What Could Be in Store for Education if Democrats Get More Power in Congress?
After the presidential election, perhaps the most pressing political question in Washington is this: Can Republicans maintain their majorities in both the House and Senate? So if Democrats gain control in one or both chambers, who's likely to take control of the key K-12 committees? And what does that mean for public school policy?
First, keep in mind that it's not easy to answer these questions, and the latter in particular, without first considering whether Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump becomes president. And of course, the GOP might keep control of both chambers of Congress, which would obviously hamper, if not cripple or kill, big education initiatives a President Clinton might want to see done.
Remember also that each time a new session of Congress starts, lawmakers shuffle between committees, subcommittees, and different leadership posts, regardless of whether there's a new party in charge of the chambers or not.
We've broken down this analysis into two separate pieces, one on the Senate and one on the House. We've also split up each analysis into sections on potential leadership changes, and on possible issues lawmakers could tackle.
Senate
Leadership: We've written before about the situation involving education committee members Sens. Patty Murray, D-Wash., currently the top Democrat, and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.
Murray might take over a leadership position in the Senate if Democrats win the chamber. Even if she does, she might want to retain her spot on the education committee anyway. But there will likely be a decent amount of political pressure to make Sanders the top Democrat on the K-12 panel. (Sanders is technically an independent, but he caucuses with the Democrats and ran for the party's presidential nomination, so we're referring to him accordingly.)There's also the possibility that Sanders would instead take over the Senate budget committee, where he is currently the ranking member, but very recently in fact Sanders indicated he'd prefer to take over the education committee.
Congress watchers say it's hard to imagine any Democrat other than Murray or Sanders holding the party's top spot on the education committee. If Sanders takes over, he'd also have a nationally prominent ally on education issues, and on higher education in particular, in Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.
Noelle Ellerson, an associate executive director with AASA, the School Superintendents Association, said Sanders has worked well with her group on rural education and ed-tech issues,but hasn't focused much on K-12 overall. However, she praised his staff, and said AASA would welcome his leadership of the Senate education panel "if he runs a committee the way he runs his office."
Murray and Alexander have a history of working across the aisle to get things done—check out the Every Student Succeeds Act if you need proof. But she's never been chairwoman of the education committee, although she has previously led the Senate budget committee. ,
(Notice the potential Washington merry-go-round here: It's possible that in the span of about two What Could Be in Store for Education if Democrats Get More Power in Congress? - Politics K-12 - Education Week: