7/26/10: The week began again with the typical morning call to Ellen- not too much to report new other than the anticipation of the Senate appropriations mark up taking place the next day. Ellen was pretty certain that the Senate would not embargo the appropriations like the House, so it would be the first time we would actually be able to get a feel of how R&D would fare in the federal government this year. (Aka- how much does the federal government value the role of R&D in education?). After this call, Augustus, Jason and I headed over to the Raben Group offices (a lobbying LLC), to listen to a head member from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) to give a forecast of how the Democrats will fare in the midterm elections. Although the speaker was very optimistic in predicting that the Dems would not lose either the House or the Senate, we were a little less optimistic. It appears as though the Dems are currently raising more money than the Republicans, however, this is not including any of the special interest money from corporations, which will clearly set Republicans over the edge. I really don’t think that anyone knows how the election will play out in November, but it will be certain that we will lose at least 20-30 seats in the House, and maybe 6-7 in the Senate. Either way, this election will only further deepen the partisan divide in Washington for the remaining 2 years in Obama’s first term.
7/27/10: Today was an exciting day for me because I got to attend the National Press Club luncheon to hear Secretary Arne Duncan give a major speech on Education, and release the finalists for Race to the Top round 2. The press club itself was quite the experience , with the old wooden paneled walls, and pictures of old politicians in the press club throughout the ages. The food itself was absolutely terrible, but they had really cute cookies that were “teacher themed” for dessert. Sec. Duncan’s speech was not anything I hadn’t heard before, but since it was being taped for C-Span, I’m sure he was just sticking to his talking points. When he made the announcement for RttT, he ended up awarding 18 states and DC as finalists, which means that those states will now come and make presentations to the Dept. of Education, and most likely 5-10 winners will be selected to receive the grant money in early September. Whatever criticisms people have of the program, it is irrefutable that RttT has caused states to make drastic education policy changes without ever spending a single dime. I don’t want to get into the whole formula versus competitive funding debate, but I do know that the status quo is not working, and we have to be innovative in our approach to ed. reform at this point. After the speech, I headed back to the office, while Jason, Augustus and Jim went to the Senate subcommittee appropriations mark up for Labor, HHS, and Ed. Apparently this mark up was very different from the House subcommittee, which meant that it only lasted 10 minutes, and then everybody just ran up to staffers at the end to find out how much money was given for their individual programs. It was great news for R&D however, because the Institute for Education Sciences actually got an increase in funding for the upcoming fiscal year, while many other programs were being cut.
7/28/10: This morning began with a very early event put on by National Journal Live, and it was an event to discuss the state of education policy in the country. The guest speaker was Rep. George Miller (D-CA), who is the chairman of the House Education Committee, and is a very key player in shaping what education policy passes the House. After his interview, a panel including AFT president Randi Weingarten, and the President of the New Teacher Project came on and basically “graded” the current education system and had to make suggestions for improvement. It was no surprise that the panelists gave the current system a failing grade, although they both agreed that that failing grade was only for some of the students and schools, while recognizing that there are school systems that are working for the students. After this event, (actually in the middle of it), I had to make my way to the Department of Education building to participate in a teacher-focused discussion with some members of the Department, as well as their current Teacher Ambassador Fellows. This discussion mainly focused on trying to come up with solutions to some of the most pressing teacher issues today, such as how can we fairly evaluate teachers? and how can we get teachers to stay at some of the most underperforming schools? It was really encouraging that this discussion was being led by and held for teachers who know best what the conditions are like on the ground. I think some of the interesting ideas that were brought up were potentially having parents involved in the evaluation process, as well as giving the teachers the opportunity to evaluate their administration so that there are 360 degrees of accountability. Lastly, following this discussion, I headed back to the office where we held our final retreat planning committee meeting to go over all of the final details of the retreat. I actually was able to order 80 handmade dream catchers as party favors to be ready by Sunday, and finally finished the agendas.
7/29/10: Today was a very jam packed day as well because I was running all over the place to attend meetings and markups. I attended another TFA brownbag lunch, with guest speaker Frederick Hess from the American Enterprise Institute. Now I knew Rick Hess was a conservative guy who would be speaking about the idea of market-based reform in schools (aka- for profit schools), but I did not realize how inflammatory his remarks would be. I think he is a very intelligent man, who I think does have some interesting ideas, but I found his delivery of them to be slightly offensive and off-putting. I mean, he really did not feel concerned with being politically correct, and he made comments such as all minority parents are crackheads, so why should we think the parents always know best? Or, the implication that segregated schools was a valuable system, and that parents should have any choice in the world to not take their kids to a school where the ethnic composition is high with minority students. I mean, it was certainly an interesting point of view to listen to since he was basically trying to say that the school system is working for many parents and students, and that there shouldn’t be as much attention paid to always closing the achievement gap. I mean, I completely disagree with him, but that’s what makes this country an interesting place. Anyways, after this luncheon, I had to quickly taxi over to the Senate to meet Jason and Augustus in line for the Senate Full Appropriations Committee Markup. This was by far one of the most exciting and important things I have done all summer. The committee room, first of all, was large and grand, and 30 Senators sat around this large square shaped table to take their final votes on the Foreign Services, Labor HHS Ed, and State Appropriations bills. Now the committee is made up of 18 Democrats and 12 Republicans, and in the first time in the last 2-3 decades, the vote to approve the appropriations bills for all 3 bills was voted on a party line. This absolutely upset the Democrats, and it was my Senator, Dianne Feinstein, who gave the most impassioned, level-headed speech questioning why the Republicans would vote down the bill, even though the entire process all along was 100% bipartisan. (This committee is notoriously known for being bipartisan). It was just the principle that the Republicans would ask for programs to receive funding, and even put in their own earmarks, just to vote no on the final bill. The Republican rebuttal, led by Senator Judd Gregg of NH, was that the Republicans asked for the bill to be $20 billion less than the president’s proposal, and even though the Democrats were able to get it down to $14 billion below, that still wasn’t good enough for them. It was just remarkable to see this dialogue going on in a completely civil manner behind closed doors, but it does make me question why the Democrats do not publicly call out the Republicans for this kind of behavior. I mean, to me, it certainly seems cowardly to request earmarks and funding for programs behind closed doors, and then vote no on the final bill, knowing full and well that it will pass because of the Democratic majority, but still running to your constituents to say, “look at how fiscally irresponsible those Democrats are.” I think Senator Tom Harkin from IA said it best since he is the Chairman of the Labor HHS Ed subcommittee, by saying that not a single Republican wrote a letter to him requesting any cuts, but wrote many letters to him requesting his inclusion of their programs. Instead, he was charged with having to make the tough decisions of cutting the programs, while the Republicans got to sit back and claim fiscal responsibility. It was so fascinating for me to watch, and I was so proud of my own Senator for her speaking up in a polite and eloquent manner. After the Republicans all voted no for the 3 bills, but they passed anyways because the Democrats won the 18-12 approval vote, the next step was to go through and have the Senators offer any amendments that they would like to see in the bill. Some of the amendments were to end the Mexico City Law (Global Gag Rule which stated that no foreign country could receive US dollars if they even used their own money to provide abortions), which passed 19-11 (Sen. Collins voted yes), and another amendment to increase funding to the NIH by $1Billion, which failed 28-2. The most interesting amendment, however, was when Alaskan Senator Lisa Murkowski, who is a Republican, tried to get an amendment to put $10 Billion dollars into re-opening the Denali Health Clinics in her state. Now, talk about hypocrisy…just 20 minutes earlier, she had voted no on the bill because it was not fiscally responsible, and now here she was requesting an additional $10Billion in funding? Unfortunately for her, the amendment failed and the Democrats were not even remotely sympathetic to her request.
7/30/10: Last day in the office before the big retreat! The day began with the weekly CEF meeting, which hosted the Education Leg. Assistant from Senator Durbin’s office as their guest. The meeting was not that informative, and really was mainly spent going over the final appropriations numbers from the Senate Appropriations Committee markup from the day before. Also, news came in that the education jobs bill was going to be added on to the Senate FAA bill on Monday, which means that there is still a chance that $10 Billion will go towards saving teacher jobs, although if passed, that money will probably not trickle down to states and districts until Christmas, which means the first semester of the upcoming school year will face teacher layoffs indefinitely. After the CEF meeting, I headed back to the Hill to attend another TFA luncheon, this time hosting a panel of TFA alum who currently work on the Hill or in the Department of Education. This panel was so informative for me, and just listening to them made me finally realize that this is absolutely what I want to be doing with my life, even if working on the Hill is not very glamorous and is ridiculously stressful. They certainly made me feel confident in my decision to stay in teaching another year, because they said that I should be gaining as much “on the ground” training as I can to become a better policymaker. They also said that people on the hill look at TFA alum who taught more than just their 2 year commitment in a different light than those who leave the classroom after 2 years. It was just very exciting for me to speak with and listen to people who feel the exact same way about policy as I do. I really haven’t felt this way in a long time, and I feel excited to be able to know that I think I might have actually figured out what to do with the rest of my life. Lastly, the day ended with me heading back to the office and assisting Jason with putting any last minute touches to our retreat materials. We put together the packets for the presenters and moderators, created the slide templates to show during the presentations, and ran through one more time what our specific jobs will be during the retreat. I have no idea what is in store, but I am excited to be going on my first ever “business trip.”
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