WASHINGTON — The chairman of the House subcommittee in charge of rewriting the No Child Left Behind Act said this week that lawmakers would be hard-pressed to pass a bill this year, despite assurances from other top lawmakers and a push from Education Secretary Arne Duncan.
“It will be difficult,” said Rep. Dale Kildee, D-Mich., head of the House subcommittee on early childhood, elementary and secondary education, the first checkpoint for any House version of a proposal. “Time is running out, and it’s an election year, too. People are going back home for that.”
Observers and congressional staff point to a crowded legislative calendar and a lack of consensus that’s magnified during a campaign season. Kildee’s comments are the clearest indication yet from congressional leadership that one of the president’s top domestic priorities of 2010 may have to wait at least a year.
Still, Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., chairman of the full House Education and Labor Committee, said he still plans to tackle the measure before Labor Day. But when told of Kildee’s assessment, and other similar ones, Miller quipped, “I wish they’d talk to me, because then I’d stop working on it.”
Miller’s committee has scheduled a hearing for April 30.
