(From The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, July 3, 2010)
By DIANA MARRERO
Washington — Saying teachers across the country could lose their jobs if he doesn’t act, Rep. Dave Obey is waging what could become his last major battle in Congress – securing $10 billion to prevent school layoffs.
Obey, a Wausau Democrat who controls a major chunk of the federal budget as chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, is asking lawmakers to pay for the education jobs measure by cutting, among other things, $500 million from the $4.35 billion Race to the Top fund that has been a top priority for President Barack Obama. The 41-year veteran of the House is retiring at the end of this year.
So far, Obey has won the latest round in the fight: the House on Thursday approved his proposal as part of a war spending bill before leaving Washington for the July 4 recess. But his stance pits Obey against the Senate – which would have to approve the measure before it can become law – and even the president himself. Obama has threatened to veto the legislation if it includes cuts to education reform programs.
Wisconsin has a stake in the battle – the state is applying for $250 million in Race to the Top grants – but Obey said he has no choice but to make the cuts. Teachers’ jobs are at stake, and by extension, so are the size of classrooms and the quality of U.S. education, he argued.
“Any teachers’ job you save is a job that ought to be saved,” he said.
Obey is also calling for a $300 million reduction in other education reform programs, including a fund to help schools implement performance-pay models for teachers and principals, and a fund for charter schools.
Fire from both parties
His proposal is coming under fire from Republicans and Democrats alike. The veteran lawmaker included the teacher funding measure as an amendment to a war spending bill that allocates roughly $37 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“We totally appreciate his commitment to helping preserve these jobs,” said Peter Cunningham, assistant education secretary for communications. “We just think these are the wrong offsets, and we’d like to work with him to find other ones.”
Charles Barone, director of federal policy for Democrats for Education Reform, a national group that has kept tabs on Wisconsin’s efforts to qualify for Race to the Top funds, said Obey’s proposal would unfairly make legislators vote against education reform.
“We think it’s a false choice,” Barone said. “(Race to the Top) has been mobilizing states to make major changes. Wisconsin would still have a firewall on student test scores being used to evaluate teacher performance if not for the competition.”
Republicans, meanwhile, accuse Obey and other Democrats of misplaced priorities and vow to continue opposing any war spending bill that includes the Wausau Democrat’s amendment.
“Democrats have shown their true priorities, jumping at the chance to discard education reform to salvage an unpopular bailout for the education establishment,” Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.), the top Republican on the House Education and Labor Committee, said in a statement.
Rep. Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican and chief deputy whip, said Democrats shouldn’t use a war bill to try to fund unrelated items.
“Military spending bills should be about the military and nothing else,” he said.
Obey ready to fight
Obey has for months been trying to drum up support for additional funding to prevent teacher layoffs given that economic stimulus funding that kept many teachers on the job is drying up. He originally asked for $23 billion, but congressional concerns about spending have thwarted his efforts.
The veteran lawmaker appears to be digging in for a fight – possibly one of his last in Congress. Obey, a vocal critic of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, has been a strong supporter of education funding, saying the nation spends too much on war and too little on education. The argument is a familiar theme for Obey, who made similar pronouncements as a young House member during the Vietnam War. Now, Obey warns that thousands of teachers could get “pink slips” next year if Congress fails to help states now facing major budget shortfalls as a result of the economic downturn.
That has already become a reality this year in many Wisconsin districts. Most laid off just a few teachers, except for Milwaukee Public Schools, which sent layoff notices to 482 teachers, 568 substitute teachers and 223 general aides and paraprofessionals in recent weeks. Some of the full-time teachers in MPS are expected to start getting recalled in July, once the district gets an accurate count of retirees and vacancies in schools.
Obey said he helped get the Race to the Top funding approved in Congress, but the money was designated for the program at a time when lawmakers “had the luxury of focusing on education reform.” He added that the Race to the Top funds left as part of his proposal are still “far more money to dispose of without any oversight” than any other secretary of education has ever had in the history of the country.
“Half the teachers whose jobs were saved last year by the recovery package are now about to get pink slips because that money is running out,” he said. “Why should we leave over $4 billion sloshing around while teachers are losing their jobs in every community in this country?”
Reform effort praised
But Race to the Top has also been praised as one of the most innovative national education reform initiatives ever launched, mostly because it’s spurred states to make changes despite the fact that many may not win any money. The first round of the competition yielded only two recipients – Delaware and Tennessee. Finalists in the second round of the competition won’t be announced until the end of July; 10 to 15 are expected to win funding.
Wisconsin’s chances of winning in the second round of the competition are unclear. If it loses Race to the Top, it could stand to benefit more from Obey’s proposal than the grant competition.
But Cynthia Brown, vice president of educational policy at the Center for American Progress, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington D.C., said innovative education reform programs such as Race to the Top should be preserved, even in the face of potentially large and unpopular teacher layoffs.
“We cannot continue to put dollars in our nation’s languishing school system without making demands for change,” she said in a statement.
In addition to the Race to the Top cuts, Obey’s amendment includes $11.7 billion in cuts from programs he argues no longer require the funding, have sufficient funds on hand or won’t need the funding immediately.
Among his proposed offsets are $602 million in stimulus funding for broadband grants through the Agriculture Department; $487 million in stimulus money for a women and children’s food program and $500 million for military construction projects. Every Wisconsin Democrat voted for Obey’s amendment. Wisconsin Republicans voted no.
The House and Senate must reconcile their differences before the measure can go to the president for his signature. Senate Republicans have said they would not support the legislation if it includes Obey’s amendment. And Senate Democrats are unlikely to embrace Obey’s changes either.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates had asked lawmakers to finalize the war spending bill before the weeklong congressional recess, saying that inaction could force the military to dip into its domestic maintenance and operations budgets to continue funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Erin Richards of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.