Help with education

The fact that a major education bill is near receiving approval, in a season of war and recession, is remarkable in itself. That a bill with bipartisan support that significantly increases federal education spending just five years after the Republican platform wanted to eliminate the department entirely shows how much both parties have changed in recent years. The GOP has come to see where the federal government can be effective; Democrats have learned their ideas aren’t the only ones of value.

Maine’s interest is not only in the new source of funding, but in states getting the flexibility to assess students according to their own systems – in Maine’s case, through Learning Results. Sen. Susan Collins, who was part of the final conference on the bill, worked hard to successfully ensure that Maine would not have to use up valuable class time and pay for annual testing in grades three to eight, but could continue using the Maine Educational Assessment to test students in fourth, eighth and 11th grades and use measures such as portfolios to assess students in

the other grades.

The bill, which will reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act for the next five years, increases federal education spending by $6.3 billion next year on a budget of about $49 billion, spreading new money into a half-dozen areas. For instance, Title I, which is aimed at ensuring that at-risk children from low-income families are not left behind, would receive a $2.4 billion increase; Teacher Quality Grants would have almost an added $1 billion available; special education would be increased $1 billion; and $50 million would be used to fund a school-choice pilot program. The new testing funds, expected at between $320 million and $400 million, would give Maine as much as

$4 million to put toward the MEA or to

develop new assessments. Sen. Collins made significant additions to the bill through her Rural Education Achievement Program, which gives greater grant flexibility to rural districts, and Reading First, which gets pupils help with reading skills in kindergarten and first grade.

President Bush made education a major issue in the 2000 campaign, and it appears that he will soon be keeping a promise to supply new money and new federal support to states as they struggle to pay for schools.

It is an achievement he should take pride in and, as he is likely to do, he should share the credit for passing this major legislation with Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, chairman of the education committee and, along with ranking member Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, a leader in the negotiations that brought the two sides together on the bill. Sen. Kennedy’s willingness to pass a bill over the objections of some of his strongest supporters is worth noting not only because it helped produce valuable legislation but because it suggests that the nearly wild levels of obstructionism that existed between Congress and the White House in the 1990s finally may be receding.

Though areas such as special education still are short of the federal funding they deserve, the overall education bill is encouraging. Maine benefits from the new resources and has Sen. Collins to thank for her dedication to helping rural areas especially and seeing through assessment requirements that allows Maine to stay with a system that has made it a national leader.