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AEP Online |
Blaschke on Federal FundingCongress Finally Passes FY 2004 Education Budget while the Administration Proposes the FY 2005 BudgetShortly after Congress reconvened, it passed the FY 2004 education budget as part of the overall Omnibus Appropriations Act with the President submitting his FY 2005 education budget less than two weeks later. The would-be winners in both budgets are IDEA/Special Education and Title I. For FY 2004 (or School Year 2004-05), IDEA would increase from $8.87 billion to $10.07 billion for state grants. Title I would increase from $11.69 billion to $12.34 billion or slightly over $700 million. Another big winner was Math/Science Partnerships that increased almost 50 percent to slightly under $150 million. 21st Century Community Learning Center Program received a major "morale" boost as Congress increased its funding slightly at about $1 billion after the President had proposed last year a cut of $400 million. The Title II D Enhancing Education Through Technology (E_T_) was level-funded at slightly under $700 million, while the Preparing Tomorrow’s Teachers to use Technology program funded at $62 million last year was zero-funded. The 2004 education budget also included well over $100 million of pork-barrel earmarks for technology projects. As with previous years, for virtually all line items, Congress appropriated more funds than the President had requested eleven months earlier. In prior years, the President has proposed to rescind a large number of programs such as Drug Free Schools and virtually all earmarks. Not only are the levels of funding for programs such as Title I important, but also the specific components of the formula that received increases or decreases, and the amount of the funds that were advanced-funded. For Title I, the "basic grant" component received a slight decrease of approximately $80 million, while the "concentration" grant component was level-funded. All of the total $700 million plus increase occurred with the new "targeted" grant and "education finance incentive grant" components. However, only $5.1 billion of the basic grant was in the "actual annual appropriation" which will be allocated to districts beginning in July 2004. All of the "concentration" funding and all of the "targeted" and "incentive" grants -- all together totaling $7.1 million -- will not be made available to states and, in turn, to districts until after October 1 due to advanced-funding. Similar to last year, less than half the Title I funds will be allocated to districts in July with the remaining funds allocated to states. In turn, districts during the late fall/early winter after SEAs make adjustments (e.g., for the number of schools that are identified for improvement receiving a proportion of the four percent state set-aside earmarked for school improvement). While there are likely to be at least two purchasing cycles influenced by the timing of Title I allocations, the initial purchasing cycle is expected to be in the Summer of 2004. This should be slightly larger than last year as many districts carried over the maximum 15 percent from last year to this year. According to USED, by the Fall of 2003 states had almost $2 billion of unspent Title I funds which were mostly FY 2002 funds carried over to this school year. The second cycle will be November 2004-February 2005. The President’s proposed FY 2005 budget would collapse all of the funds under "education finance incentive" grants into the "targeted" grants formula, which "more fairly distributes funds to high-poverty school districts than EFIG." Should Congress go along with the Administration’s proposal, even more Title I funds would be allocated to districts with the highest percentage of children from low-income families, many of whom are members of the Council of Great City Schools. For the FY 2005 budget, the Administration is proposing a billion-dollar increase for each Title I and IDEA/Special Education. Two other winners in the President’s proposal budget could be the Advanced Placement program and Math/Science Partnerships, which would receive well over 50 percent increases in funding. Perhaps just as important as the numbers, the proposed FY 2005
budget and the justification reflect some changes in the Administration’s
priorities, particularly in this election year. While the first
three years of this Administration focused on grades K-3, the proposed
FY 2005 budget clearly indicates a new priority placed upon high
schools and related activities. Also tied into the Jobs for the 21st Century initiative would be the Advanced Placement Program whose budget will increase from $23.5 to $51.5 million in FY 2005. The focus here would be upon teacher training, particularly at the middle school level, to prepare students for pre-advanced placement classes at the high school level. The new Striving Readers initiative, funded at $100 million, would involve the development, implementation, and evaluation of research-based interventions to improve reading skills of secondary students who are at-risk of failing or dropping out. Pro-NCLB groups, such as the highly respected Education Trust, released several recent reports that provided a clear justification and rationale for greater priority being placed on high school activities. The Jobs for the 21st Century initiative would become one of the first steps prior to the 2005 reauthorization of the Perkins Vocational and Technical Education current law. Under the proposed Secondary and Technical Education initiative (Sec. Tech.), states would be required to focus more intensely on improving student academic achievement and outcomes in career and technical education programs. This is intended to help students graduate with the necessary skills to make the transition from high schools to other training and into the work force. Secondary-level vocational training would be transferred to community colleges and programs such as Tech Prep would no longer be funded under the proposed FY 2005 budget. Unlike the three previous proposed Administration budgets, this one does not propose to rescind portions of programs such as Safe and Drug Free Schools, among others. In fact, in an inconsistent manner, the FY 2005 proposed budget would increase Safe and Drug Free Programs for the first time by including the increased funding for Mentoring programs and the in-school "drug testing program" under Safe and Drug Free Schools. On the other hand, the FY 2005 budget proposes to eliminate programs (totaling $1.4 billion) which of course would occur after the election. The programs to be eliminated include Community Technology Centers, Comprehensive School Reform, Even Start, Literacy Programs for Prisoners (which is inconsistent with the President’s State of the Union Address in which he announced a $300 million "compassionate conservative" initiative to return prisoners into society), Regional Technology and Education Consortia, Star Schools, and others.
Questions, ideas, or in need of more information? Please contact Dave Gladney at 856-241-7772 or dgladney@AEPweb.org. |
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