By: Kendra Marr
(From Politico, November 3, 2010)
Education Secretary Arne Duncan is upbeat
Despite waking up to a political landscape now dominated by Republicans, Duncan – one of a handful of Obama administration cabinet members who actively campaigned for several Democrats – believes that education reform can be the great bipartisan issue, uniting the two feuding parties.
“Am I hopeful? Absolutely,” he told POLITICO. “Am I optimistic? Yes. Do I think it’s the right thing to do for children, for the country? Absolutely.”
Overhauling the nation’s public education system, including adjusting the law known as No Child Left Behind, is a “golden opportunity” to improve the quality of life for everyday Americans, he said.
“If we can do that work together through education, it actually might help to lessen some of those tensions in other areas as well,” said Duncan, who has put No Child Left Behind reform a top priority early next year. “Maybe our work together can help soothe some of those hurt feelings.”
During his post-election press conference Wednesday President Barack Obama echoed that sentiment. “I think everybody in this country thinks that we’ve got to make sure our kids are equipped in terms of their education, their science background, their math backgrounds to compete in this new global economy,” he told reporters. “And that’s going to be an area where I think there’s potential common ground.”
Yet Republicans who ride the wave of anti-Obama sentiment to Congress this year, however – including Senator-elect Rand Paul, a tea party-backed candidate who wants the Education Department eliminated – don’t seem likely to support a big education bill, while veteran GOP lawmakers will be looking over their shoulders, wary of the electorate’s surly, restless mood. And there isn’t a word about education in the GOP leaders’ Pledge to America.
Education figured prominently into the administration’s midterm election strategy.
President Barack Obama tried it as a political wedge, claiming Republicans intend to pay for tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans by cutting education funding by as much as 20 percent, even though GOP leaders – including Majority Leader John Boehner of Ohio, the presumed incoming House speaker – reject that contention. Duncan, who occasionally shoots hoops with the president, helped him play defense for the Democrats. He stumped for pro-education reform candidates, including Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet, who is on the verge of retaking his seat in Washington, as well as Illinois Senate hopeful Alexi Giannoulias and Florida Rep. Alan Grayson, who both lost.
Nevertheless, there are signs of that bipartisan cooperation. Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, chairman of the Republican Governors Association, recently told POLITICO that education is an area of common ground. And Duncan remains positive even after several meetings on NCLB with the big eight House and Senate leaders.
“I’ve had folks on both side of the aisle comment that they wish other issues could be worked through in a similar fashion,” he said. “It’s been like a breath of fresh air for them.”
Duncan is driven by a sense of urgency. The United States has fallen behind in math and science education, while more American teens are dropping out of school.
“This is not some hypothetical issue or some theoretical challenge,” he said. “This is an immediate problem plaguing our country and we have to deal with it openly and honestly.”
Right now, interest in an overhaul of the education system is high: the president has committed to Republican-favored initiatives – charter schools, merit pay for teachers and firing teachers in failing schools – and NBC and its cable networks, spent a week of programming on the issue. At the same time, the pro-reform documentary “Waiting for Superman” – produced by the same director of “An Inconvenient Truth” — received national attention.
Meanwhile, the federal role in education has grown, and the Obama administration has boosted the government’s investment in education.
“Today’s impassioned debates about school reform no longer permit members of Congress to simply sprinkle education dollars upon local districts,” wrote American Enterprise Institute’s Rick Hess and Andrew Kelly. “The growing federal educational footprint has heated up disputes over testing and teacher evaluation, all while enmeshing education in larger debates about the size of government and the role of the private sector. Conservative skepticism over government spending, Democratic attacks on for-profit providers and the reach of federal policy may yield a degree of partisan rancor in an area heretofore known for its collegial norms.”
It’s a question of whether or not Republicans are prepared to hand Obama a victory on a major domestic-policy issue, like revamping NCLB. Reformers fret that the new GOP majority will block the administration’s legislative agenda with a barrage of subpoenas and investigations.
Despite their objections to Obama’s rhetoric, Boehner has called for immediate rollbacks to non-discretionary spending to pre-recession, pre-bailout 2008 levels. Independent studies say that would require cutting $105 billion, or more than 20 percent of spending in various departments, including the Education Department. Less funding would prevent the White House from distributing additional Pell Grant loans for college or extending “Race to the Top” competition, the crown jewel of the administration’s reform efforts.
Still, the would-be-speaker’s legislative career does include bipartisan work with the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) on the No Child Left Behind in 2002.
“He’s a tough and shrewd negotiator but he’s not rigidly idealistic that he won’t see pragmatic solutions,” said Charles Barone, who served as deputy staff director for the House Education and Labor Committee under Miller.
Barone, now director of federal policy for Democrats for Education Reform, quickly added, “but that was 10 years ago.”
Though Boehner, former chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, has the confidence at least one person in the Obama administration: Duncan.
“I’ve worked well with him,” said Duncan, who has known Boehner since his days as Chicago’s schools chief.