THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, October 6, 1994 TAG: 9410060484
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: KNIGHT-RIDDER NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Long : 103 lines
More federal education aid will be funneled into districts with higher percentages of poor children starting in 1996 under an education bill that passed its last congressional hurdle in the Senate on Wednesday.
After crushing a filibuster led by Jesse Helms, R-N.C., senators voted 77-20 for a five-year, $60 billion rewrite of the 30-year-old Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
The House approved the legislation last week, and President Clinton is expected to quickly sign it.
Besides the new funding formula, the bill directs states to require school districts to expel, for one year, pupils who bring guns to school. The bill also includes provisions to ease the burden of interracial adoptions.
After months of fierce infighting in both houses of Congress, members finally agreed to make poverty rates an important element in the federal formula under which money is distributed to school districts.
``For the first time in the ESEA's history,'' said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., chairman of the Education and Labor Committee, ``significant changes are made in the formula to do a better job of carrying out the historic purposes of the act, to target federal aid to schools and pupils who need help the most.''
At the same time, the law was changed to require districts receiving the money to do a better job of educating disadvantaged youngsters.
In changing the grant formula, lawmakers provided that no district would receive less money in 1996 than it got in 1995. But any distribution of money above the 1995 allotments would be divvied among districts with the highest numbers of low-income pupils.
The bill was stalled in the Senate when Helms, backed by many of his Republican colleagues, complained about the wording of a clause about prayer in public schools.
It provides that any state or school district that willfully violates a federal court order requiring the district to permit constitutionally protected prayer could lose its federal aid until it complied with the court.
Helms said this was not a strong enough guarantee. He wanted to cut off funding for any state or district that had a policy against - or otherwise prevented - the free exercise of voluntary prayer in schools.
In the end, 75 senators - 55 Democrats and 20 Republicans - voted to halt Helms' filibuster and clear the way for final passage. One Democrat and 23 Republicans supported the filibuster.
The bill also provides money to help teachers improve their skills, to help schools combat violence and drug trafficking, to improve schooling opportunities for children of migrant workers, and to strengthen efforts to salvage dropouts and delinquents.
It also expands the Eisenhower program to promote quality teaching of math and science to cover other studies, as well. And it explicitly states that nothing in the law would affect ``home schools,'' in which parents take on the sole responsibility for educating their children at home.
It further authorizes $100 million to build schools in poorer districts in 1995 alone, plus $40 million for computers and other technology to help learning and $157 million for other school improvements.
The adoption provision was designed to bar agencies and social workers from discriminating against parents based on race. But some critics say discrimination still would be possible. ILLUSTRATION: HOW THEY VOTED
A ``yes'' vote is a vote to pass the bill.
John W. Warner, R-Va.Yes
Charles S. Robb, D-Va.Yes
Jesse A. Helms, R-N.C.No
Lauch Faircloth, R-N.C.No
HIGHLIGHTS OF BILL
$7.4 billion in formula grants in 1995 to school districts to
help educate low-income children. Such aid to the poorest districts
will increase under a new formula beginning in 1996.
$866 million in impact aid for school districts, such as those
near non-taxed federal facilities and bases, that educate large
numbers of children of federal workers or members of the military.
$800 million to expand the Eisenhower Professional Development
program to include subjects other than math and science.
$630 million to combat drug trafficking and violence in public
schools.
$370 million to support education reform efforts to improve
teaching and enhance the schooling of disadvantaged and handicapped
children.
$310 million to help meet the education needs of migrant workers'
children.
$250 million to encourage technology instruction and the purchase
of learning technology equipment in schools.
$215 million in emergency funding for immigrant children.
$200 million for school construction and renovation in poor
school districts.
$150 million to help tax-poor urban and rural school districts
improve teaching and curriculum.
$120 million for ``magnet schools'' as alternatives to busing.
$118 million for the Even Start Family Literacy program to
encourage adult literacy and the involvement of parents in
children's education.
by CNB