services are under consideration in the state Legislature, said Teri Burns, a California deputy superintendent of public instruction.

Burns acknowledged that the federal government has provided extra money in the last two years to help implement reforms. But she added: “They’ve also provided a lot more mandates. And they expect a lot in a very short period of time. If you want these mandates to happen overnight, it’s pricier to do that.”

In a report Wednesday on school funding issues facing the 50 states, House Democrats said California would be eligible for as much as $1.3 billion in additional aid in fiscal 2004 if Republicans in Congress would agree to full funding for education programs.

Republicans said Democrats were missing the point: Overall, federal school funding would go up $2.3 billion nationally under the GOP spending bill, raising the Education Department budget to $55.4 billion, a record, and building on billions of dollars that Bush has already added for the agency.

They said Congress, under Republicans and Democrats, has traditionally regarded funding levels set in legislation such as the school reform bill to be spending limits, not guarantees.

Another battle was also taking shape Wednesday on the spending bill. Democrats were planning an effort to block new regulations proposed by the Labor Department that could cut overtime pay for millions of white-collar workers. Labor lobbyists were mobilizing for the Democratic amendment and business lobbyists against it.

Top Republicans predicted a close vote today. The Bush administration threatened to veto any bill that contains provisions blocking new labor regulations.