================================================================= ALAWON Volume 7, Number 43 ISSN 1069-7799 April 24, 1998 American Library Association Washington Office Newsline In this issue: (88 lines) EDUCATION SAVINGS BILL PASSES SENATE; GORTON BLOCK GRANT INCLUDED DEPARTMENT OF ED ANNOUNCES ONE-STOP WEB SITE; TEACHERS AND OTHERS SOUGHT FOR PARTNERSHIPS WITH FEDERAL AGENCIES _________________________________________________________________ EDUCATION SAVINGS BILL PASSES SENATE; GORTON BLOCK GRANT INCLUDED On April 23 the Senate finished its consideration of the Education Savings Act for Public and Private Schools (H.R. 2646), a bill to allow expanded education savings accounts. The bill, which passed 56 to 43, would increase the amount of money allowed to be saved without taxation and allow the funds to be withdrawn for most education expenses at all levels, including private school tuitions. The bill includes an amendment sponsored by Sen. Slade Gorton (R-WA) similar to the block grant amendment offered last spring. The Gorton amendment would transform many of the major education programs like Goals 2000, ESEA Title I, ESEA Title VI and all the Educational Technology programs into one large block grant to go to states. In addition, the amendment would cap authorized spending for Title I for five years -- FY99 through 2003 -- so that schools with rising enrollments would not receive additional Title I funds. Debate, led by Senate bill sponsor Sen. Paul Coverdell (R-GA), ranged on a wide area of education issues. Numerous amendments offered by the Democratic minority were voted down. Another amendment passed during earlier debate would bar funding for the Administration's proposal to institute national tests in reading and math unless the tests are first authorized by Congress. U.S. Secretary of Education Richard Riley said in a statement, "This bill sells America's future short, and it is unacceptable to the President and to me." The bill will now go to a conference committee to resolve differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill. It is expected that the bill may be vetoed by the President. _________________________________________________________________ DEPARTMENT OF ED ANNOUNCES ONE-STOP WEB SITE; TEACHERS AND OTHERS SOUGHT FOR PARTNERSHIPS WITH FEDERAL AGENCIES The Department of Education announced a new one-stop web site of federal resources for teaching and learning. The new site, called FREE, or Federal Resources for Educational Excellence, links more than 45 federal agencies. The tool is expected to provide a way for federal agencies and teachers to begin forming partnerships to develop additional high-quality, standards-based resources for teaching and learning. The FREE web site is at http://www.ed.gov/free. As part of FREE, the Department is hoping to award support for up to seven partnerships of federal agencies and teachers, as well as other organizations. Each partnership will develop two products: 1) a set of Internet-based learning resources organized around a topic and tied to challenging academic standards, and 2) an Internet-based learning community of teachers, students and other who use the developed resources. Proposals to be submitted by federal agencies on behalf of each partnership and must be received by May 19, 1998. The invitation requesting proposals and the complete application can be found at: http://www.ed.gov/free/980406.html _________________________________________________________________ ALAWON is a free, irregular publication of the American Library Association Washington Office. To subscribe, send the message: subscribe ala-wo [your_firstname] [your_lastname] to listproc @ala.org. To unsubscribe, send the message: unsubscribe ala-wo to listproc@ala.org. ALAWON archives at http://www.ala.org/ washoff/alawon. Visit our Web site at http://www.alawash.org. ALA Washington Office 202.628.8410 (V) 1301 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, #403 202.628.8419 (F) Washington, DC 20004-1701 800.941.8478 (V) Lynne E. Bradley, Editor Deirdre Herman, Managing Editor Contributors: Mary Costabile All materials subject to copyright by the American Library Association may be reprinted or redistributed for noncommercial purposes with appropriate credits. =================================================================