International Reading Association
Legislative Update
April 12, 2013
I. Activities in San Antonio
II. LEARN Act – Quick Action Needed
III. Funding
IV. Coming Up Next
I. The upcoming IRA conference’s opportunities to focus on advocacy:
IRA Literacy Research Panel’s session on policy-
Saturday, Noon – 1:00 PM, room 214C, Convention Center
IRA Committee on the Common Core State Standards session for state council leaders on current issues impacting IRA members-
Sunday, 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM, room 206A, Convention Center
IRA Government Relations Committee workshop, with a major emphasis on the Common Core State Standards Assessments
Monday, 9:00 AM – 11:45 AM, room 006D, Convention Center
In addition if you wish time to talk with Rich Long about your government relations program, feel free to contact him at rlong@reading.org. At the conference he will be holding “office hours” on (feel free to stop by):
Saturday, 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM, lobby Marriott River Center, near Starbucks
Sunday, 10:00 AM – Noon, lobby Marriott River Center, near Starbucks
II. LEARN Act
The Literacy for All Americans, Results for the Nation (LEARN Act) will be reintroduced in the House and Senate over the next several weeks. IRA and other organizations have been supporting passage of this proposal. The House LEARN prime movers, Congressman Polis (D-CO) and Yarmuth (D-KY) are asking for other members of Congress to sign on as an original co-sponsor by Tuesday, April 16th.
Contact your member of Congress and ask them to co-sponsor the legislation. They will know how to do this.
If enacted, LEARN would provide funds to states to support professional development activities to support literacy instruction from age 0 to grade 12.
Last Congress we had 26 members sign on as original co-sponsors (six are no longer in Congress):
Rep Yarmuth (D-KY) – signed on
Rep Polis (D-CO) – signed on
Rep Cicilline (D-RI)
Rep Nadler (D-NY)
Rep Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) – signed on
Rep Clarke (D-NY)
Rep Rangel (D-NY)
Rep Hank Johnson (D-GA) – signed on
Rep Cohen (D-TN)
Rep Al Green (D-TX)
Rep Hinojosa (D-TX)
Rep Jackson Lee (D-TX) – signed on
Rep Grijalva (D-AZ)
Rep Loebsack (D-IA) – signed on
Rep Holmes Norton (D-DC) – signed on
Rep Sablan (D-MP)
Rep Scott (D-VA)
Rep Waters (D-CA)
Rep Wilson (D-FL) – signed on
Rep Rahall (D-WV)
Call your member of Congress at 202-225-3121. Ask for their office; when you reach that office state your request. To sign on, your member of Congress will need to then contact Rep. Polis or Rep. Yarmuth’s office.
III. Funding
On Wednesday, April 10th the President submitted his budget request to the Congress. It is his proposal for how the Congress should allocate funds. The proposal outlined ideas to provide universal Pre-K to be funded with an increased tobacco tax. It also asks for level funding for Title I and proposes to create a block grant for literacy by combining several current authorities, including the Striving Readers Comprehensive Literacy Program. The President has been proposing this change for three years. The proposal also includes recommendations to fund Race to the Top and the Investment in Innovation Fund (I3). To see a the full education budget document that includes explanations go to:
http://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/budget14/summary/14summary.pdf
The budget document has another twist. It doesn’t have final numbers from FY 13. These numbers were to be agreed to for the March 27th Continuing Resolution that funds the government until the next fiscal year (starting Oct 1st). This means that states will not be receiving information on how much will be flowing to the states that then goes to the local schools. For Title I schools this means that they will not know how they’re funding level for several more weeks. The reasons for this are that the sequester cut is in addition to an across-the-board cut, AND then, for Title I, it has to fit into the formula which also says no district can be cut more than 15%.
IV. Coming up
The Congressional budget process has completed action in both chambers (the President’s budget was two months late). It is questionable whether or not a House-Senate conference will be held. For education the two Congressional budget documents have the same allocation for the appropriators and this is less than last year’s level. This means that there are no additional funds to replace what was lost to the sequester – and it is likely the amount will be lower for FY 14 (school year 2-14-15).
We are also expecting information on the specific funding level for each school district receiving Title I funds in late April or early May.
During the summer the debt ceiling struggle will be back on the table.
Please remember that the summer Council Leadership Academy is going to include a set of workshops on legislation. This Council Leadership Academy is being held in Minneapolis, MN, June 28th–30th. A link with registration information will be sent to you soon.
Richard Long, Ed.D.
Director of Government Relations
International Reading Association
202-624-8801 (revised)
March 28, 2013
IRA Legislative Update
Topics
I. Funding – Sequestration, funding for the coming school year, and budget for next year. (Sign on your state council to a letter to support education funding.)
II. Reauthorization – Where we are with No Child Left Behind, the Higher Education Act, adult ed and early childhood.
III. Movement in State Capitols – Early education and literacy, teacher tests/evaluations and mandating curriculum.
IV. IRA’s Annual Conference – Attend sessions for state councils focused on advocacy in the core standards, and meet to discuss your advocacy program.
V. Request for IRA state councils to sign on to funding letter – IRA is joining many others in signing.
I. Funding
On March 1st the sequester took effect. For programs administered by the US Department of Education it meant a cut of over $2.2 billion dollars hitting 5% of the funding for programs such as Title I, Striving Readers, IDEA and many others. For the most part, these programs will see the cut in their July 1st allocation. What makes it more difficult is that for Title I programs, schools will have to wait to see their allocations before they can effectively plan. A 5% cut will mean many different things as districts must adhere to the requirements of the program and still follow requirements for maintenance of effort and changes required by the census. For the top 100 Title I school districts the 5% impacts them between 11% and 0. The US Department of Education has said that they may get preliminary allocations out by early May.
In mid-March the House and Senate passed a funding plan, called a continuing resolution to keep the US federal government operating for the balance of the fiscal year. In so doing they did not reverse the impact of sequestration on the domestic programs. They did change a little the funding levels for the Department of Defense. Basically, the funding plan sets spending, program by program, at last year’s level minus 5%.
While the Congress was working on a spending program for the current fiscal year (which for education is spent during the upcoming school year), the Congress began consideration of a blue print for spending for the next year. This budget process sets overall spending levels by mega-categories. While there are many differences in the political positioning of both the House and Senate budget blue prints, both were required to set the same spending level for the annual appropriated programs. But they did that with a difference. In the House plan the distribution of funds directs more money to the Department of Defense. The policy differences in the long-term are significant. The House pushes for a balanced budget in ten years with only spending cuts. The Senate pushes for funding reduction and increased revenues over the next ten years.
Please see the letter and memo at the end of this update. Consider signing on your state council by April 5th!
II. ReauthorizationThe Congress has nine major education bills to rewrite, but will not do all of them. However Congress is always talking about rewriting No Child Left Behind (The Elementary and Secondary Education Act – ESEA) sometime soon. The Chairman of the Senate education committee, Senator Harkin (D-IA) has said he wants to move a bill in the Senate by the end of this calendar year. Senate education staff is planning on drafting a new bill early in the summer. It sounds like the House is planning on reintroducing the five bills that passed the House education committee last year (on flexibility, charters, accountability, teachers, and eliminating programs).The Senate and House education committees are aware that they need to deal with two major issues involving higher education: the need to readjust the student loan rate (scheduled to go above 9% this summer) and the need to manage the cost over-run of the Pell Grants. However, if the committees move toward rewriting the Higher Education Act, we will be focused o the section on supporting pre-service teacher education. In addition, the Congress may well take up the Child Care Community Block Grant and or the Head Start Act. These Acts may well become vehicles for changing early childhood education to reflect more attention on early literacy development. Most likely the Obama administration will be pushing these measures in this direction.III. State activities
Several states have education initiatives covering a wide number of subjects. To find out what is going on in your state check with the education committees of your legislator to learn:
1. Is my state looking into teacher testing (teacher evaluation)?2. Is my state looking to test new teachers for specific pedagogy?3. Is my state looking into an early childhood screening assessment?4. Is my state looking into mandating a specific curriculum? Assessment?
Several governors are viewing the early childhood initiatives of the Obama administration and others as an opportunity to push for early identification of children who will be struggling readers. IV. IRA Conference Activities
The upcoming IRA conference will have several opportunities to focus on advocacy:
IRA Literacy Research Panel’s session on policy-
Saturday Noon – 1:00, room 214C of the Convention Center
IRA Committee on the Common Core State Standards session for state council leaders on current issues impacting IRA members-Sunday, 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM, room 206A, Convention Center
IRA Government Relations Committee workshop, with a major emphasis on the Common Core State Standards Assessments
Monday, from 9:00 AM – 11:45 AM, Room 006D, Convention Center
In addition if you wish to schedule time to talk with Rich Long about your government relations program, contact him at rlong@reading.org. He will be holding “office hours” on:
Saturday, 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM, lobby Marriott River Center, near Starbucks
Sunday, 10:00 AM – Noon, lobby Marriott River Center, near Starbucks
V. Requested sign on letter
SIGN ON TO SUPPORT INVESTMENTS IN EDUCATION, HEALTH, CHILDREN'S PROGRAMS AND WORKFORCE TRAINING!
At the end of memo is a letter- being circulated throughout the health, education, children's and workforce communities-urging appropriators to provide the Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Subcommittees the largest possible "302(b)" allocation in FY 2014. The 302 (b) is the overall funding level.
TO SIGN, CLICK HERE BY COB APRIL 5:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1M_lBjlXET1zwjTOr6mnFi5jFKkUzlV5hndw-mEk71BI/viewform?pli=1
Please note that in the interest of expediency, and as a courtesy to the hundreds or organizations that will sign, we will not accept editorial changes to the letter. Signers must agree to sign the letter "as is."
Below are some FAQs to help you understand this advocacy effort, and build support for the letter within your organization and throughout the community. We are encouraging not just national organizations to sign, but also want state and local organizations, state and local government entities and agencies, individual institutions of higher education, school districts, etc.
What is the 302(b) letter?
The 302(b) allocation is the amount of funding the Appropriations Committees provide to each of their 12 subcommittees. The subcommittees then divide up the funding between the agencies and programs within their respective jurisdictions and provide the line-by-line funding each program for that year. The Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Subcommittees provides funding for virtually all federal education and related programs of concern to students, schools, states, postsecondary education, libraries and museums including all funding for the U.S. Department of Education, Head Start and the Child Care Development Block Grant in HHS, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the Corporation for National and Community Service and research support at the National Institutes for Health. Each year, the Committee on Education Funding, the Coalition for Health Funding, and the Campaign to Invest in America's Workforce partner to circulate a letter throughout our respective communities in support of strong 302(b) allocations for the House and Senate Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Subcommittees. The bigger the allocations, the better our chances of securing funding for these agencies and programs; or in the current environment, preventing further cuts.
Why are you circulating the letter now?
With the House and Senate having each passed their respective budget resolutions, appropriators will now move forward in preparing to make the 302(b) allocations to the subcommittees. Time is of the essence. Our goal is to secure 900+ signatories-the same amount as last year-across our communities so we may have a meaningful impact on these decisions.
Why should my organization sign the letter?
At this stage in the appropriations process, discretionary health programs are competing for funding with all of the other nondefense discretionary programs within the spending caps established by the budget resolutions. If you care about federal funding for discretionary education, health, workforce training and related programs, you should sign this letter. Without a strong 302(b) allocation for Labor-HHS-Education, there is very little chance of increasing funding for your priorities. And there is an even greater likelihood that your priorities will be cut.
What happens once my organization signs?
All signatures will be added to the letter and sent to the House and Senate Appropriations Committees on April 15. We will forward you a copy of the letter for your records. A copy will also be posted on both the Coalition for Health Funding's website: www.publichealthfunding.org and the Committee for Education Funding's website: www.cef.org.
What can I do to help with this effort?
Sign on, of course and/or forward this message and letter far and wide. We are accepting signatures from national, state, and local organizations, institutions, school districts, businesses, companies, etc. Anyone and everyone who cares about education funding. But no individuals, please! If you sign the letter you must have the authority to sign-on your organization, institution or agency.
TO SIGN, CLICK HERE BY COB APRIL 5
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1M_lBjlXET1zwjTOr6mnFi5jFKkUzlV5hndw-mEk71BI/viewform?pli=1
Letter
Page 1 of 2
April XX, 2013
The Honorable Barbara Mikulski Chairman
Committee on Appropriations
U.S. Senate
Washington, DC 20510
The Honorable Harold Rogers
Chairman
Committee on Appropriations
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515 |
The Honorable Richard Shelby Ranking Member
Committee on Appropriations
Washington, DC 20510
The Honorable Nita Lowey
Ranking Member
Committee on Appropriations
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515
|
The XXX undersigned organizations-representing the full range of stakeholders in the programs of the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services (HHS), and Educationundefinedurge you to provide the largest possible FY 2014 302(b) allocation to the Labor, HHS, Education and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee. Rebuilding our investment in these domestic programs will boost the economy and reduce the deficit through prevention of costly chronic diseases, increased earnings, and reduced expenditures for unemployment and other social service programs.
The programs and services administered by these Departments serve a broad range of constituencies and needs, but they all share a common, fundamental goal of strengthening this nation by improving Americans’ lives. Despite their profound impact on American health, educational and skills attainment, and productivity, these programs and services have been deeply cut since FY 2010. These and other discretionary programs have contributed $1.5 trillion in spending cuts from the Fiscal Year 2011 Continuing Resolution, the Budget Control Act, and the American Taxpayer Relief Act. Under sequestration, these programs have been cut even deeper. The FY 2013 cuts to these programs alone total almost $9 billion.
With the rapid erosion of these critical federal functions, America stands to fall even farther behind our industrialized counterparts:
- The United States ranks 30th in infant mortality – widely recognized as a basic indicator of a country’s overall health – behind even some developing countries.
- The United States faces large and unacceptable gaps by race and socioeconomic status in student achievement, high school graduation, and college attendance and completion rates.
- Despite a 7.7 percent unemployment rate, our nation’s businesses are struggling to find the skilled workers they need to sustain economic recovery, as a 2012 Manpower survey found 50 percent of U.S. employers report having difficulty filling current job openings.
More than 3,200 organizations have previously called on Congress to stop sequestration. Although sequestration is already in effect, we continue to urge you to work with your colleagues to reverse these harmful cuts by replacing them with a credible, balanced approach to deficit reduction that does not include further cuts to programs that have already done their part. Only a balanced approach to deficit reduction can restore fiscal stability. Continued cuts will move us backward in growing the economy, increasing jobs, improving global competiveness, protecting the health of Americans and increasing educational attainment.
It is shortsighted to further cut discretionary funding in the interest of deficit reduction. We urge you to recognize the value of health, education, job training, and social services in improving the lives of American families and strengthening our global position. These discretionary programs should be protected from further cuts that will have profound consequences on our nation’s global competitiveness and our capacity to address the needs of the most vulnerable.
If you have questions about this letter, please contact Emily Holubowich, Coalition for Health Funding (202-484-1100 or eholubowich@dc-crd.com), Joel Packer, Committee for Education Funding (202-383-0083 or JPacker@cef.org), or Rachel Gragg, Campaign to Invest in America’s Workforce (202-223-8991 or rachelg@nationalskillscoalition.org).
November 25, 2012
To: IRA State Council Leaders
From: Rich Long, IRA Government Relations
Subject: Impact on education of the November 2012 elections
The results of the November elections will have a significant impact on education. Not only on the federal level but the state level as well. In combination classrooms will be impacted with changes in how large classrooms are, who will have access to additional resources and how changes will be implemented. It is important to note that there are over 80 new members of Congress (out of 435), 2000 new state legislators (out of 7,000), that the Republicans control 30 governorships, the US House of Representatives and every state legislature in the old Confederacy.
Near Term –
- 1. Federal funding for education is part of the mix on resolving the fiscal cliff issues. (The fiscal cliff is the automatic spending cuts that hit the federal sector on January 2, 2013 and the automatic tax increases on December 31, 2012 – note most of the automatic cuts to education don’t hit until July 2013.) If the federal government does not increase revenues, the only way to reduce the deficit will be funding cuts, education would be a part of those cuts. Currently, Title I, IDEA and Pell Grants make up 70% of USED education spending.
- 2. State legislation – Ohio (in a lame duck session) and several other states are taking up teaching of reading, teacher education, early childhood assessment and other issues as an attempt to improve early reading education.
- a. Note – the National Governors Association is building a significant effort in the area of early childhood literacy
- b. States with waivers – the states with waivers are in a bit of a pickle, many are trying to figure out how to implement what they have agreed to do, this includes but is not limited to:
- i. Teacher and principal evaluations
- ii. Implementing college and career ready standards
- 3. Core Standards – while several states are debating whether or not to reverse their agreement to adopt the core standards but most are going ahead with implementation. Most are assuming:
- a. There need to be funds for curriculum development and professional development (the key issue is will there be enough funding).
- b. When the new assessments come on-line they will show an overall drop in student achievement.
- i. It will also show a bigger achievement gap than has been reported before.
- ii. There will also be many questions on the use of technology for the assessment
-
- Into the Spring of 2013
-
- 4. Reauthorizations – there are eight different measures that the Congress could take up during the next two years. As of now it looks like early childhood and Higher Education are the two first out of the box. The Higher Education Act is mostly about student loans and Pell Grants, but there are also sections on teacher education. There will also be a continued push to create public Charter Institutions of Teacher Education to by-pass traditional state certification.
- a. No Child Left Behind (Elementary and Secondary Education Act) has been up for rewriting. The Senate education committee chair wishes to move it soon, and the House education chair has said he too wishes to move it forward but he may have over half of his committee change (again to a majority (of the majority) being new to the Congress and to education).
- b. Other issues pending are: Perkins Act, Head Start, Child-Care Community Block Grant, Institute for Education Sciences, Workforce Investment Act, and Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).
- 5. Education Funding in FY 13 and beyond
- a. The spending for the next school year by the federal government will need to be updated by March 27th. This is different than the fiscal cliff issues which are more about overall levels (this much for education, this much for defense) and more about how much for specific programs (Striving Readers, Title I, IDEA, etc.).
Looking a bit over the horizon –
- 6. There will be increased links between Title I and Head Start
- 7. There will be increased links between IDEA and Title I
- 8. There will be increased links between technology and instruction
- 9. The Administration will begin to shift to more emphasis on personalization of instruction.
- 10. The role of the manufacturing sector to force attention on improving literacy instruction will become significant – over 600,000 jobs in the US are going wanting for people with the literacy skills needed to meet the demands of those jobs.
IRA Legislative Update
October 16, 2012
To: Council Leaders
From: IRA Government Relations
Subject: Common Core, Education on Advocacy, Requests for comments and a brief Update
_____________________________________________________________________
Please share this update on IRA’s new Guidelines for the Common Core, Plus a Q & A section on the Common Core State Standards on IRA’s website, IRA’s new University of Advocacy webinars; IRA’s proposed statement on “Universal Principles: Essential Role of the Teacher in Classrooms, Schools, and Society; and Richard Long’s legislative update.
Common Core State Standards (CCSS)
Wondering what are the links between the English Language Common Core State Standards and reading? Take a look at: IRA Guidance on CCSS. This will give you several ideas how to coordinate your curriculum, the needs of your students with the CCSS. In addition, the IRA Committee on the CCSS has developed a Q & A section on the website. Please tell your members and colleague they can ask for help in understanding, interpreting and implementing the CCSS by going to: IRA Q A on CCSS
What is University of Advocacy?
The “University of Advocacy” is a set of courses that will be offered over the next two years to provide a deeper background on advocacy. Each “course” will stand on its own, so it isn’t a two year commitment if you sign up for the first course.
The first course is five one-hour webinars on consecutive Tuesday nights at 8 pm (Eastern time). These “PolySci 101” sessions will get you up to speed in a fun, fast way as to how the mechanisms of government work. The evening sessions will be on:
1. Oct 23rd - Overview of the three branches of government, federalism, and the history of federal education involvement
2. Oct 30th - How the executive branch functions in relationship to education: a look at regulations, rulemaking, guidance, budgets and the bully pulpit
3. Nov 6th - (Yes, it is election night, but before the results come in.) The legislative branch’s impact on education decisions: how committees work, the budget system, appropriations, and oversight made simple
4. Nov 13th - Role of the courts in federal and state education law
5. Nov 27th – Summary: putting it all together and where to go from here
How do you participate? Sign up for the webinars here. After airing, these webinars will be posted on the advocacy page of www.reading.org.
Essential Role of the Teacher in Classrooms, Schools, and Society: IRA is developing a statement on teacher principles. Your comments are needed before November 1, 2012.
IRA has had a team of teachers from all levels working on a set of statements regarding what governments are doing to impact schools and students. At present, most programs are oriented towards government setting goals, deciding on assessments to evaluate those goals, and demanding results. IRA believes that a new social contract needs to be created between teachers and the government in order to create schools where students thrive. The draft that outlines this agreement.
What do you think? Should IRA continue down this path to speak on the professional issues impacting teaching, learning, and students? Are we missing a key element? Can it be better said? Should we change parts of it?
We invite you to review this statement and comment by November 1st. Read the draft statement and submit your comments here: UNIVERSAL PRINCIPLES: The Essential Role of the Teacher in Classrooms, Schools, and Society
Federal Issues
The US Department of Education is continuing to talk with states about their applications to be exempt from the requirements of No Child Left Behind by agreeing to make significant changes in eleven critical areas. These areas include adopting college- and career-ready standards (such as the Common Core State Standards); linking teacher and principal evaluation to student performance, and other changes. It is expected that 35 states will submit requests for waivers.
In addition, the Congress passed a funding bill to get the government functioning until March 27th. This spending plan actually includes a small 0.006% increase in funding for education programs. A decision on how to allocate this funding will be made over the next few weeks.
The sequestration of funds; a major part of the deficit reduction program passed last year will take effect on January 2nd. Most education programs will not be cut until July 2013 – except for Impact Aid which will be cut by over 8% on January 2, 2013. While it is possible for the upcoming lame duck session to change the sequestration, it is likely only to happen if there is some type of large scale agreement on taxes and entitlement spending, military spending, along with the domestic areas.
On November 13th the Congress reconvenes for its lame-duck session. This post-election meeting is to decide on many issues, the largest being the long-term deficit plan. It is possible that the Congress and Administration will not come to any agreement on the fiscal issues and we will go into the new year with taxes automatically being raised, cuts automatically being made to the military and to social programs. One senior senator has said that he expects the cuts to take effect and then the new Congress to act to turn them around.
Follow Rich Long on Twitter! @RLongliteracy
*********************
Richard M. Long, Ed.D.
Director, Government Relations
International Reading Association
Suite 640
444 North Capitol Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001
(202) 624-8801
(202) 624-8826 (fax)
rlong@reading.org
