Dive Brief:
- On Thursday, the House and Senate kicked off their conference on the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind, also known as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
- The four lawmakers who will spearhead the process include the architects of the Senate's bipartisan Every Child Achieves Act, Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Patty Murray (D-WA), as well as Reps. John Kline (R-Minn.) and Bobby Scott (D-Va.).
- Alexander called for a fall deadline for the conference process, but it’s not clear when a compromise might be reached.
Dive Insight:
Even the lawmakers' glossy statements made it clear that the four must clear significant partisan hurdles in order to produce a politically viable bill.
"There is a lot of work to do in the coming months, and I am confident we will be able to craft a bicameral education bill that reduces the federal role, restores local control, and empowers parents and education leaders,” Kline said.
Scott, meanwhile, called for a commitment to civil rights protections, one of the key Democratic Party goals that was largely left out of the House bill. "The right to educational opportunity knows no state boundaries, and federal law must protect this right for all students regardless of race, income, disability, or language status,” he said in a statement.
Meanwhile, their Senate colleagues, who shepherded an overwhelmingly bipartisan bill through their chamber, highlighted the potential difficulty of the conferencing process and called for consensus.