Senate Panel Backs Plan To Boost ED's '97 Budget by $582 Million

By David J. Hoff

Prospects for Department of Education spending in the next fiscal year are improving as Congress moves to settle funding by the end of the month.

The department would win a $582 million raise for 1997 under a plan approved last week by a Senate panel, though the only major increase for a K-12 program is slotted for drug-prevention efforts. The House, by contrast, passed a plan that would keep federal education funding steady at $25.2 billion next year.

While the Senate plan proved more generous than the House version, Clinton administration officials said the bill would not provide enough new money to...