7/12/10- Let's just call this the day of conference calls...I guess this is how Monday's will be for the rest of the summer, but it has certainly been a difficult transition for me to have to sit through multiple meetings in a day. Every Monday morning starts off with a call to a policy analyst who gives us the low down on what education policy news is happening in Washington for the week. This week we mainly discussed (or I should say my bosses discussed and I listened in on) how the edujobs bill proposed by Rep. Obey and passed by the house is putting the democratic party and particularly Pres. Obama in a political pickle because now many legislators are being forced to choose between "reform" (aka- Race to the Top), and "jobs" (aka- using money to prevent teacher layoffs). This has split the democratic party, and is certainly a situation where the republicans are probably sitting back and enjoying the show. After this initial conference call, we then had another documentarians call regarding our jobs as bloggers during the retreat. Although last week we had decided not to blog and chat, this week the position was reversed, and a chat was added to the website. Later in the afternoon, we then had a PAG call (which stands for Policy Action Group), which is basically a repeat of the morning call, except this time we had our members on the phone to keep them updated. And lastly, we ended the day with an overall retreat planning conference call, where it was decided that there were too many speakers and panels scheduled, and it needed to be scaled back.
7/13/2010- So today I actually had the entire day free of meetings, and it was nice to enjoy the solid blocks of work time. Jason and I have begun our success stories projects, and so now we are waiting to hear back from our members so that we can compile a list of success stories to eventually bring to the hill during our lobbying meetings. In order to make our lives a lot easier in the long run, we decided that it would be much easier for us to create a detailed tracking sheet documenting which responses we have received, and which ones we will need to send follow-ups to. Other than that main project, I assisted Jason with making edits and changes to the conference website by providing my critical eye, and had the day to do a lot of reading of education news and blogs. After work, TFA planned a very nice dinner for all of the PALI fellows at an upscale soul food restaurant called Georgia Brown's. After indulging in fried green tomatoes, fried catfish and shrimp and grits, I was very stuffed and looking forward to making my way back home. Unfortunately, I left the restaurant at the worst possible time, and just as I walked a block away, the skies opened up, and I got drenched in the pouring rain, despite my efforts to hold an umbrella. On top of that, I had to stand under a burger king awning for about 15 minutes, and watched one of the craziest thunder and lightning shows I have ever seen (or at least remember since I've been in LA for 6 years). I finally decided that it was worth the money to take a cab home, rather than trying to wait for the bus in a thunderstorm.
7/14/2010: This morning, Jason and I got to attend a polling data release event hosted by the Alliance for Excellent Education. The event was actually hosted by the President of AEE, former West Virginia Governor, Bob Wise, and featured the pollsters, Celinda Lake and Christine Matthews. Celinda is a very well-known pollster for the democratic party, and Christine frequently serves as a polling correspondent on BBC America and other news outlets. The poll that had been conducted was trying to test "voters feel towards education issues" in the upcoming election. Not too surprisingly, the results showed that education is a huge voting issue, and overwhelmingly, people from both parties would like to see reauthorization of ESEA (Elementary and Secondary Education Act- aka- No Child Left Behind) by the end of this year. The major take away messages from the data suggest that people would like to see a greater focus of high school reform in the bill, and that candidates running for office would be very smart to run on an education platform since it appeals to people from all parties, and particularly independent women (who apparently will be deciding this November's election). It would have been nice for the poll to have asked questions about how people want to see education reform take place, rather than just explaining the obvious that people think our education system is broken.
P.S.- Happy Bastille Day, this is apparently a big deal in DC considering that I attended a block party in honor of the holiday that was jam packed with festive DC residents.
7/15/2010: I have to say that today has been by far the most exciting day of my internship to date. This is mainly because I spent the entire day on Capitol Hill in a series of meetings and events. The day began with me and my boss Jim attending a forum hosted by the AEE on School Turnaround. This event featured a panel of 2 secondary school principals who were able to turn their schools around in a 5-10 year period, as well as the chief education adviser for the House authorizing committee (majority party), Jamie Fasteau, and the chief education adviser for the Senate HELP committee (minority party), Lindsay Hunsicker. Both of the chief advisers were informative in explaining how the democratic leadership and republican leadership plan on moving forward with ESEA reauthorization. It was certainly a different explanation coming from each adviser, with the democratic leadership really hoping to reauthorize ESEA by the end of this year, and the republican leadership being a little more realistic in saying that it will not happen considering that there are only 7 weeks left in this legislative session. I just do not understand how lawmakers do not feel that education is a priority, especially since the bill has not been reauthorized since 2001- that's almost 1o years since we have let a failing education policy (NCLB) go on without A SINGLE REVISION. Anyways, after this meeting, I then met up with Jason, and we engaged in the oh-so-important intern task of "line sitting." Today was the day when the House Appropriations Sub-Committee for Labor, HHS, and Education were doing their mark up for the FY 11 budget. This is the day that many lobbyists and organizations wait for because it is the day that they get to see how much money is being appropriated to the different programs in the budget. Thus, people actually hire people to come and sit in line for them since the mark up room is so tiny. Jason and I arrived about 3 hours earlier than the mark up was scheduled to take place, and we were still about 25 people back. After enjoying delicious burritos in the Rayburn cafeteria and the 3 hours to sit and read the newspaper and books, Jim finally joined us as we waited to get into the room. Unfortunately, despite our efforts, we did not make it initially into the mark up room, and we had to wait outside patiently until other people started leaving and seats became available. Finally, after about 45 minutes all 3 of us were able to make it into the room. This was very exciting for me because I was about 10 feet away from a large table with 16 house representatives sitting around it making policy. When I came in, the Republican chair on the committee, Rep. Tihart from Kansas, was going through his list of 13 amendments that he wanted to make to the appropriations bill. These amendments were RIDICULOUS, such as, "we should repeal health care," or "anyone detained at Guantanamo should never be allowed to receive federal assistance, even if they are proven innocent," and every single one of them was voted down on an 11-5 party line vote. Finally, after about 3 hours of this, the committee finally voted to approve the appropriations bill (once again on an 11-5 party line vote), and the committee toasted Chairman Rep. Obey (D-WI) for his years of service since he is retiring at the end of this year. Unfortunately, the committee decided to embargo the actual appropriations bill (this never happens) until full committee, so we were unable to see any actual numbers for R&D programs. This certainly has my boss worried because he is not sure if the CC's, REL's and R&D Centers will be receiving funding for next year, and that money would be critical for our members. We finally left the Capitol building around 8 PM, it was certainly a long and exciting day of political theater.
7/16/2010: When the bosses are away the interns will play....not so much. Despite having no bosses at the office, today was actually one of the busiest and productive days I have had at the office. The day began with Jason and I attending a policy breakfast hosted by the Committee for Education Funding (CEF), which is a weekly meeting that briefs those in the education community with all of the happenings on the Hill concerning education funding. This week's guest speaker was the chief of staff from Senator Jack Reed's office (D-RI), who is a very progressive education senator in the sense that he is certainly fighting very hard for the current education jobs bill being included in Senate legislation going to the floor next week. The highlight of the meeting, however, was having special guest Steve Zimmer in the audience. I immediately perked up when they introduced him because Steve is a member of the LAUSD board of education, and was a 1992 TFA Los Angeles corps member. Thus, when I introduced myself, I mentioned that I was a teacher in LAUSD, and when the meeting was over, he was very excited to hear what I was doing in DC, and was even more excited to learn that I would be returning to teach in LAUSD in the fall. He gave me his business card and asked me to send him an email when I returned, which I'm sure was an empty gesture, but it made me feel honored nonetheless. The rest of the day was spent at the office mainly working on editing down some of the success story responses we have received from our members, as well as tweeting for the office (Friday is my day, you should follow us at knowledgeall), and writing blurbs for our weekly publication to our members called the Knowledgeable Source. I really feel like I am starting to get into the groove in the office, and certainly am feeling more confident in contributing to written publications. I am looking forward to next week, which will hopefully include the full House Appropriations mark up and another day on the hill!
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