Budget Brings Much Needed Accountability and Flexibility to Education Funding

            WASHINGTON, D.C. - House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman John Boehner (R-OH) today praised President George W. Bush’s Fiscal Year 2002 budget as a way to bring much needed accountability and flexibility to public education. The FY2002 budget will boost efforts to close the achievement gap between disadvantaged students and their peers and help give all children a world-class education.

            “The budget is a commonsense approach to improve education and to make sure no child is left behind,” Boehner said. “It reflects President Bush’s efforts to close the achievement gap in education for disadvantaged students; to bring accountability and quality to schools; and to empower parents to help their children succeed.”

            Among the budget items Boehner cited as good for education were money for annual assessments in grades 3 through 8, to measure the success of student learning and to identify potential problems; more funding to meet the government’s obligation under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA); and resources to recruit and better train quality teachers.

            While noting the Bush Administration is making a commitment to increase federal education spending, Boehner warned that more money without more accountability would be wasted money. “Money alone cannot be the vehicle for change in our public schools,” Boehner said. “There must also be accountability, and this budget provides for it. Washington has spent more than $130 billion since 1965 -- more than $80 billion of it in the last 10 years alone -- in a well-intentioned but failed effort to close the achievement gap. For far too long we have been spending federal dollars on education without being able to track our students’ progress and make certain that they are learning.”

            Boehner rejected calls for a massive expansion of federal education spending beyond the responsible budget outlined by President Bush.

            “Until we have a system of real accountability in place, it is unfair to our children to enact massive increases in federal education spending beyond the responsible steps outlined here,” Boehner said. “Spending without accountability is the approach Washington has followed in the past. As a tragic consequence, many children have been trapped in chronically failing schools and denied the opportunity to realize the American Dream.”

            In addition, to the budget for elementary and secondary education priorities, Boehner praised the president’s commitment to increased funding for Pell Grants, student loans, and minority serving institutions.

            “The president has pledged to make a college education affordable for all, especially the most disadvantaged students,” Boehner said. “I am especially pleased the budget contains significant increases to help minority serving institutions provide a quality education to their students.”

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· Annual Assessments. Provides $320 million for states to develop tests to track student performance each year -- the centerpiece of President Bush’s plan to leave no child behind.

· Title I. Targets resources to those who need it most by providing more than $9 billion for Title I, which provides aid to low-income students. That is an increase of more than 5 percent over FY2001 spending.

· School Improvement and Choice. The budget provides $400 million within Title I for grants to low-performing schools, a 78 percent increase over FY2001. States will use these funds to provide technical assistance and intensive assistance to improve achievement in schools that are failing to make sufficient academic gains. To ensure that no student is trapped in a chronically failing school, students will have the option of transferring to a better public school, or using their share of Title I funds to seek supplemental educational services or another school alternative.

· Improving reading programs. Provides $900 million for reading programs based on scientific research that will help to reduce the number of children placed in special education classes simply because they have not learned how to read. The budget also includes an additional $75 million for the Early Reading First initiative that helps implement research-based reading practices in existing pre-school and Head Start programs that feed into participating elementary schools.

· IDEA Funding. Moves the federal government closer to its original promise of providing 40 percent of the average per-pupil expenditure to the states under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The Bush Administration seeks $7.3 billion for IDEA, Part B grants to states, which is a $1 billion increase.

· Teacher Training. Provides $2.6 billion for states to improve teacher quality through high quality professional development, recruitment and retention activities. In addition, the budget provides $30 million to expand and build on the Troops to Teachers program to help military professionals become teachers and serve in high-need communities.

· Impact Aid and School Construction. The budget proposes $1.130 billion for the Impact Aid program, a $137 million increase from FY 2001. The request provides a significant increase for the Impact Aid construction program to improve the quality of public school buildings and eliminate the backlog of repairs and construction for schools on or near military facilities and those serving children from Native American lands.

· Educational Technology. The budget supports a streamlined educational technology fund that consolidates nine overlapping programs into one flexible $817 million fund.

· Choice and Innovation Fund. The Bush Administration consolidates 10 programs to create a $472 million fund that provides states with the flexibility to pursue a range of effective education reform strategies, including school choice, that address areas of state and local need.

· Bilingual Education. The president's budget proposes to consolidate bilingual and immigrant education funds into a $460 million formula-driven grant to provide school districts with added flexibility in exchange for more effective transitioning of LEP and immigrant students into English fluency and for improving their overall achievement levels.

· Safe and Drug Free Schools. Under the $644 million Safe and Drug Free Schools program, districts will be held accountable for the effectiveness of their crime prevention and drug outreach activities, and students trapped in persistently dangerous schools will have the option to transfer to a safe alternative.

· 21^st Century Community Learning Centers. The budget includes $846 million for a more flexible after-school program that allows states to award federal funds to school districts, private organizations, and faith-based entities, thereby empowering local communities to provide a wider array of choices for students and parents.

· Pell Grants. Includes an additional $1 billion for Pell Grants for FY 2002, increasing the maximum award for all students to provide more need-based grant aid to low-income college students.

· TRIO Program. The gap in college enrollment rates between low-income students and other students is due to differences not only in financial resources but also in academic preparation and support. The president proposes a $50 million increase for TRIO programs to promote college success for disadvantaged students.

· Minority Serving Institutions. The budget has significant increases for programs supporting Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Historically Black Graduate Institutions (HBGIs), and Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) as the first installment of the president's plan to increase funding for these institutions by 30 percent between 2001 and 2005. HBCUs and HBGIs receive a combined $15 million, 7 percent increase over FY 2001; the increase for HSIs is $4 million, or 6 percent. The budget also includes funding to support Tribal Colleges and other institutions that serve low-income students and that have low per-pupil expenditures.

· Student Loans. The federal government plans to provide nearly $37 billion in new student loans to 5.5 million borrowers in FY 2002. Loans are provided through two programs: the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) program and the Federal Direct Student Loan (FDSL) program.