News Release - Etheridge Says Spending Bill Shortchanges Education in North Carolina

News Release
Congressman Bob Etheridge
North Carolina

July 7, 2003

Contact: Sara Lang
Phone: (202) 225-4531

Etheridge Says Spending Bill
Shortchanges Education in North Carolina

Bill Cuts Impact Aid, Teacher Training, After-School Programs

WASHINGTON - U.S. Rep. Bob Etheridge (D-Lillington) today denounced the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Bill, saying that it broke the promises made to America's children by inflicting deep cuts in education. This Appropriations bill is the largest domestic spending bill Congress takes up annually, funding the Department of Labor, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Education. It provides the resources to improve local schools, protect public health, ensure the safety of the workforce and provide for the elderly and disabled.

"This bill breaks the promises made to America's children - the promise of a quality education, the promise of a college education, the promise of equal opportunity and the promise of a bright future," Etheridge said. "The funding cuts in this bill will be felt in our homes and in our hometowns for years to come. As our schools in North Carolina struggle to comply with strict new requirements in the 'No Child Left Behind Act,' this bill underfunds NCLB by $8 billion, turning the promise of NCLB into a huge, unfunded mandate to be paid for by our local schools.

Under the bill, North Carolina would lose $157.8 million in Title 1 grants. Title 1 provides additional resources to schools, especially those in high poverty communities, enabling them to provide extra educational services to more than 9 million disadvantaged children. North Carolina also would lose $32.5 million in IDEA grants, which provide the federal contribution toward educating the nearly 6.7 million children nationwide with disabilities.

The bill shortchanges the money promised to states for improving teacher quality, denying 54,000 teachers federally promised high quality professional development. North Carolina alone would lose $8.8 million in teacher quality grants. It also falls $750 million short of the $1.75 billion for after-school centers promised in the No Child Left Behind Act, leaving one million children nationwide without after-school care. North Carolina would lose $16.8 million for after-school programs.

"The children of our men and women serving in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere are also left behind in this bill, which costs North Carolina $16.8 million in impact aid to help schools with populations of military children," said Etheridge.

As tuition costs rise and states tighten the budgets for public universities, the bill freezes the maximum federal college scholarship, or Pell Grant. Today the Pell Grant covers just 42 percent of the typical costs at a four-year public university, compared to 84 percent in 1976.