The Senate passed its version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) reauthorization bill on June 14 on a 91-8 vote, about three weeks after the House passed its bill. Declarations of bipartisanship and credit-taking from both parties simultaneously filled the air.
The bill mandates testing for children in grades 3-8, holds states accountable for students' progress, and boosts funding next year by at least $13 billion over FY 2001. It also includes mandatory spending on a program for students with disabilities, full funding to educate poor and disadvantaged children, and the expansion of bilingual education provisions favored by Democrats.
School-Based Research
Although the bill did not mandate prior written consent for school-based research as the House version did (see Update, June 4, 2001), a potentially harmful compromise did pass.
Senator Tim Hutchinson (R-AR) submitted an amendment (S.A. 582) directing state and local education agencies that receive funds under ESEA to develop guidelines to protect student privacy in dealings with public and private entities that are not schools. (The amendment does not contain the language restricting in-school services found in the House's Tiahrt amendment.)
Hutchinson's amendment does not address existing law concerning human subjects in research. Presumably, hundreds of different kinds of policies could be adopted by the tens of thousands of state and local education agencies, presenting potential problems to the conduct of research.
For example, could multi-site studies be made comparable across sites? Must ongoing studies change their consent procedures mid-stream? How would this affect the cost of doing research? The ramifications of this amendment are unclear, but the final law concerning school-based research will be determined in conference, when House and Senate Members resolve the differences in their education bills.
Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA), who regained chairmanship of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee in the recent power shift, indicated that the conference could begin as soon as this week. The Coalition to Save School-Based Research, with which COSSA is involved, will work to educate the conferees on the potential ramifications of Tiahart's and Hutchinson's amendments for research.
For more information contact COSSA via email or at 202/842-3525.
WRITTEN CONSENT MEASURE THREATENS RESEARCH, AGAIN
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