President Bush has signed an omnibus budget bill that shortchanged his request for education, including some top White House priorities.
The fiscal 2005 catchall bill contains $56.6 billion in discretionary funding for the Department of Education, an increase of $915 million, or 1.6 percent, from the budget year that ended Sept. 30. (“2005 Budget Drops Below Bush Request,” Dec. 1, 2004.)
Mr. Bush, who approved the measure Dec. 8, had requested $1 billion increases apiece for special education and the Title I program for disadvantaged students, but the Republican-controlled Congress provided smaller increases for both. Title I grew by $400 million and special education by $520 million.
The president had sought $100 million for a new reading-intervention program for middle and high school students—the Striving Readers initiative—but it ultimately received just one-quarter of that amount.
