Bush budget 2006
Education accounts for one-third of programs
to be axed

The latest White House budget plan isn’t a milestone but a millstone: a huge weight placed around the necks of public schools at a time when they’re being asked to do more than ever before.

President Bush’s fiscal 2006 budget marks the first time in a decade a president has submitted a budget to Congress that cuts the overall education budget. And education accounts for almost one-third of the 150 programs slated for elimination.

Even Start, Comprehensive School Reform, state grants for safe and drug-free schools, and education technology grants are among the programs facing the ax under the budget plan submitted by President Bush to Congress in February. Almost 3 million children will not get help with reading and math, and 1.7 million children will not have access to promised after-school programs under the budget blueprint. However, the White House plan does find $500 million for a new “teacher incentive fund” that would, among other things, offer districts and states competitive grants to design and implement merit pay. The president’s budget also offers $50 million to bankroll a “choice incentive fund” to expand vouchers beyond the model program that the administration fought for and won in Washington, D.C.

The budget “represents a huge reversal in the federal government’s commitment to education at a time when new, rigorous requirements for students and teachers need to be met,” warns AFT president Edward J. McElroy. And what isn’t in the budget plan—such as the fiscal impact of making his first-term tax cuts permanent or the cost of converting a portion of Social Security to private accounts—is equally troubling, says McElroy. The Bush budget “irresponsibly masks the tremendous hidden costs of the administration’s misguided scheme to privatize Social Security. It turns its back on children, the elderly and the most vulnerable while shifting the burden of assisting them to cash-strapped states.”

Defenders of the president’s budget point to its call for a $315 million (1.3 percent) increase over last year’s levels for programs under the No Child Left Behind Act, including a $603 million (4.7 percent) increase in Title I and a $508 million (4.8 percent) increase in special education funding.

The shell game continues with President Bush’s much touted $1.5 billion proposal for a new high school initiative, which includes expanding testing to grades 3-11. The proposal is more than offset by the nearly $2.2 billion in program eliminations including $1.3 billion in vocational education funding.

The president’s budget plan is just the first step in what promises to be a long, hard battle this month leading up to a budget approved by Congress. Last year, discretionary spending programs like education were actually cut beyond what President Bush originally had proposed. And key committee chairs in both the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate have indicated they will seek larger cuts in mandatory programs, including Medicaid and Medicare.

Tor Cowan, director of the AFT department of legislation, urges individual members to visit www.aft.org frequently for timely updates on the budget battle and ways to make their voices heard.

Pell Grant boost—at the expense of other programs

The administration has trumpeted its plan to beef up higher education opportunities for Americans by boosting the maximum Pell Grant award by $100 each year over the next five years. But there’s a catch. Included in President Bush’s fiscal 2006 budget proposal are demands for cuts in other student loan programs that far outweigh the Pell Grant increase.

In fact, Americans can anticipate a $10.7 billion reduction in student loan programs over 10 years if Congress buys into the administration’s budget blueprint. And what about President Bush’s stump speech proposal in the 2000 election to give all students a $1,000 Pell Grant increase? Didn’t happen then, isn’t happening now.

Instead, the president’s budget again includes a $33 million pilot program within the Pell system that offers an additional grant of $1,000 to students who complete a rigorous curriculum. There is also a new $50 million math-science scholars program that would allow roughly 20,000 low-income students who receive Pell Grants to receive additional awards up to $5,000 to seek degrees in the math-science field. Current estimates show that only about

1 percent of all Pell Grant recipients would be allowed to benefit from this new “expanded” Pell Grant.