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American Teacher
April 2004--Capitol Watch
Bush budget:
The
hits just keep on coming
The main character in the film Groundhog
Day is eternally forced to relive the miseries he experiences on one day,
Feb. 2 (popularly known as Groundhog Day). So it seems heartbreakingly
fitting that the Bush administration chose that day to release its fiscal
year 2005 budget—a spending plan sure to keep our nation caught in the
cauldron of underfunded domestic programs that grease an overheated agenda
of tax cuts for businesses and the nation’s wealthiest individuals.
The $2.4 trillion budget proposal aims to
make permanent the expiring tax cuts, continue the trend of privatizing
services, eliminating or consolidating programs, and providing only modest
increases for a handful of nondefense discretionary spending. Education,
labor and health programs come up clear losers in the Bush budget plan.
While a few programs are slated for increases—Title I, special education and
reading programs—they come at the expense of more than 50 programs that are
cut, eliminated or level-funded. And, despite the proposed increases, many
programs are funded well below what Congress promised.
The budget provides for a 3 percent
increase for the Department of Education, the smallest increase in almost a
decade. For a look inside the numbers, the AFT legislation department has
prepared the following breakdown.
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K-12
education: Programs under the No
Child Left Behind Act would receive an increase of 1.8 percent from the
previous year. But when all programs under NCLB are tallied together, the
proposal provides $9.4 billion less than Congress authorized. The budget
proposal axes 38 programs— most notably the Even Start, Comprehensive
School Reform and Dropout Prevention programs. Other programs are cut,
such as the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, state
grants for innovative programs, and technology and media services.
And a host of other programs, such as after-school and English language
acquisition programs, are level-funded—effectively cutting funding since
they cannot keep pace with inflation.
-
Special
education: The administration
provides a $1 billion increase for special education programs. However,
since its inception in 1975, the program has always been seriously
shortchanged. The proposed increase will provide for less than half of the
“full funding” Congress committed to when it adopted the Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) nearly 30 years ago.
-
Vouchers:
The president’s proposal
includes a $50 million Choice Incentive Fund that would provide funds to
states, school districts and community-based organizations to provide
vouchers to allow students to attend public, charter or private schools.
This is the administration’s attempt to build on its success in getting a
voucher program in the District of Columbia. There is also another attempt
to more than double funds for charter school facilities.
-
Higher
education: The Pell Grant award
remains frozen at a maximum of $4,050, about one-third of the average
annual cost of attending college, and down from 42 percent in 2001. Other
higher education programs see similar patterns. Beginning in 2005, the
administration proposes to phase-in a revised allocation formula for the
federal Supplemental Education Opportunity Grants, federal Work-Study and
federal Perkins Loan programs. There is a $33 million pilot program within
the Pell system that rewards students taking Advanced Placement courses
with up to an additional $1,000 grant; only 13 states, however, currently
participate in this program.
-
Vocational
education: Much like last year,
the administration is aiming to roll back vocational education—a proposed
$316 million cut, or 25 percent—and plans to overhaul the program when it
is reauthorized. Dubbed Secondary and Technical Education State Grants,
voc ed funds would be distributed by states to high schools and community
college partners based on “success in achieving improved student outcomes”
through a block grant process.
-
Early
childhood: Most programs are
level-funded and would lose ground to inflation. They include school
lunch, IDEA preschool grants, TANF (Temporary Aid to Needy Families) and
child nutrition programs. Head Start is slated for a slight increase, as
are the child care development block grants—but these basically amount to
a cost-of-living increase. And because the child care block grants and
TANF are basically frozen, 447,000 children will lose child care
assistance by 2009. In addition, the child care worker loan forgiveness is
eliminated as is the Even Start program.
“Some of the consequences of this budget proposal will mean that 2.4
million children will not get help with reading and math, and 1.3 million
children will not have access to promised after-school programs,” warns
Jodie Fingland, a budget analyst in the AFT legislation department.
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