Skepticism Falls to a Rare Bipartisan Act

Executive Perspective

I admit that throughout the reauthorization process for the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, I was a skeptic. I even bet my good friend and NSBA’s executive director, Thomas Gentzel, a steak dinner that ESEA would not be reauthorized. I lost the bet, happily.

Truth be told, it was a win-win for us. The AASA advocacy team, headed by Noelle Ellerson, did an outstanding job helping to shepherd the bill through both houses of Congress.

A year ago last spring, an unprecedented event occurred. Nine national education associations in the Washington, D.C., area convened at the National Press Club to urge Congress to do the right thing for children by reauthorizing ESEA. The group included the two teacher unions, the school boards association, the chief state school officers and AASA. The fact that labor and management jointly urged the passage of a new law was not lost on members of Congress.

In the Senate, Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Patty Murray, D-Wash., took up the challenge of forging a bipartisan bill. In the House, the prospect of a bipartisan bill was an impossibility, but Rep. John Kline, chair of the House Education and Workforce Committee, wanted to pass the same bill approved in the House with a Republican vote the previous year. Unfortunately, this time he faced stiff opposition from right-wing conservatives and the Freedom Caucus, which was convinced the bill they previously approved now was too liberal.

Progress Yet Doubts

With the help of our state association executives and members, AASA campaigned to reach those conservative House members to persuade them we were joined in our dislike of No Child Left Behind and that crafting a new bill was the way to go. To our great delight, last July, during our Legislative Advocacy Conference, the House indeed passed its version of a reauthorized ESEA. Shortly thereafter the Senate passed its version, and now what had seemed a legislative impossibility had taken a huge step forward.

Mind you, though, I remained skeptical even though my friend Tom already was making dinner reservations at Morton’s. The bill’s different versions would have to be resolved by a congressional conference committee with a new version approved by both chambers.

Moving the bill too far to the right to appease the House would force a presidential veto. Moving it too far left would prove disastrous in the House. It was not until fall that the conference committee finally came together to create the one version. It was then that House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, announced his resignation, raising the prospect the conference bill never might get to the House floor for a vote. I cautioned my friend Tom not to eat his steak before it was cooked.

The speaker issue was resolved with the election of Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., to the post, but House passage of the bill was confounded again by the “Hastert rule,” which prohibits the House speaker from bringing a bill for a vote to the floor before it has the support of the majority of the party in control, the Republicans in this case. Consequently, even with enough Democrats and Republicans voting to pass the bill, it would not be brought to a vote without a majority of GOP members supporting it.

Again, AASA’s advocacy team went into high gear, reaching out to our state executives and our membership to urge members of Congress to support reauthorization. The bill passed the House with only a handful of Republicans opposing it. Shortly thereafter, the Senate also passed the bill. A few days later, I had the pleasure of being in the White House to watch President Obama sign the bill into law.

A Settled Bet

We should all be proud of the work the AASA advocacy team and our members did to not just urge passage but to help craft the new law’s provisions. The onerous mandates of No Child Left Behind have been eliminated while positive facets, notably the disaggregation of data to monitor performance of student subgroups, remain. The ever-growing federal intrusion into the classroom has been stopped, and the prerogative to make those decisions given back to states and localities.

We look forward to the implementation of the Every Student Succeeds Act, and yes, Tom and I recently had dinner at Morton’s.