News : Democrats charge ahead on Covid relief package — Senate GOP plan seeks less funding for schools

Monday, February 1, 2021

Democrats charge ahead on Covid relief package — Senate GOP plan seeks less funding for schools — Cardona faces the Senate

Feb 01, 2021

Editor's Note: Welcome to Weekly Education: Coronavirus special edition. Each week, we will explore how the pandemic is reshaping and upending education as we know it across the country, from pre-K through grad school. We will explore the debates of the day, new challenges and talk to movers and shakers about whether changes ushered in now are here to stay.

This newsletter is a weekly version of POLITICO Pro's daily Education policy newsletter, Morning Education. POLITICO Pro is a policy intelligence platform that combines the news you need with tools you can use to take action on the day's biggest stories. Act on the news with POLITICO Pro.

WHAT TO EXPECT FOR EDUCATION AS CONGRESS WEIGHS MORE COVID RELIEF: Congress returns to Washington this week as negotiations over another round of coronavirus relief heat up. At stake for education is hundreds of billions of dollars that school groups and teachers unions say are needed to safely bring students back to classrooms. But GOP lawmakers are increasingly blaming those unions for standing in the way of reopening schools — and pressing for a smaller relief package.

— Democratic leaders in the House and Senate this week are expected to kick off the process of budget reconciliation — opening up a tool they could use to pass a relief package through the Senate with a simple majority, along party lines. In the House, the budget resolution starting that process could be released as early as today.

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Looking ahead to the next stimulus

Rep. Bobby Scott speaks during news conference.

Rep. Bobby Scott speaks during news conference. | Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP Photo

SCOTT'S THOUGHTS: We spoke with House Education and Labor Chair Bobby Scott about what he wants in the Covid relief deal. He also weighed in on student loan debt and K-12 testing waivers.

— His top education priorities are funding for state and local governments as well as direct assistance for schools and colleges. "If they don't get some relief, many states will be cutting education at a time when education needs more money," he said.

— "There's no debate as to whether or not there is a compelling reason to open the schools for in-person instruction," Scott said. "The only question is whether or not it can be done safely — and that takes resources."

— Scott ticked off a wide range of financial needs for schools to safely reopen: disinfectant; personal protective equipment; more teachers to reduce class size and allow for greater social distancing; and more resources for school transportation, so students can be spread out on buses.

— He said he's particularly concerned about proper ventilation in the nation's schools, which he called "an expensive thing to fix." He cited a GAO report from last year that found that 40 percent of school systems across the country need to replace half of their HVAC systems. "If someone is infected in the classroom, if it's not properly ventilated, by the end of the day, everybody's going to be affected."

— Scott also said he expects the reconciliation instructions for the education committee will be roughly in line with what President Joe Biden has proposed. Scott said he's planning on a total allocation of about $170 billion for education — with $130 billion for K-12 schools and $40 billion for higher education. "That's what we're looking for," he said. "Hopefully, you know, you always want more."

— Scott plans to structure the education relief funding in a similar way to both the CARES Act and December relief package. "There's been general satisfaction with the way we've done it in the first couple of packages, so we'll kind of use that as the model," he said.

Congress las year appropriated more than $100 billion to help address the pandemic's unprecedented disruption to the nation's education system.

Annette Choi

— On student loan cancellation, Scott doesn't expect the House to take up the issue as part of the current Covid relief package — though he noted House Democrats last year passed various forms of $10,000 in loan forgiveness per borrower. "It wasn't in the original proposal, and if the top-line doesn't change, debt relief is a very expensive proposition, so it'd be difficult if you had to find offsets," he said.

— White House officials have said the administration still supports Biden's campaign proposal of canceling $10,000 of federal student loan debt per borrower, but they're eyeing congressional action on that further down the line, not in the latest package.

— "The deferment on payments is a huge deal, and that gives us time, at least till September, to come up with other proposals," Scott said, referring to Biden's Day One policy of further extending the freeze on most federal student loan payments through Sept. 30. "So the emergency part of the student loan problem has been taken care of by executive action."

— Scott said he wants to "consider all options" to tackle student loan debt. But he also questioned whether canceling large swaths of the outstanding $1.5 trillion in student loan debt — as many progressives are pushing — is the best use of money.

— "One problem with that is that it's a huge amount of money and that it does not solve the problem," Scott said. He said he supports "significant relief" for existing borrowers but wants to focus on ways to address the college affordability program more comprehensively. Those options, he said, include reducing interest rates, expanding income-based repayment and Public Service Loan Forgiveness and increasing the Pell Grant.

— On K-12 testing waivers, Scott said he believes it's even more important for states to conduct assessments this year as a way to identify where students have fallen behind during the pandemic.

— The Trump administration last year excused all states from federal academic testing requirements because of the pandemic, but then-Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said last year that she wouldn't waive those requirements again — drawing some rare praise from Democratic lawmakers like Scott.

— The Biden administration has not yet indicated how it plans to handle testing waivers, which several states, including New York and Michigan, have already requested for the 2020-21 school year.

— "You have no way of targeting your resources to reduce the achievement gap if you don't know where the achievement gap is," Scott said. He added: "I don't see how you can have a plan to eliminate the achievement gap if you haven't done any assessment to ascertain who's ahead and who's behind."

SENATE GOP PLAN WOULD SLASH BIDEN'S REQUEST FOR SCHOOL FUNDING: A group of 10 Republican senators is set to unveil the details today of a $600 billion counterproposal to Biden's $1.9 trillion relief plan, and Biden plans to hear them out. White House press secretary Jen Psaki announced on Sunday evening that Biden had invited the group to the White House early this week. Her statement also touted the "substantial investment in fighting COIVD and reopening schools" in the administration's original proposal.

— The GOP lawmakers, led by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), requested the meeting to make the case for a bipartisan deal — even as Democratic congressional leaders prepare to move ahead this week on a budget resolution that would unlock a path to passing Biden's plan along party lines through budget reconciliation.

— Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), a member of the group, said on "Fox News Sunday" that the proposal would provide $20 billion "to get kids back to school," which is a major decrease from the $170 billion for education in Biden's relief plan.

— "We've already given schools 110 percent of what they usually receive from the federal government," Cassidy said. "Parochial schools are open with a fraction of that money. Charter schools are open. The real problem is public schools. That issue is not money. That issue is teachers unions telling their teachers not to go to work. And putting $170 billion towards teachers unions' priorities takes care of a Democratic constituency group, but it wastes our federal taxpayer dollars for something which is not the problem."

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In Congress

CARDONA SET TO FACE SENATE HELP COMMITTEE THIS WEEK: The Senate education panel this week will hold a confirmation hearing for Miguel Cardona, Biden's pick to lead the Education Department.

— The hearing kicks off at 10 a.m. on Wednesday. It'll be the first Senate HELP Committee hearing this Congress with Sen. Patty Murray as the new chair and Sen. Richard Burr as the new top Republican.

The Capitol building in Washington, D.C.

The Capitol building in Washington, D.C. | Win McNamee/Getty Images

ALSO HAPPENING THIS WEEK: The House is expected to take up a legislation, H.R. 447 (117), to overhaul federal policy on registered apprenticeship programs and authorize nearly $4 billion over the next five years to expand apprenticeships. A previous version, H.R. 8294 (116), cleared the House in November mostly along party lines but didn't go anywhere in the Senate. (POLITICO's Eleanor Mueller has a full rundown of the bill.)

— The House Rules Committee will meet on Tuesday to prepare the bill for consideration on the House floor and decide which of the dozens of amendments lawmakers have proposed will get a vote.

— One amendment to watch: A group of progressives led by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) submitted an amendment that would set the entry-level wage for apprenticeships under the bill to at least $15 per hour. The original bill pegs the starting wage to the current federal minimum wage, which is $7.25 per hour.

Education Department

ICYMI: PROGRESSIVES PUSH BIDEN TO PICK A NEW STUDENT AID CHIEF: The Biden administration is facing growing calls from progressives, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), to replace the head of the Education Department's Office of Federal Student Aid.

— Mark Brown, the current student aid chief, was appointed by DeVos for a term that is up in March 2022. But Warren and consumer and labor groups want to see new leadership at FSA far more quickly. The student aid office will be central to any changes that the Biden administration is considering making to the federal student loan program.

— Brown indicated to colleagues last week that he's willing to step aside and that he may soon leave his post. He said during virtual staff meetings that no one had explicitly asked for his resignation but that he was discussing his role with new political appointees in the Biden administration, according to several people on the calls.

— Who could be the next FSA chief? Among the names circulated by progressive groups is Mark Kaufman, a former Treasury Department official during the Obama administration who previously served as Maryland's top banking regulator.

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