How Will Republican Wins Affect Federal Education Policy?

As Republican candidates gain dozens of seats in the House, claiming a majority over Democrats, education leaders wonder how the shift will impact federal education policies.

The answer remains unclear. Some thinkers cite education as an issue that can bridge the bipartisan divide in Congress, while others think a Republican-controlled House will undermine President Obama's education reforms.

According to The Washington Post, education may be a key area in which Obama will be able to form a bipartisan coalition.

The Washington Post explains,

Key Republican lawmakers appear receptive to the president's overtures on education reform in part because Obama backs teacher performance pay, charter schools and other innovations that challenge union orthodoxy.

Obama has hoped to revise the No Child Left Behind law put in place by President Bush.

According to The Washington Post, John Kline, the Republican representative in line to be the next chairman of the Education Committee, said,

"We need to fix No Child Left Behind. That is going to be a bipartisan effort."

Conversely, a recent article in Education Week argues that John Kline may seek to undermine Obama's Race to the Top initiative.

According to Education Week,

The Obama administration also asked for $1.35 billion in the fiscal 2011 budget to continue the Race to the Top program, a key administration priority born of the stimulus program, for an additional year and extend it to districts. Rep. Kline said in the interview that he wouldn't support that. He thinks the program was too rigid and imposed federal policy preferences on states.

Comments

[animatorfrank]

06:23 PM on 11/29/2010

The part of this issue that is not being addressed is the demands of the DE regarding testing. Please look at what is going to be tested in 2011-it's appalling. If at best the testing only tests a small portion of what should be really taught in school - music, creativity, patterning, physical education, art, dance to name only a few. What the tests test in the fourth grade is read and math, that’s it. The whole experience of learning is more than those two subjects, lots more, yet the DE only test math and reading, it like testing for how pure water is by testing only for gas and oil. There is no reason to rely on these very limited areas for understanding how kids are getting along in school. I have no idea who creates these tests - I can bet it's probably some corporate hacks that have a big contract that has been greased by the political process, made simple by the politicians that passed the education bills that benefited these 'educators'. But that's just speculation on my part, but I wouldn't put it pass the political jerks that use every issue they can get their hands on to advance their own personal slant on the world. End of rant.

[Galia Hannah]

07:16 PM on 11/09/2010

Given that Obama's education policy is extremely right-wing aimed at benefiting real state moguls, hedge funds, and billionaires, it is easy for Obama and the Republicans to make common cause on this right-wing attack on the public schools. Obama doesn't have "education reform" but a right-wing policy to dismantle public schools in order to benefit the billionaires. Obama use Race to the Top money to whip state school systems into line and into assaulting public schools and pushing the 2nd rate charters. But if Republicans try to stop Race to the Top money, then good for them. Sometimes people do the right things for the wrong reasons.

[mrnormalpants]

11:09 AM on 11/07/2010

Nice. The one and only silver lining to the past elections, apparently.

[DriversLicense]

06:42 PM on 11/06/2010

Unfortunately, both the Dems and the Repubs are beholden to corporations and foundations that have a monied interest in seeing the expansion of public money for charter schools. They are playing for the same team on this one.

[dorothy bnks]

06:20 PM on 11/06/2010

Republican will try to dismantle the Department of Education, leaving the funding responsibility to individual states. Many Tea Party Republicans have declared that a federally funded educational system is unconstitutional.

[grf67]

09:19 AM on 11/06/2010

It will not be good. The repubs are a continuing celebration of ignorance.

[paleoimage]

01:51 PM on 11/05/2010

Let's see... a large percentage of Republican legislators don't believe in the theory of evolution and consider the universe to be less than 10,000 years old. A majority of them want to revise history lessons to make "white and Christian" a bigger part of the curriculum. These facts don't bode well for a nation forced to compete technologically on a global level.

[antiplutocrat]

04:58 AM on 11/05/2010

The theory behind free trade agreements (e.g., NAFTA) was that the USA would export "grunt" jobs to make American businesses more profitable and then expand into high-tech, innovative, higher-paying jobs back in the USA for the presumably better better educated American citizens.

Two things went wrong with this plan: 1) American citizens weren't better educated and 2) businesses decided to sit on their profits or use profits to buy back stock in teir own companies.

Sadly, even if businesses were prepared to grow better paying jobs, American students, parents, and educators were too complacent to take advantage of them.

America, by hook or by crook, has got to start learning; not only to make a living, but to be able to make informed ballot-box choices. We have just voted in folks that want to sign more free trade agreements while, at the same time, eliminate the Education Department and reduce funding for educational initiatives.

Bootstrap time for American students.

[MarcEdward]

10:51 AM on 11/04/2010

So long story short, the President is willing to embrace bad ideas and the Republicans might go along with him.
great

[DriversLicense]

06:44 PM on 11/06/2010

You got it right.

[mediamarv]

09:27 PM on 11/03/2010

They will make it worse, if that's possible. Remember the failed No Child Left Behind brain child of what passes for GOPer intellegence?

[changing]

09:10 PM on 11/03/2010

Well, good for Rep. Kline-really sad when the Dem president is promoting a discrimatory program that rewards punitive measures towards teachers and kids. The Race to the Bottom promotes a separate and unequal education based on imposing draconian business practices on our schools. In fact, when I hear some Repubs saying they want to abolish the Ed Dept it sounds pretty good if it gets rid of Arnie Duncan.

[onrecess]

08:51 PM on 11/05/2010

Amen. States give in to the high-stakes test idiocy for 5% of their budget. Just say no!