PORTLAND – Maine Sen. Susan Collins is emerging as a key negotiator as Congress debates how to increase education spending and improve schools.

Collins is one of four Republicans on a Senate task force that has spent weeks behind the scenes trying to build bipartisan support for President Bush’s proposal for sweeping reforms.

Bush’s plan would include mandatory testing for students and financial penalties for underachieving schools.

In the next few days, debate is expected to start in the Senate over the education reforms, with sharp divisions between Republicans and Democrats over the amount of federal money that schools should get for operating expenses and educating lower-income children.

All-day negotiations Wednesday yielded compromises in some areas but there was still conflict on how to bridge the gap on funding.

Bush has proposed spending $21 billion on elementary and secondary education next year, a $2.6 billion increase. But Democrats advocated $27.2 billion, an $8.8 billion increase.

The role of the task force has been bringing together Republicans and Democrats on spending and policy, including such issues as vouchers, which Bush supports but Collins opposes. The other four members of the task force are Sen. James Jeffords, R-Vt., Sen. Tim Hutchinson, R.-Ark., Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., and Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H.

Collins has opposed vouchers, saying they drain money from public schools. “To me, diverting funds from failing schools is not the answer – improving our public schools should be the focus,” she said Wednesday.

Collins said education talks have gone more smoothly than on the overall budget because in that debate, the partisan sides were dug in more deeply with the Senate divided evenly among Republicans and Democrats.

“I think the education bill shows that in a 50-50 Senate that we can produce a bipartisan compromise that most people will be happy with,” Collins said.

Education reform was President Bush’s top priority in his campaign. Although the federal government provides only about 7 percent of public education funds nationwide, Bush has proposed to boost funding in exchange for demanding better results, mostly through testing children in third through eighth grades in reading and math.

In Maine, top school officials are not so much concerned with Bush’s policy proposals as they are with the size of increases for special education. Maine already tests students in fourth, eighth and 11th grades.