Rotherham: Bipartisanship On Education Isn't There

Maybe not so much on the education bipartisanship?

With more than 60 new members to contend with in the House, Boehner most certainly will not rule by fiat. He won't even have much room for compromise without losing too many votes on the right or left. Although education is often seen as a bipartisan issue, there is actually not a lot of agreement on specific policy around contentious issues like national education standards, school choice and performance pay for teachers. Moreover, many of Tuesday's winners are coming to Washington set on cutting federal spending, which means that unlike in the past, big infusions of cash will not be available to help grease the wheels for political deals around education reform.

There are also poorer relations between the Obama Administration and Capitol Hill than is commonly assumed. "This administration has no clue whatsoever about how to deal with Republicans," says Vic Klatt, a longtime Republican education aide and lobbyist. "The education folks, in particular, have trouble."

He's right. The Administration does not yet have any major education policy victories that didn't come through regulation or on the back of other pieces of legislation, such as health care reform or the economic stimulus bill. "The worst thing in many respects that happened to [Education Secretary Arne] Duncan was the stimulus," says Klatt. Why? Because it gave Duncan's team, Klatt contends, "the sense that you can snap your fingers, money falls from heaven, and you do what you want with it."

Given the current political climate, there probably won't be any big No Child Left Behind-like education bills in the next two years. (Instead of being a chance to demonstrate bipartisanship, such bills would likely cause Democrats to fight Democrats, Republicans to fight Republicans, and the House to fight the Senate, leaving the Administration trying to lean into the debate as best it can.) A more likely path to progress is smaller, more modest bills championed by moderate Democrats and reenergized Republicans like Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander, a former U.S. Secretary of Education, governor, and university president who, along with Boehner, is seen as a pragmatist.

The more I think about this issue, the more I think that Republicans are NOT going to want to give Obama a major legislative victory on ANY issue, not even education.

Between the GOP being dead set against any new spending and dead set on cutting current levels and the Obama administration's arrogance and inability to work with even Hill Democrats (let alone Republicans), I think (forgive me for writing this) Rotherham is right - no major new education programs.

Boy, that would be swell.

Given the toxic after effects of both NCLB and RttT, we can use a few years off before the next "reform."