By Lauren Smith, CQ Staff

The first marker in the rewrite of No Child Left Behind, laid down last week by House Republicans, underscores the chasm between the two parties’ approaches and how difficult it may be for the House and Senate to find common ground.

Rep. George Miller of California, the top Democrat on the Education and the Workforce Committee, said last week that if House Republicans are serious about enacting an overhaul of the 10-year-old education law, they need to start drafting bills that Democrats might support. “It’s unfortunate that they decided to do it on a partisan basis, but they did what they did,” Miller said, adding that he is negotiating with GOP lawmakers on bills that could be incorporated into the House’s piecemeal approach to the rewrite.

Education policy experts say the first bill, approved along party lines May 25 by the Education and the Workforce Committee, is evidence that bipartisan conceptual agreements do not necessarily carry over into the details of proposed legislation.

The initial offering (HR 1891) would eliminate more than half the programs, along with $413 million in funding, authorized by the current iteration of the federal education law (PL 107-110).

Democrats say they support elimination of duplicative or ineffective programs, but they want to redirect the money. For example, the Republicans’ bill would cut at least five literacy initiatives. Democrats would use that funding to create one central literacy program.

“When you get down to real stuff, as opposed to conceptually we want to do x, y and z, it’s just harder,” said Sandy Kress, a counsel at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld and former education adviser to President George W. Bush.

With so many issues yet to resolve, lawmakers acknowledge there is no chance Congress will meet President Obama’s request for a bill on his desk before students go back to school in the fall. Some following the debate question whether a bill will be cleared this year.

Accountability, But To Whom?

Agreement on the details of a rewrite will not be any easier to reach when lawmakers turn to issues like accountability and teacher effectiveness. Democrats and Republicans say schools should be held accountable, but have different ideas about for what, and to whom, schools should be accountable. The Obama administration and Senate Democrats have proposed requiring the lowest-performing 5 percent of schools in each state to implement one of four turnaround strategies. But Republicans have been quick to call the options too prescriptive, and have voiced concerns about allowing schools in the middle of the pack to drift.

Education experts expect that the next bill that comes out of the House committee will get no Democratic support. Chairman John Kline, R-Minn., said the bill, which may be introduced as early as this week, would allow school officials to use federal dollars as they see fit. The measure is also expected to grant schools full freedom to shift funds among programs.

Democrats and the Obama administration have backed increased flexibility for schools but oppose giving schools complete freedom, especially for programs like Title I, which helps low-income students.

“I think Democrats are going to be hugely upset when the rumored flexibility bill comes out and allows 100 percent transferability of funds,” said Cynthia Brown, vice president for education policy at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank. “That will cause a huge partisan divide that may be difficult to recover from.”

Kline, who says his No. 1 goal in overhauling the law is to shrink the federal government’s footprint, said in a radio interview last week that his committee will produce five or six bills. He said he hopes to move three out of committee before August and take up the “really big” issues of accountability and teacher effectiveness in the fall.