Here are highlights from President Bush’s fiscal 2005 spending request for the Department of Education.
Title I: Seeks an extra $1 billion for flagship program for disadvantaged students, for a total of $13.3 billion.
Special education: Calls for a $1 billion increase, to $11.1 billion, for state grants.
Even Start: The $247 million family-literacy program is one of 38 on the chopping block. Last year, the president unsuccessfully sought to reduce its budget by about 30 percent.
“Striving Readers” initiative: A new, $100 million proposal for competitive grants to promote effective reading help for middle and high school students reading significantly below grade level.
Vocational and technical education: Once again seeks to slash spending by about $300 million, reducing the total budget to $1 billion. Proposes to replace the existing Vocational Education State Grants program with a coordinated high school and technical education improvement program.
Institute of Education Sciences: Funding for three of the four main program areas of the department’s research arm would remain the same. Its research, development, and dissemination budget would climb by $20 million, to $185 million.
Pell Grants: Would boost the budget by $856 million, to $12.9 billion, while keeping the maximum award level for this college-aid program for low- income students at $4,050. The budget total reserves $33 million for a new program of “enhanced” Pell Grants—enlarging them by up to $1,000—for students who take part in the State Scholars curriculum in high school.
SOURCE: Department of Education
