ALAWON: American Library Association Washington Office Newsline Volume 9, Number 17 February 28, 2000 In this issue: Action Needed: ESEA Markup on Wednesday, March 1 On March 1, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee will markup the huge Elementary and Secondary Education Act, S. 2. The bill, which has eleven titles would reauthorize most of the major education programs, like Title I, Helping Disadvantaged Children Meet High Standards, Even Start and others. S. 2 expands the Title VI block grant to include fourteen additional programs. Some of these programs (see Sec. 6131) -- like school safety and programs to combat student and parental illiteracy -- could conceivably use up all the Title VI funds. S. 2 would mean less money for the training of school library media specialists and for purchases of library materials. While these would be still allowed, they would have tougher competition for the Title VI funds. The bill summary and the full text of the bill are at http://www.senate.gov/~labor/legisl/S_2-ESEA/s_2- esea.htm Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) will offer his school library resources bill (S. 1262) as an amendment to the bill during markup. The ALA Washington Office has sent a letter to all co-sponsors of the legislation and all committee members endorsing Sen. Reed's amendment. On February 25, Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) agreed to co-sponsor S. 1262. Seven of the eight Democrats on the HELP committee are co-sponsors, but none of the Republicans on the committee have co- sponsored the bill. ACTION NEEDED: In order to support Sen. Reed's amendment (S. 1262), library constituent supporters are urged to call or fax the education staff person in each of the following offices. Please express the need for school library materials and ask for support for Sen. Reed's school library amendment. Maryland school library supporters should thank Sen. Mikulski for co-sponsoring the bill (phone: 202-224-4654). This markup may take a few days since the bill is so large, but markup will definitely begin on March 1. (area code: 202) Sen. James Jeffords (Chair) R-VT 224-5141 Fax 228-5044 Sen. Judd Gregg R-NH 224-3324 Fax 224-4952 Sen. Bill Frist R-TN 224-3344 Fax 228-1264 Sen. Mike DeWine R-OH 224-2315 Fax 224-6519 Sen. Michael Enzi R-WY 224-3424 Fax 228-0359 Sen. Tim Hutchinson R-AR 224-2353 Fax 228-3973 Sen. Susan Collins R-ME 224-2523 Fax 224-2693 Sen. Sam Brownback R-KS 224-6521 Fax 228-1265 Sen. Chuck Hagel R-NE 224-4224 Fax 224-5213 Sen. Jeff Sessions R-AL 224-4124 Fax 224-3149 Sen. Tom Harkin D-IA 224-3254 Fax 224-9369 ****** ALAWON (ISSN 1069-7799) is a free, irregular publication of the American Library Association Washington Office. All materials subject to copyright by the American Library Association may be reprinted or redistributed for noncommercial purposes with appropriate credits. To subscribe to ALAWON, send the message: subscribe ala-wo [your_firstname] [your_lastname] to listproc@ala.org or go to http://www.ala.org/washoff/alawon. To unsubscribe to ALAWON, send the message: unsubscribe ala-wo to listproc@ala.org. ALAWON archives at http://www.ala.org/washoff/alawon. ALA Washington Office, 1301 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Suite 403, Washington, D.C. 20004-1701; phone: 202.628.8410 or 800.941.8478 toll-free; fax: 202.628.8419; e-mail: alawash@alawash.org; Web site: http://www.ala.org/washoff. Executive Director: Emily Sheketoff; Editor: Deirdre Herman. Office of Government Relations: Lynne Bradley, Director; Mary Costabile, Peter Kaplan, Miriam Nisbet and Claudette Tennant. Office for Information Technology Policy: Rick Weingarten, Director; Jennifer Hendrix, Carrie Russell and Saundra Shirley.