WASHINGTON — Let the No Child Left Behind games begin.
Days after Senate Democrats dropped their NCLB overhaul plan, Minnesota Rep. John Kline introduced the House GOP’s response, one bill encompassing most of the party’s reform platform from last session.
Then, Kline’s Education and Workforce Committee passed three separate bills meant to overhaul the decade-old, long-expired and much-maligned No Child law. The bills would:
• Eliminate scores of federal education programs deemed duplicative or ineffective by committee Republicans;
• Allow local school districts to use federal education money for purposes other than their intended use;
• And make it easier for states to develop and expand charter schools, which was the only component of the plan to receive bipartisan support.
Kline said this year’s proposals are largely the same, only they’re rolled into one bill and expanded a bit this time around, by increasing science-education assessment standards, allowing school districts to spend more federal money on safety programs and conforming the measures to new post-sequestration federal funding levels, among other things.
The committee will take up the bill June 19, and it could see floor action before August, Kline said Thursday.
No Child Left Behind is years overdue for congressional renewal, but Democrats and Republicans don’t agree on how to do it. Absent an overhaul agreement, the Obama administration began issuing NCLB waivers to states last year (Minnesota received one). Senate Democrats introduced their NCLB reform plan on Tuesday, and the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee will consider it next week.
Student loan interest rates
More immediately, lawmakers are staring down a deadline for fixing student loan interest rates before those on federal subsidized loans double on July 1.
The Senate voted on two competing interest rates plans Thursday, but both — one from Republicans tying the rate to federal borrowing costs, and one from Democrats to keep the rate unchanged, at 3.4 percent, for two years — fell well short of the 60-vote threshold needed to pass.
The House passed a Kline-introduced bill tying the rates to the market in May, but Democrats said the bill would allow rates to rise too quickly and not provide enough stability for borrowers. The White House issued a veto threat, and even though President Obama has proposed a similar market-based plan (though one with lower rates), his administration endorsed the Democrats’ bill on Thursday.
Kline needled both the White House and Senate Democrats for the bill’s failure.
“I find it absolutely bizarre, where the White House came out and said they supported kicking the can down the road for two years,” he said. “The House has passed legislation to fix the student loan impasse. We still need the Senate to show us they can do something.”
The Democratic sponsors of the Senate plan said they’ll look to compromise with Republicans on the matter before the end of the month, but they insisted on a two-year rate freeze so as to take up long-term reform in 2015, when federal higher-education policy is up for renewal.
If that plan goes forward, the sticking point would be cost — when Congress extended the current interest rates last year, it cost $6 billion. Democrats want to pay for the fix by raising taxes and closing loopholes, something Republicans have long opposed.
“We’ll start negotiating with Republicans to see if they’re willing to find some offset that we can agree on,” Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin said at a press conference. “Otherwise, we’ll work on some kind of compromise … something that will keep it at 3.4 percent.”
Democrats have said they’re interested in a long-term fix for student loan interest rates, but that there isn’t enough time to do it this month, especially with a handful of other tough proposals — immigration reform, the farm bill, etc. — already on the table.
“This is a big discussion, but right now we have something we have to do,” said Minnesota Sen. Al Franken, a co-sponsor of the Democratic bill. “Right now, we’ve got to make sure these interest rates don’t double on the Stafford subsidized loans. That’s what we’re doing, that’s what this is about.”
Devin Henry can be reached at dhenry@minnpost.com. Follow him on Twitter: @dhenry
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