Senate Panel Passes Federal Research Bill

By Lisa Fine Goldstein

Washington

The Senate education committee last week unanimously passed its version of the long-awaited overhaul of the Department of Education's main research office.

Key lawmakers say they believe they can get a bill reauthorizing the department's office of educational research and improvement, the $444 million- a-year operation that oversees most federally financed education studies, to President Bush before this Congress ends in early January.

Despite higher-profile legislative priorities, the upcoming elections, and the Thanksgiving break, a spokesman for Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, the chairman of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, said he believed the full Senate would vote on and pass the bill sometime next week. He said lawmakers would immediately begin trying to reconcile differences between the Senate bill and a previously passed House version even before action...