The Senate last week approved a supplemental-spending bill that would provide an additional $165.7 million for Head Start in this fiscal year, and a total of $26 million more for three small education programs.
The House version of HR 4404, approved April 3, contains no new funds for education.
The Head Start funds, which would extend services to an estimated 60,000 children, were added by the Senate Appropriations Committee, which reported out the bill April 24.
Amendments adopted by voice vote during floor debate last week would provide an additional $2 mil4lion for anti-drug programs targeted at Native American and Native Hawaiian students, $4 million for programs for gifted and talented students, and $19.9 million for a dropout-prevention program.
The dropout initiative, launched in 1989, was not funded in the regular 1990 appropriations bill because authorizing legislation was not approved in time. The funds will allow continuation of the current projects.
Senators offset some of the new spending by taking $2.88 million from an account used to pay for cancellation of loans for students pursuing public-service careers--a program for which demand has decreased, senators said. Also cut was $494,000 appropriated for a national summit conference on education that the Reagan Administration refused to hold.
The Education Department has completed its long-awaited policy manual for the Chapter 1 compensatory-education program.
The 300-page handbook provides interpretations of the law and regulations governing the program in a question-and-answer format.
Photocopied versions of the manual were mailed April 27 to state officials and education associations. The printed edition is to be sent to local Chapter 1 coordinators this summer.
Legislation barring discrimination against the disabled was approved last week by the House Judiciary Committee.
The Senate passed a version of the bill in September.
The version approved last week contained only minor changes, including a new provision requiring that all licensing and certification exel15lams--including those for teachers--be made accessible to the disabled.
Legislation to require all postsecondary institutions to disclose their graduation rates has been introduced in the House.
Representative Carl C. Perkins plans to offer the proposal as an amendment to a bill requiring disclosure of student athletes’ graduation rates, according to an aide. That bill is currently before the House Postsecondary Education Subcommittee.
Mr. Perkins’s bill would require institutions to report the rates of completion or graduation by students in each program of study.
The Education Department has awarded a five-year grant to a consortium of four universities to create a research center on gifted and talented education.4First-year funding is $1.5 million.
The consortium, which will be led by the University of Connecticut at Storrs, also includes the University of Georgia, the University of Virginia, and Yale University.
Among other issues, the center is expected to study new methods of identifying gifted students, according to Christopher T. Cross, assistant secretary of education for educational research and improvement.
