The school voucher debate—which is often the territory of state policy—made an appearance on the federal stage this week: It was the first contentious issue taken up by the U.S. Senate when it began considering a rewrite of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
The Senate voted July 8 to reject an amendment submitted by Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., co-author of the bipartisan ESEA bill, which would have allowed Title I dollars for low-income students to follow them to the public or private school of their parent’s choice,
But Democrats were not on board, saying that the proposed amendment would take scarce federal dollars away from the neediest schools, according to Education Week’s Lauren Camera, who covers federal policy and Congress for the paper. The amendment failed by a vote of 45-52.
For more details, you can read the full story on the Politics K-12 blog.