K-12 Cuts Loom as Deficit Deal Eludes Congress

Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction co chair, Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), scales a staircase followed by police and media, but doesn't answer questions, after participating in a last minute meeting with colleagues at Senator John Kerry's in the Russell Senate Office Building, on Capitol Hill on November 21.

—Melina Mara/The Washington Post/Getty

Federal aid could drop $3.5 billion in 2013

By Alyson Klein

Education advocates and local school officials are nervously eyeing a series of draconian cuts set to hit just about every federal program in 2013—including Title I, special education, and other key K-12 priorities—in the wake of a special congressional committee’s failure to come up with long-term recommendations for how to cut the federal deficit.

The U.S. Department of Education, in particular, could see an across-the-board cut of 7.8 percent as of January 2013 under the process created over the summer as a consequence since the 12-member Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction , or “supercommittee,” failed to craft a plan for cutting at least $1.2 trillion from the federal deficit over the next 10 years.

For the Education Department, the cuts imposed under the process known as sequestration would amount to a $3.5 billion dip from the...