July 6, 2010

NREAC Conference Call

Phil Gerik
Claudette Morton
Don Rogers
Dave Walrath
Rob Mahaffey
John Hill
Ray Patrick
Joe Bard
Brian Talbott
Barb Havlicek
Marty Strange
Noelle Ellerson

We touched on a little bit of everything on our first day back from the holiday weekend. Here’s a quick recap:

Education Jobs Bill

• House Update: Read full detail in the AASA blog.
• Before the recess, the House passed an Obey amendment to the war supplemental.
• It includes $10 billion for educator jobs and is completely offset.
• $800 million of the offsets are education-related rescissions, and include $500 million from Race to the Top, $200 million from  Teacher Incentive Fund, and $100 million from Public Charters.
• The vote was not without drama, and included a Statement of Administrative Policy from the Administration which included a veto threat is the offsets include RttT, Charters, or TIF.
• Three Republicans (Castle (DE), Johnson (IL) and Kirk (IL)) voted for the amendment and 15 Democrats voted No (Baird (WA), Bright (AL), Cooper (TN), Dahlkemper (PA), Herseth Sandlin (SD), Markey (CO), Marshall (GA), Peterson (MN), Polis (CO), Skelton (MO), Snyder (AR), Tanner (TN), Taylor (MS), Visclosky (IN), Welch (VT)).  Read the roll call vote.
• Senate update: Read full detail Senate action in this blog entry.
• We have our work cut out for us in the Senate.  While we still have a fighting chance, it will take a lot of fighting and effort.
• The last time an educator jobs bill was in the Senate, it was a $23 billion dollar package without offsets, and it was meet with widespread opposition, mainly over the fact the the dollars were not offset and would contribute.
• We can't assume that Senators who opposed the funds the first time around because of offsets will automatically support it now. In fact, 13 Democratic Senators sent a letter to Chairman Inuoye opposing the House's $800  million education offsets, while expressing support for the education jobs money.
• Please weigh in with your Senator. To know how the $10 billion would impact your state, here are the NEA and USED runs for state allocations.

Child Nutrition

• The House Education and Labor Committee held a hearing on the Improving Nutrition for America's Children Act (H.R. 5504). This bill, similar to its Senate companion, S. 3307, has several provisions that concern AASA.
• As previously reported, if the bill goes through unchanged, districts may be forced to hire a certified food service professional to run its meal operations. Some of the changes also would affect indirect cost amounts, and districts may have to pick up more of the cost for children who pay full price.
• There are some positive items to note:  the bill would permit direct certification for student eligibility -- using data collected by Medicaid -- it would increase reimbursements for free and reduced-price meals, and it would improve nutrition standards (although not until 2014).
• The bill includes an $8 billion expansion in child nutrition programs, a funding increase that was opposed by Ranking Republican John Kline of Minnesota. He argued it would be unwise to move the bill out of committee before finding the money to fund the programs. Chairman George Miller said he is still searching for ways to pay for the increase in spending levels, and he remains committed to moving ahead with the bill.
• The House will mark up child nutrition next Wednesday, July 14.
• You recently received the links to a survey on the continued impact of the economic downturn on schools, and a link for a survey about Response to Intervention implementation. Thank you for your continued support of the AASA surveys. The information you give through the surveys is very helpful to the work Mary and I do; any time we can cite data detailing feedback from the field or constituents, it is invaluable. 

FY 11 Appropriations

• Continuing the apparent new mantra, ‘no spending,’ the chairs of the House and Senate Budget Committees said they will seek to lower total ‘discretionary’ funding for the fiscal year beginning October 1.  All federal education money is discretionary.
• The House chair suggested a cut of $7 billion from discretionary money proposed by the President for FY 2011 (school year 2011-2012). The Senate chair countered with $2 billion, and later said he might adopt the House number.  Education was the only discretionary budget area the President sought to increase, so these suggestions could affect spending for programs the President sought for school year 2011-1012.

FMAP

• As you may have read, the Senate failed to approve spending for several tax breaks, continued unemployment benefits and Medicaid increases.  Included within the Medicaid provision were funds to match school administrative payments. 
• Thirty states have already adopted budgets that assumed these Medicaid increases, so failure to reach a solution in Congress will bring further fiscal distress to state and local governments.
• At this point, the likelihood of states receiving the FMAP increases is very slim. The jobs funding looks more likely.
• That said, the absence of the FMAP increase puts state budgets in a very precarious situation, and the necessary adjustments to state budgets (i.e., cuts) will likely correlate to education cuts.

OTHER

• Formula Fairness: Marty Strange (Rural School and Community Trust) joined us with a formula fairness update.
• Highly unlikely we will see reauthorization this year.
• There will be a formula fight which will draw a lot of crowds and attention. We will be the small fish in the big bowl, and we’ll need to be at the table when these decisions are made.
• There is an (alarming) affection for competitive frants; there is a competitive component in almost every area of the presidential reauthorization proposal.
• It is hard to get people excited about an issue that is so much about numbers and not yet a crisis.
• We need to build an informed base and act quickly to get the right calls and messages delivered.
• E-Rate Comments: I have attached the latest set of E-Rate comments. They were submitted July 9.
• REAP Report: Earlier this month, USED issued a report finding that rural districts use federal funds toward effort to improve instruction and student achievement. (I can’t resist the sarcasm…but is this really a surprise?) I have attached the report to the email.

Dates to Note:

• The US Education Department is hosting the National Rural Education Technology Summit on July 20-21 in Washington DC.  I have attached the agenda and invitation to this email.
• Our next conference call will be Tuesday, August 10 at 1 pm EST
• The AASA Advocacy Conference is Sept. 22-24. You can register online or use the form included in this email.

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