Reading & Literacy

Winners vs. Losers In 2009’s Budget

By Alyson Klein — March 13, 2009 1 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

In the end, Reading First went with barely a whimper, as the controversial reading program was zeroed out in the $410 billion fiscal 2009 federal spending measure signed by President Barack Obama last week.

Reading First was among a handful of high-profile education items in the long-overdue budget for the current fiscal year, which also provides modest boosts for Title I grants to districts and spending for students in special education, while taking aim at the District of Columbia voucher program.

The spending measure will hike the U.S. Department of Education’s budget to $66.5 billion, up from just over $62 billion in fiscal 2008, a 7 percent increase.

The measure, which covers the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, includes $14.5 billion in Title I grants to districts for the education of disadvantaged students, a 4.3 percent increase. And it includes $11.5 billion for special education state grants, a 5.5 percent boost.

That’s on top of the $10 billion and $11.7 billion, respectively, that Title I and special education state grants received under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act—the recently passed economic-stimulus package.

It’s unclear whether the new administration and Congress will conceive a program to replace Reading First, which, at its height, received $1 billion annually.

Reports by the Education Department’s inspector general in 2006 and 2007 suggested some federal officials and contractors involved in implementing the program had conflicts of interest.

Jon Schnur, a consultant to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, said last week that there will be “a real commitment to early reading” in Mr. Obama’s fiscal 2010 budget, to be released in detail next month.

The 2009 budget measure could also spell the beginning of the end for the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program. A provision states that this will be the last year for its funding, unless Congress reuthorizes it.

Chances of renewal by that the Democratically-controlled Congress are seen as slim.

A version of this article appeared in the March 18, 2009 edition of Education Week

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

Reading & Literacy Opinion Reading Research Is Getting Lost in Translation. What You Need to Know
There's a yawning gap between what experts know will work and how that's implemented in the classroom.
8 min read
Images shows colorful speech bubbles that say "Q," "&," and "A."
iStock/Getty
Reading & Literacy Opinion What Should We Really Make of Book Bans?
Opinions are divided on the significance of recent (and not-so-recent) efforts to remove certain books from schools.
5 min read
Manipulated image of old hardcover books flying on white background
Liudmila Chernetska/iStock + Education Week
Reading & Literacy Opinion Tired of the Reading Wars? Become a Conscientious Objector
Teachers' obligation is to their students. The research combined with the knowledge of individual students should be the guide.
14 min read
Images shows colorful speech bubbles that say "Q," "&," and "A."
iStock/Getty
Reading & Literacy 'I Literally Cried': Teachers Describe Their Transition to Science-Based Reading Instruction
Teachers describe their journeys as they navigated the changing landscape of literacy instruction.
6 min read
First grade teacher Tammy Satterfield of Mountain View Elementary uses her fingers to break up a word into its separate sounds with phoneme segmentation.
First grade teacher Tammy Satterfield of Mountain View Elementary uses her fingers to segment phonemes—or break up a word into its separate sounds.
Kitty Clark Fritz for Education Week-File