House Dems Pitch Education Plan

Democrats in the House proposed a $110 billion increase in federal spending on public schools in the next five years, more than twice what President Bush promised as a candidate for all education spending in the next decade.

Education cannot be done "on the cheap," one lawmaker said Wednesday.

The five-year plan by the House Democrats, coming a week after school-improvement plans from the Bush administration and two camps of Senate Democrats, is the most ambitious, and specific, on school dollars. It doubles the $17.7 billion now spent yearly on federal elementary and secondary school programs, but subtracts private-school vouchers and block grants — ideas that Mr. Bush may be forced to limit to achieve bipartisan cooperation on an education bill.

"This is not a problem we can solve on the cheap," said Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the House Education and Workforce Committee.

Mr. Bush, backed by conservatives, said last week he would consolidate dozens of programs into five general grant categories, test students annually to hold schools accountable for how much they learn, and award children vouchers to attend private schools. He did not say how much the program would cost, but during the campaign, Mr. Bush offered an education package costing $47 billion spread over 10 years.

Bush officials said the president would stick to his original ideas and leave specific dollars for the fiscal 2002 budget to be released later this month.

The administration continued to court Democrats with a meeting Wednesday between Education Secretary Rod Paige and top Senate Democrats and members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

In what Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., called "a very productive, positive meeting," Paige heard from SenatDemocrats who, like their House counterparts, are eager to save big-ticket Clinton-era programs to hire new teachers and open after-school centers.

Paige praised some portions of a compromise plan offered by Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., but did not say whether that plan or any other would be considered to replace the agenda Mr. Bush put forward during the campaign.

With expiration this year of the nation's key K-12 law, which covers federal programs for schools from kindergarten to 12th grade, lawmakers have competing plans to consider. Moderate Republicans would streamline Education Department-run projects and exclude vouchers. Lieberman's centrist plan would target more money to the poorest children, and exclude vouchers despite the senator's personal support of them.

Neither side has said what it would do, but both express an unprecedented willingness to cooperate.

"Our common concerns outweigh our differences," Miller said.

That compromise could mean Mr. Bush offers more money, leaves some highly specialized programs intact and limits private-school vouchers to a small experiment involving few students and few states.

Democrats for their part would have to shed a program or two, especially if they are proved ineffective in upcoming congressional probes, and accept spending a few federal dollars on voucher experiments for the neediest students.

The House plan, backed by 34 lawmakers, many of them liberals and members of the Black and Hispanic caucuses, seeks to preserve funding for technology discounts for schools and bilingual instruction projects not specified in the Bush proposal.