President Reagan last week signed the reauthorization for Head Start and Follow Through programs, a bill that included more than $200 million in new education initiatives. (See Education Week, Oct. 17, 1984.)
He has until Nov. 9 to sign the $17.6-billion fiscal 1985 appropriations bill for the Education Department.
Until the appropriations bill, HR 6028, is signed, the department is being funded through an omnibus bill that the President signed last month after the Congress adjourned.
The new education measures authorized in the Head Start bill, S2565, include: $6 million toward the construction of a Center for Excellence in Education at Indiana University in Bloomington; a $96-million program to finance college scholarships for prospective teachers and to provide for fellowships for current teachers; a $24-million program of federal merit scholarships; and $100 million for states to help train school administrators.
Head Start is authorized at $1 billion for the current fiscal year and $1.2 billion in fiscal 1986; and Follow Through, at $10 million and $7.5 million, respectively.
The bill also authorized $40 million over the next two fiscal years for states to develop programs for latchkey children.
Also on Oct. 30, the President “pocket-vetoed” a $225-million bill to create an American Conservation Corps. The measure would have created full-time and summer jobs for youths in national parks and on Indian lands.
