ALAWON v6n98 (November 10, 1997) URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/serials/alawon/alawon-v6n98 ================================================================= ALAWON Volume 6, Number 98 ISSN 1069-7799 November 10, 1997 American Library Association Washington Office Newsline In this issue: (123 lines) -CONGRESS COMPLETES ACTION ON LIBRARY, EDUCATION FUNDING -SENATE CONFIRMS FERRIS AS NEH CHAIRMAN _________________________________________________________________ CONGRESS COMPLETES ACTION ON LIBRARY, EDUCATION FUNDING In a flurry of legislative activities which held House and Senate in Washington over the weekend, the House on Friday and the Senate on Saturday passed the conference report (H. Rept. 105-390) for H.R. 2264, the FY98 Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations bill. The bill is now on its way to the White House for signature. The issue of national education tests which had impeded final action on the bill was resolved by giving the National Assessment Governing Board, an independent entity with the authority over the national tests. The agreement reached by legislators directs the National Academy of Sciences to study the tests as they are being developed. The legislation increases funds for Education programs by $3.2 billion over FY97. The conference report will not be in print for several days, but the report was posted on the Library of Congress Thomas web site at http://thomas.loc.gov. Numbers and quotations from the conference report are taken from that site. The Library Services and Technology Act is funded at 146,340,000 for FY98, a $10 million increase over predecessor programs in FY97. This is higher than the House-passed $142 million and nearly at the Senate level of $146,369,000. The conference agreement puts the LSTA national leadership grants at 4 percent as the law provides. No specific projects are required in the statutory language for LSTA, although the conference report recommends that the Institute of Museum and Library Services consider the Senate Appropriations Committee language "regarding a project to digitize a card catalog, a project regarding an historic medical library collection, a one-of-a-kind historical library in Pennsylvania, and a demonstration of interactive Internet connections." ESEA Title VI, Innovative Education Program Strategies, which some schools use for school library materials, was funded at $350 million, as passed by the House, rather than $310 million, the FY97 amount that was passed by the Senate. For new reading programs, the conferees provide $210 million for a "child literacy initiative;" the funds would become "available on October 1, 1998 and shall remain available through September 30, 1999, only if specifically authorized by subsequent legislation enacted by July 1, 1998." (Note: In related action, the House passed H.R. 2614, the Reading Excellence Act, by voice vote. The bill has had no hearings or committee action in the Senate as yet.) More immediately, conferees included $85 million for child literacy initiatives for FY98. These funds are allocated to existing programs -- Even Start Program, Eisenhower Professional Development, Fund for the Improvement of Education, and The Corporation for National and Community Service. Funds are to be used as these laws allow, and also under the goals and concepts of the child literacy initiative as agreed to by the White House and Congress in their budget agreement (H. Rept. 105-116). For instance, for "professional development activities relating to literacy," conferees added $25 million. These funds are to "be used for teacher training which is based on reliable, replicable research to improve student performance in reading." This money was taken from the proposed $260 million for America Reads legislation, and was added to the Eisenhower Professional Development account. A fuller report on the various programs in this bill will be provided after further analysis. _________________________________________________________________ SENATE CONFIRMS FERRIS AS NEH CHAIRMAN On November 9, the Senate unanimously confirmed William R. Ferris, presently executive director of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi, as the next chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). The nomination was brought directly to the floor without committee action. The White House officially sent forward the nomination on October 23, leaving little time for a Senate confirmation hearing, but Mr. Ferris spent three days in Washington last week meeting the Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS) and Sen. James Jeffords (R-VT), chair of the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee, the body that reviews and recommends nominees requiring Senate confirmation for posts in federal agencies concerned with education, labor, arts agencies and certain other areas. Ferris also met with other members of the Senate committee. _________________________________________________________________ ALAWON is a free, irregular publication of the American Library Association Washington Office. To subscribe, send the message: subscribe ala-wo [your_firstname] [your_lastname] to listproc @ala.org. To unsubscribe, send the message: unsubscribe ala-wo to listproc@ala.org. ALAWON archives at http://www.ala.org/ washoff/alawon. Visit our Web site at http://www.alawash.org. ALA Washington Office 202.628.8410 (V) 1301 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, #403 202.628.8419 (F) Washington, DC 20004-1701 800.941.8478 (V) Lynne E. Bradley, Editor Deirdre Herman, Managing Editor Contributors: Carol C. Henderson Mary Costabile All materials subject to copyright by the American Library Association may be reprinted or redistributed for noncommercial purposes with appropriate credits. =================================================================