Cuts in Head Start,
Nutrition Programs
Viewed as Unlikely
President Reagan will not seek substantial changes in the Head Start and National School Lunch Program in his fiscal 1985 budget, according to Administration sources.
There will be “no dramatic change in policy” on the funding of the two programs for low-income students, an official familiar with the programs said.
For the current fiscal year, the Congress appropriated $995.7 million for Head Start, a program administered by the Department of Health and Human Services that helps community groups offer services for low-income, preschool chil-dren and their families. The Reagan Administration had sought an appropriation of $963.3 million for the program.
The National School Lunch Program, which is administered by the Agriculture Department and provides free, reduced-price, and full-price school lunches, is funded at $3.28 billion for the current fiscal year, which runs through next Sept. 30. The Reagan Administration, in its budget proposal for the current fiscal year, had sought $2.93 billion for the program.
Agency Withdrawal
To Have Little Effect
On U.S. Education
Although the nation’s scientific community is expected to be affected by the American withdrawal from the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, little, if any, effect will be felt in the education community, accord-ing to sources familiar with the agency.
The Reagan Administration recently informed the organization, known as unesco, of its intent to withdraw at the end of 1984, an action that will cost unesco one-fourth of its $374-million annual budget. The Administration, in its formal statement, accused unesco of “politiciz[ing] every subject it deals with,” and exhibiting “a hostility toward the basic institutions of a free society.” unesco was established in 1945 as an arm of the United Nations.
The agency’s education programs did not directly involve the U.S., although American teachers’ unions occasionally participated through their international affiliations, according to David Dorn of the American Federation of Teachers. Chester E. Finn Jr., a professor of education and public policy at Vanderbilt University who was a delegate to a unesco education meeting last year, said U.S. schools “will not lose anything” as a result of the withdrawal.
