Legislative Hot Topics: Blog

June 21^st – The Senate is moving their version of the Workforce Investment Act. Contained in this job training package is the Adult and Family Education Act, which provides resources to support adult basic education. This measure is expected to be revised and voted on in committee on June 29^th. What this also means is that, in the Senate, the rewriting of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) is being pushed back again, at least by a few weeks.

The Senate education's committee's work on ESEA is said now to be on two tracks. One is a long-standing discussion between the chair and the ranking republican on the committee. They are said to be working on a core set of principals. The majority democrats are also said to be working on a draft that will be used either in place of an agreement or in addition to the agreement.

On June 22^nd the House committee on Education and the Workforce is scheduled to take up what they are calling the second of five reauthorization bills. This one is on charter schools. It was introduced by Representative Hunter. This is from the committee's press release:

The Empowering Parents through Quality Charter Schools Act (H.R. 2218) will modernize an outdated federal law to help facilitate the development and expansion of high-quality charter schools. This is the second in the committee’s planned series of education reform bills; The Setting New Priorities in Education Spending Act (H.R. 1891) was introduced on May 13 and approved in committee on May 25.

We are expecting the House version of the LEARN Act to be introduced shortly. It will be very similar to the Senate version.

June 7, 2011 – Progress on the LEARN Act (Literacy for Every American, Results for the Nation) continue.  The Senator Murray (D-WA) has reintroduced the measure, with some changes from the version introduced in the last Congress.  It is expected to be included in debate on rewriting the Elementary and Secondary Education Act when it comes before the Senate education committee.  Currently, the Senate education committee (Health, Education, Labor and Pensions – the HELP Committee) is expected to take up the reauthorization by the end of June.  According to staff members of the committee, the chairman and the ranking minority member are meeting to draft a basic agreement.  If this fails, the democrats are expected to move their version in committee.

On the House side, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce has begun their reauthorization process with the reporting out of the first of five measure, HR 1891.  HR 1891 deauthorizes 43 elementary and secondary education programs.  Several of these are literacy programs, such as striving readers, the National Writing Project, and Reading is Fundamental.  The senior democrats on the committee offered a series of amendments to replace the programs with new authorizations.  The literacy amendment, as did all but one of the amendments failed on a party line vote.  The one amendment that passed was to support parent programs.

The LEARN Act is expected to be reintroduced on the House side within the next several weeks.  It will be very similar to the version introduced in the Senate.

The LEARN Act would provide funds to states to support literacy professional development programs in schools with large numbers of families living in poverty.  Some of the work done by the Striving Readers Comprehensive Literacy Program (state applications were submitted to US ED on May 9^th), such as that state literacy teams meeting and submitting reports would flow into the work of this bill. The majority of these state literacy plans focus on developing a broad knowledge of literacy and literacy instruction from age 0 to grade 12.  They make use of evidenced based information but are not pushing or outlining the purchase of any set of programs, adoption of any specific techniques or assessments. 

On May 10th Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) reintroduced the Literacy for Every American Results for the Nation into the Senate (LEARN).  Discussions are now focused on how LEARN will become part of the rewriting of the Elementary and Secondary Act in the Senate.  In the House, the expectation is that LEARN will be introduced the week of May 23rd.

On May 25th the House Committee on Education and the Workforce will be marking up their first of three to five bills that will constitute their thinking on rewriting the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).  It is HR 1891, a measure that will drop 43 programs from the statute.  Among the sections to be cut out will be Striving Readers Comprehensive Literacy, Reading is Fundamental, the National Writing Project and others. 

In the Senate there will be a series of votes on the Senate version of the budget.   All of the votes are expected to go down to defeat, including the House version which would cut funding by 18%; and the president's proposal of Feb. 14th.  The president's proposal has been replaced with a new set of guidelines.

On May 25th at 8 PM Eastern join Suzanne Clewell, chair of IRA's government relations committee and Richard Long, IRA government relations director in a webinar (see the IRA home page to register) for an update on IRA's government relations program and an update on what is happening in DC that might impact literacy.