As Alyson Klein of Ed Week reported yesterday, the House GOP offered a ?slice and dice? funding bill on Friday night that cuts federal education funding ?far below current levels and far below what President Barack Obama wanted in his never-enacted fiscal year 2011 budget request.?? ?Nearly $5 billion would be cut from DOE's 2010 $63.7 billion budget, reports Klein, if the Republicans have their way.? ?
Title I money would be cut by $693.5 million, special education by $557 million, and Head Start by a cool $1 billion.? The GOP rejected Obama's request for another $1.3 billion for Race to the Top ? and there's ?no money? for the Investing in Innovation (i3) grant program.?
The list of specific cuts can be scary ? Even Start ($66m), Striving Readers ($250m). Literacy Through Libraries ($19m), Civic Education ($35m), New Leaders for New Schools ($5m), Teach for America ($18m), and 21st Century Community Learning Centers ($100m).
Though this is a first shot over the budgeting bow, as Klein points out, the proposal is for a fiscal year that started last October ("never enacted") ?-- another reason for stocking up on the survival gear in the basement ?-- or applying for another credit card.
Stay tuned to Fordham; this is the time for reform realism.
?--Peter Meyer, Bernard Lee Schwartz Policy Fellow
