President Barack Obama’s request for $900 million to continue the Race to the Top grant competition next year was among the casualties in a draft budget bill released late last week by the House Appropriations Committee.
The Republican plan for fiscal 2012 is a draft of one in a series of budget bills that fund government agencies. It focuses on the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and other related agencies.
An analysis by the Committee for Education Funding, a Washington-based advocacy group, determined the plan would reduce funding for the U.S. Department of Education by $2.4 billion.
It would raise spending on the Title I program for disadvantaged students by $1 billion, to $15.46 billion. And it would fund the federal Rural Education program at $200 million, up from about $175 million in fiscal 2011. It also would cut several programs, including the $175 million Mathematics and Science Partnerships program and $300 million that the president proposed for his Investing in Innovation grants.
