WASHINGTON — Loose ends and thorny partisan issues that have long dogged attempts to move forward on education await the next Congress as President Barack Obama's second term begins.

Soaring campaign-year aspirations to close the achievement gap and boost college graduation rates to the highest in the world may have to fall back to earth — at least temporarily — as lawmakers and Obama tackle a number of gritty funding-related issues that just can't wait.

First up is sequestration, the automatic, government-wide spending cuts set to knock out 8.2 percent of the funding to almost all of the Education Department's programs — unless Congress acts before the end of the year to avert the cuts.