Education Funding

Education Spending to See Reductions in Fiscal 2006 Federal Budget

By Michelle R. Davis — December 22, 2005 4 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

Precollegiate education got a lump of coal from Congress a few days before Christmas, as lawmakers essentially froze all discretionary spending and then heaped a 1 percent cut on top of that as they scrambled to approve an overdue school spending measure.

Late Wednesday night, the Senate approved by voice vote the $142.5 billion fiscal 2006 spending bill for the departments of Education, Labor, and Health and Human Services. The bill narrowly passed the House on Dec. 14 by a vote of 215-213. The measure contains essentially the same plan for education spending as an earlier House-Senate conference agreement, which was unexpectedly defeated in the House in late November, but resuscitated this month.

A separate defense spending bill, which passed the Senate on a vote of 93-0 late Wednesday and was approved by the House by unanimous consent on Thursday, contained a 1 percent, across-the-board spending cut to all federal programs with the exception of veterans’ programs. The 1 percent slice eliminated what had been very slight increases to K-12 education’s two largest programs—Title I and special education—and turned them into cuts.

“It’s a dirty shame,” said Reg Weaver, the president of the 2.7 million-member National Education Association, of the final education budget.

The Department of Education’s discretionary spending level in the appropriation bill will see a reduction of $624 million from the fiscal 2005 level. However, overall discretionary spending for the Education Department will ultimately increase, with the addition of $1.6 billion in hurricane relief aid that is also included in the defense spending bill.

With the 1 percent cut, funding for Title I, the nation’s largest federal program to help educate disadvantaged children, fell $28 million from fiscal 2005 to $12.7 billion. Funding for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act fell by $7 million over fiscal 2005 to $10.6 billion. The new spending bill decreases the federal share of the costs of educating students with disabilities from 18.6 to 17.8 percent, representing the first drop in spending in that area in a decade, according to a Democratic education aide.

Spending Details

The education spending bill includes a number of other cuts, including a 96 percent cut to comprehensive school reform, from $205 million to $8 million; a 45 percent cut to education technology state grants, from $496 million to $272 million; a cut of nearly 50 percent to state block grants for innovative education from $198 million to $99 million; and a 20 percent reduction to state grants for the safe and drug free schools and communities program, from $437 million to $347 million.

A third bill, also taken up during the hurried last days before the holiday break, affected education. Called the budget reconciliation measure, it institutes spending cuts to reduce the deficit, and contains $12.7 billion in cuts to the student loan program. It also has a provision to open up a student-loan forgiveness program—which had earlier applied only to public school math, science, and special education teachers—to all private school teachers who work at schools in which 30 percent of students are from low-income families, said Kim Anderson, a lobbyist for the NEA.

But Sen. Michael B. Enzi, R-Wyo., the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, said it was important to look at the big picture in the bill. Though he said he “would have preferred the previously passed Senate bill,” this measure contains some positives, which include increasing loan limits for first- and second-year students to $3,500 and $4,500, and increasing graduate borrowing limits to $12,000.

“With this bill we were able to reduce spending through changes in the way lenders operate, but at the same time we shielded direct impact to students and actually increased student opportunities,” he said in a written statement.

While a last-minute holiday crunch in Congress is typical, longtime observers say it was unusual for lawmakers to wait this long to pass an education spending bill and to have its outcome so uncertain. The fiscal year ended Sept. 30 and the Department of Education has been operating under a continuing budget resolution that keeps its funding mostly at last year’s levels.

The end-of-the-year wrangling had bleary-eyed lawmakers taking votes in the wee hours of the morning. At one point, Senate lawmakers rejected the defense spending bill because it contained a provision to open Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil drilling and sent aides scrambling to reformulate the bill in order to make it palatable enough to finally pass.

“We’re frustrated about the entire endgame,” said Mary Kusler, the assistant director of government relations for the Arlington, Va.-based American Association of School Administrators. “One of their last acts was slashing funding for education and they did it in the middle of the night with big consequences for every school and district.”

Events

This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Mathematics Webinar
Pave the Path to Excellence in Math
Empower your students' math journey with Sue O'Connell, author of “Math in Practice” and “Navigating Numeracy.”
Content provided by hand2mind
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Recruitment & Retention Webinar
Combatting Teacher Shortages: Strategies for Classroom Balance and Learning Success
Learn from leaders in education as they share insights and strategies to support teachers and students.
Content provided by DreamBox Learning
Classroom Technology K-12 Essentials Forum Reading Instruction and AI: New Strategies for the Big Education Challenges of Our Time
Join the conversation as experts in the field explore these instructional pain points and offer game-changing guidance for K-12 leaders and educators.

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Education Funding The Federal Government Might Shut Down (Yes, Again). Here's What Schools Need to Know
At first, most districts can expect business as usual if the federal government shuts down. But some districts risk losing funding soon.
5 min read
Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., is surrounded by reporters looking for updates on plans to fund the government and avert a shutdown, at the Capitol in Washington on Sept. 22, 2023.
Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., is surrounded by reporters looking for updates on plans to fund the government and avert a shutdown, at the Capitol in Washington on Sept. 22, 2023.
Mark Schiefelbein/AP
Education Funding Do K-12 Students Have a Right to Well-Funded School Buildings?
The answer in a recent state court case wasn't exactly a "yes." But it also wasn't a "no." Here's what could happen next.
5 min read
Image of an excavator in front of a school building.
iStock/Getty
Education Funding Explainer 3 Steps to Keep Tutoring Going When ESSER Money Runs Out
Schools may lose more than $1,200 per student as enrollment falls and federal COVID relief funds expire next year.
4 min read
Illustration of a dollar sign falling over a cliff.
DigitalVision Vectors/Getty
Education Funding Opinion Foundations Have Given Money to Schools for a Long Time. What's Actually Working?
Investments in one key area seem to be making a difference when it comes to improving schools.
14 min read
Images shows colorful speech bubbles that say "Q," "&," and "A."
iStock/Getty