ALAWON: American Library Association Washington Office Newsline Volume 10, Number 18 March 9, 2001 In this issue: MASSIVE ESEA BILL PASSES SENATE HELP COMMITTEE REED SCHOOL LIBRARY AMENDMENT FAILS ON TIE VOTE Closing out a two-day long markup of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act reauthorization, the members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee breathed a collective sigh of relief and voted unanimously to pass an amended version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Understandably not all members of the committee were present for all two days, since many were called away to vote on other committees or for floor votes, but most members present articulated their hopes that the legislation would improve education and not fall short in the funding department. Authorization of programs is the first step, with appropriations being the test as to whether the programs will be funded at a level adequate enough to be effective. During the debate, much was made by the Democratic side, that Title I funds for disadvantaged students had never been funded to reach the entire population eligible for the funds-only one-third of all those eligible ever received funding. The Individuals with Disabilities Act also has never been funded to the full extent of the law. Many amendments were offered throughout the two day time period, and ALAWON will report on the final bill when the language is available. Since the Committee membership is split 10-10, if votes on amendments were ties, they were rejected. SCHOOL LIBRARY BILL VOTE A 10-10 TIE Senator Jack Reed in offering his school library resources amendment (S. 327) stressed the urgent need to improve school library collections. He read to the HELP Committee a list from a book received from a Santa Paula High School (CA) High School librarian which, as he put it, had the bar code on it which showed it was still in circulation. The book was titled "Famous Living Americans," and he listed William Jennings Bryan, Woodrow Wilson, Thomas Clark, Thomas Edison and said he suspected it would be difficult to discern a heartbeat amongst them. The vote was a 10- 10 tie, with all Democrats voting for the amendment and those Republicans present and the chair voting for those absent by proxy in the negative. It is expected that the ESEA reauthorization bill may reach the Senate floor in the next few weeks. The following ALAWON will detail ACTION needed for amendments to be offered. ****** 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. 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. ALAWON Editor: Bernadette Murphy.