Politics K-12

Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, who oversees the Senate appropriations committee, kicked off a mark-up of the education spending bill today by reminding everyone that schools and colleges got $100 billion under the stimulus.

He didn't say so explicitly, but that one-time windfall was probably a key reason that the Obama administration, the House of Representatives, and now the Senate subcommittee on education spending proposed just modest increases for education spending this year.

The Senate subcommittee proposed $63.45 billion for the U.S. Department of Education, an $800 million increase over fiscal 2009. That's just a little less than the $64.16 billion in the House bill and the $64.18 billion in Obama's request.

The bill includes $13.8 billion for Title I grants to districts, a significant boost over the President's request of $12.9 billion, but also a pretty major cut from the fiscal year 2009 level of $14.5 billion. A bill approved by the House of Representatives last week includes $14.5 billion for the grants, about the same level as fiscal year 2009.

Obama had asked for less money for Title I grants to districts in fiscal year 2010 than the program got in fiscal year 2009, in part because Title I grants got a huge influx in the stimulus of $10 billion over two years, and in part because Obama wanted to shift some of the money to Title I school improvement grants, which help turnaround struggling schools. Obama sought $1.5 billion for the grants.

That didn't happen here. Instead, the committee level-funded school improvement grants at $546 million, the same amount the program got in fiscal 2009 and in the House bill.

But the bill includes $700 million for school renovation grants, a perennial priority for Harkin. Districts must compete for the grants, and then match the federal money with local dollars, Harkin said.

"School renovation should have been funded in the Recovery Act," Harkin said. "But in the end school renovation ended up with no money whatsoever." (If you'll remember, some $16 billion was stripped out of the Senate's version of the bill at the eleventh hour to appease moderates in both parties and didn't get put back in during conference.)

Marc Egan, a lobbyist for the National Education Association, the nation's largest teachers' union, praised the school facilities money.

"We applaud Chairman Harkin for continuing his push for school modernization," he said. "While we're pleased the bill restores some of the proposed cut to Title I basic grants, it does not go far enough and we hope that will change as the bill advances."

The measure doesn't go as far as the House bill, or the President's request, in financing the Teacher Incentive Fund, which doles out pay-for-performance grants to districts on a competitive basis.

It provides $300 million for the TIF, a substantial hike over the $97 million the program received in fiscal 2009, but not as much as the mega-increase sought by the Obama administration of $487 million. The House bill was much closer to the administration, with $445 million for the teacher pay program.

Sen. Mary Landrieu, a Democrat from Louisiana, hinted that she might try to introduce an amendment to hike funding for the TIF when the bill goes to the full committee for consideration on Thursday.

"I'd like to work with you to figure out a way that we could increase funding for the Teacher Incentive Fund," she said.

But Harkin said states could use a portion of the $4.35 billion Race to the Top fund to cover the cost of performance-pay programs. (Of course, that program is competitive. So it's likely that not all states could get a piece.)

The measure also eliminates the $112 million Early Reading First program, which Obama had sought to increase to $162 million. Instead, it pumps $263 million total into the Striving Readers program, which aides said would lead to a more comprehensive approach to reading, at all levels of instruction.

Right now, Striving Readers is funded at $35 million. The Senate level still isn't as much as the President asked for. Obama wanted $370 million for Striving Readers. The House put $146 million into the program.

Other highlights:

*Special education grants to states got $11.5 billion, about the same as in fiscal year 2009, the House bill, and the President's request.

*Education Technology State Grants got $100 million, the same as in the House, and the Obama budget, but a lot less than the $269 million the program got in fiscal 2009. The program got $650 million in the stimulus, spread over two years.

*The administration's $50 million drop-out-prevention initiative was fully funded.

*Charter schools would get $256 million, an increase of $40 million over fiscal year 2009, but less than the $268 million the President wanted.

*The state Safe and Drug Free schools grant program would be eliminated, in keeping with an Obama proposal.

*The $66 million Even Start Family Literacy Program would also be zeroed out, as Obama suggested.

Posted by Alyson Klein at 2:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

The House of Representatives approved its version of the fiscal year 2010 budget bill, which we wrote about here and here. The big story here was a mega-increase for the Teacher Incentive Fund, a pay-for-performance program.

The bill was approved on a very partisan vote, which all you Congress-geeks out there can take a look at here.

The Obama administration released a statement yesterday, giving a thumbs up to the bill's major increase for the Teacher Incentive Fund, and a thumbs down to lawmakers' decision not to boost funding for the Title I school improvement grants by $1 billion. The House instead kept that money in Title I grants for districts.

The administration also asked for more money for the Innovation Fund, which was created under the stimulus and is meant to reward districts and nonprofits groups that make major gains in student achievement.

There weren't any major changes to the education provisions, although Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, did introduce an amendment that made a few tweaks to the bill. It included an extra $10 million that can be used to replicate successful charter schools and he included $6.95 million for the Reach out and Read Program in the Fund for the Improvement of Education (which is sort of a slush fund that includes a number of programs).

Meanwhile today, 10 senators urged the Senate Appropriations Committee to include the full $487 million for the Teacher Incentive Fund in their version of the education spending bill. The Senate Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education subcommittee could consider their bill as early as next week.

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Relax, Teacher Incentive Fund fans: It doesn't look like the full House Appropriations Committee is going to make major changes to that education spending bill approved last week by the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies.

The House Appropriations Committee today was debating the Labor-HHS appropriations bill, which finances the U.S. Department of Education and, as I'm sure you'll remember, includes a huge windfall for the TIF. Final passage wasn't expected until this evening, but it was mostly other congressional business, not education, that was holding up debate.

Under the bill, the TIF, the main federal performance pay program, would go from just $97 million to $446 million. That's a little under the President's request of $487.2 million, but still a huge windfall. And that's on top of the $200 million TIF got in the economic-stimulus package.

During the markup, Rep. David R. Obey, D-Wisc., the committee chairman, who has expressed skepticism about the TIF in the past, said that the program was the Obama administration's "highest priority."

But not everyone is so thrilled about the increase. Marc Egan, a lobbyist for the National Education Association, the nation's largest teachers union, said he wishes the committee had instead boosted funding for one of the major formula grant programs, such as Title II, which helps states pay for teacher training, and Title I, which helps districts cover the cost of educating disadvantaged students.

The bill does contain a provision requiring the Institute of Education Sciences to perform a "rigorous evaluation" of the TIF program.

But Egan said he was "pleased" that the committee decided to restore a $1.5 billion cut to Title I grants to districts proposed in the president's budget. The Obama administration wanted to direct that money to school improvement grants, which help turnaround schools struggling to meet the goals of the No Child Left Behind Act. Instead, the committee decided to level-fund the school improvement grants at $545 million. The program received $3 billion in the stimulus package.

James W. Kohlmoos, the president of the Knowledge Alliance, a non-profit organization representing education researchers, said he was disappointed by the move, since he supports targeting a greater share of Title I resources to struggling schools. Still, he was happy to see that the committee boosted research and development to $199.2 million. That's a $32 million increase over fiscal year 2009, but not quite as high as the $224.2 million the Obama administration wanted.

The bill under consideration does make a few changes to the version marked up by the subcommittee last week. It restores funding for the $7.4 million Gifted and Talented Education program, which the previous version of the bill, and the Obama budget, sought to eliminate. And it includes an additional $3 million for the Innovation Fund, which was created under the stimulus and is meant to reward districts and non-profits that are raising student achievement. The Obama administration had asked for an additional $100 million for the program in its budget.

Other highlights: The bill includes $100 million for the Educational Technology State Grants, the same amount the Obama administration asked for, but a lot less than the $269 million the program got in fiscal year 2009. The grants got a huge boost in the stimulus, though, to the tune of $650 million.

And the 21st Century Community Learning Centers program, which finances after-school efforts, got $1.18 billion, a $50 million increase over the president's request. If you'll remember, advocates were pretty upset that the Obama administration level-funded the program.

Finally, the measure restored funding for the $66.4 million Even Start Family Literacy program, which the Obama administration had sought to scrap, also to the chagrin of many advocates.

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A key U.S. senator told Secretary of Education Arne Duncan this morning that he’s not a fan of the Obama administration’s proposal to shift $1 billion out of Title I grants for districts into the Title I school improvement program.

Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, the chairman of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that oversees education, said that he’s worried about reducing the level for the Title I program, which was financed at $14.5 billion in fiscal year 2009, but is slated for $13 billion in fiscal 2010, will make it harder to maintain the program’s funding in future years.

Harkin acknowledged that the program got a $10 billion one-time boost over two years under the stimulus package, but he said he’s worried about the impact of the proposal after the stimulus funding goes away.

“For this year and next year, things are fine,” Harkin said. “Obviously we’re looking at what happens when the recovery funds go out. You can say well, this is okay because we have all this money in the recovery act. But the problem with that is, you cut the base. If you cut the base this year, you have to make all that up” in fiscal year 2011.

Duncan, who was testifying before the committee on the administration’s budget, said he’s committed to keeping appropriations for the Title I program up going forward. And he used his new favorite line on the school improvement funding, saying it would train a “laser-like focus” on the schools that are struggling. But it didn’t sound to me like Harkin was buying that argument.

And another Obama proposal looks like it’s going to be a tough sell with some committee Democrats: the mega-increase for the Teacher Incentive Fund program. Obama’s budget seeks to boost funding for the TIF, which doles out grants for pay-for-performance programs from $97 million in fiscal year 2009 to $487.3 million in fiscal year 2010. That major hike would come on top of $200 million for the TIF in the stimulus.

But Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., asked Duncan whether he could point to any studies that demonstrate the TIF’s effectiveness.

Duncan kind of tap-danced on that one, talking about his very positive experience with a TIF grant in Chicago. He said the grants only went to schools where 75 percent of teachers said they wanted them.

But Murray didn’t sound assuaged. While she said the program’s purpose “sounds good when [Duncan] says it,” she wants to make sure there are safeguards in place to make sure that the money isn’t used for programs that give out “subjective rewards” to educators. She said she’s particularly worried because the program has never been authorized by Congress.

Duncan said the grants wouldn’t go to schools that “pit teachers against each other” and said he’d work with Murray on his plan for the program. Still, that exchange has me wondering whether the Obama administration will get the full increase it is seeking for the fund.

Harkin also expressed some skepticism about the administration’s proposal to shift the Pell Grant program from the discretionary to the mandatory side of the ledger, where it wouldn’t be subject to the whims of the appropriations process (and incidentally, not under the subcommittee’s jurisdiction).

“There are reasons on both sides,” Harkin said. “There a lot of others ways that we can make sure that kids keep up their grades and keep up the work” to get a college education.

And it doesn’t sound like Harkin was too thrilled with Duncan’s suggestion that he would consider whether a state has caps on the number of charter schools in doling out the $4.35 billion in Race to the Top funding.

“Are charter schools a litmus test?” Harkin asked.

But Harkin and Duncan were on the same page on a very technical issue dealing with the implementation of the special education money in the stimulus act. (My colleague, Christina Samuels did a good job of explaining this tough-to-understand issue in this story.)

Duncan said he wasn’t allowing districts that hadn’t been meeting the needs of special education students to use the money for other purposes.

“Right on,” Harkin said.

And Harkin voiced support for some of the new programs included in the president’s budget, including a $50 million initiative to overhaul high schools and an $800 million investment in early-childhood education. And both Harkin and Duncan are on the same page when it comes to a longer school year. (Harkin suggested 11 months, Duncan suggested 12.)

Harkin also said he would seek to include some money for school facilities in the Labor-HHS appropriations bill. That could mean one or more of Obama’s priorities may be scrapped or reduced to make room for a facilities program.

And the proposal is likely to spark another debate in Congress over whether the feds should be in the business of paying for school facilities. If you recall, both the House and Senate’s original versions of the stimulus bill included significant money for school facilities, but the program was jettisoned to earn the support of some moderate Republicans and conservative Democrats.

Posted by Alyson Klein at 12:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Today, Education Secretary Arne Duncan is headlining a day's worth of hearings on the U.S. Department of Education's fiscal 2010 budget.

In fact, listen to Duncan now in the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee. Later, he'll testify before the House equivalent.

Politics K-12's Alyson Klein will monitor these hearings all day, and will be updating folks here.

Posted by Michele McNeil at 10:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

The school facilities bill that the House Education and Labor Committee approved just a few weeks ago came up for a vote today in the U.S. House of Representatives.

As you might expect, it was approved 275 to 155, pretty much on a party-line vote. As you also might expect, the pro-and-con arguments haven't changed much over time.

During the House debate, Republicans worried that Congress is committing itself to yet another education program when it can't seem to fully fund special education and Title I grants to districts, no matter which party is in charge. And, they wondered whether the feds should be financing school facilities at all, especially given the federal prevailing wage law, which they say is too costly.

Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon, R-Calif., the top Republican on the House Education and Labor Committee, summed up his side's arguments nicely in a statement today.

The federal government has always maintained a limited role in education, focusing on key academic priorities such as closing achievement gaps between disadvantaged students and their peers and ensuring services for children with disabilities. The construction and renovation of schools are among the most fundamental rights and responsibilities belonging to states and local communities. Federalizing this role is a stunning Washington power grab; something that has become all too familiar in recent months.

And here's Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., the committee's chairman:

All students and teachers deserve safe and healthy learning environments, but too often, their schools are literally falling apart. This legislation is a victory for students, workers, and our planet. It will help improve educational opportunities and boost student achievement, it will help transition us toward a green economy by making our classrooms more environmentally friendly, and it will get Americans back to work by creating good-paying, clean-energy jobs.

As we've mentioned, that debate isn't as big a deal in the House of Representatives, where Democrats have a majority. (In the House, the majority pretty much runs the show). That's why the House was able to pass a version of the stimulus package that included $14 billion for school facilities, while the full Senate rejected a similar program.

And the House approved a similar bill last year that never made it to prime time, because the Senate didn't take it up.

Over on the Senate side, it takes 60 votes to get anything through, and some conservative Democrats are skeptical about a federal school facilities program.

That probably won't stop senators from trying. It's possible that Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa, the chairman of the subcommittee that funds education and a school facilities fan, could try to get a program into this year's appropriations bill, for example.

But the real test for this bill is in the Senate, not the House.

Check out a summary of the bill here. And if you're not a summary person and want to see the real deal, look here.

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From guest blogger Catherine Gewertz:

If folks in the "high school space" have felt that much of reform's money and attention has been passing them by, their time of longing could be ending.

There have been signs of this already, with all the talk about ensuring high school graduates are college ready, and the focus on "next generation" high school accountability for the anticipated reauthorization of No Child Left Behind—oops, sorry, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

Yesterday, a key education voice at the Office of Management and Budget told a high-level Jobs For the Future convening here in Washington that the new, $50 million high school initiative in President Obama's proposed budget shouldn't be judged solely by the relatively paltry amount of seed money requested for its start-up.

"You should see it as a down payment to major commitments and major reforms in high school," Robert Gordon, the OMB's associate director of education, income maintenance and labor, told the group.

When asked later whether changes were needed in Title I rules to ensure that more of the money flows to middle and high schools, Mr. Gordon didn't go into detail, but hinted that the administration was indeed seeking such tweaks.

Posted by Michele McNeil at 11:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

At a Brookings Institution event today, Education Secretary Arne Duncan put aside a lot of the rhetoric he's been pushing lately on the "Race to the Top" to focus on those languishing at the bottom.

He seems to want to direct our attention to a less-talked-about pot of money—the $3 billion in Title I funding that's set aside as school improvement grants for the lowest performing schools. Coupled with $1.5 billion in the fiscal 2010 federal budget, that means low-performing schools have available to them almost as much as is in the $5 billion Race to the Top fund, he told the packed crowed.

Duncan wants to target the lowest 1 percent of schools—those schools where student achievement hasn't improved in years—to be eligible for new staff and leadership. In fact, he seems intent on seeing 5,000 of the nation's worst schools closed and reopened within five years.

That may be an ambitious goal. After all, the new Coalition for Student Achievement (made up of leaders from the Broad and Gates foundations, along with other education advocates) declared that a measure of success would be whether 500 schools are closed by 2012.

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The Obama administration has proposed cutting 12 programs from the Department of Education's budget, for a savings of $550.7 million. By contrast, in his fiscal year 2009 budget, President George W. Bush sought to scrap 47 Education Department programs (such as Even Start, and EdTech state grants) for a potential savings of $3.3 billion. But, as then-President Bush discovered, proposing those cuts and actually getting Congress to go along are two different things.

Let's look at the programs on the chopping block this time around. Notice that the department plans to keep many of the concepts of these programs (like character education) but absorb them into other programs.

Safe and Drug-Free Schools State Grants: According to the department, this program has not demonstrated effectiveness. Money would be better spent for targeted school safety and drug prevention education activities. The Office of Management and Budget, in its performance-based budget rating system, has not quite declared the program ineffective, but instead says that results have not been demonstrated. This means the program either hasn't set goals, or hasn't collected enough data to determine if it's performing. Savings: $294.8 million.

Even Start: This family literacy program is one of the more high-profile cuts, and may face the biggest barriers. The education department points out that three separate national studies find no benefit to the program. OMB rates Even Start ineffective. Savings: $66.5 million.

College Access Challenge Grants: The department wants to eliminate this program, which helps increase the number of underrepresented students in higher education, in favor of its own, much bigger, "better structured", $2.5 billion College Access and Completion Fund. Seems like a name change to me. (The program wasn't evaluated by OMB.) Savings: $66 million.

Mentoring: This program that provides grants to school districts and community-based organizations for mentoring at-risk youth was found to be ineffective, according to a recent evaluation conducted by the Institute for Education Sciences. OMB declared it duplicative of other programs. Savings: $48.5 million.

Civic Education: This program provides non-competitive grants for the We the People civics education course and for exchange programs. The department says it will replace this with a broader, competitive grant program. OMB hasn't evaluated this program. Savings: $33.5 million.

Character Education: Eliminates funding to states and school districts for character education, instead wrapping it into a new initiative that's part of the Safe and Drug-Free Schools national program, not to be confused with the state program that's getting the ax. OMB hasn't evaluated this program. Savings: $11.9 million.

Ready to Teach: Eliminates funding for TV programming that helps improving teaching in core curricular areas. OMB hasn't evaluated this one either. Savings: $10.7 million.

Javits Gifted and Talented: Read more about this over at the On Special Education blog. Savings: $7.5 million.

National Institute for Literacy: The department wants to cut this nearly 20-year-old program for demonstrating "little success" in providing national leadership on literacy issues (its mission). The OMB said this institute overlaps with the duties of other federal agencies. Savings: $6.5 million.

Academies for American History and Civics: The department says this program, which makes "3 or 4 awards" annually to support workshops for teachers, is too small to make any real difference. And apparently too small for OMB to bother evaluating. Savings: $1.9 million.

Close Up Fellowships: Provides funding for low-income students and teachers to visit Washington, D.C. The department says the foundation that runs the fellowship doesn't need taxpayer money because it gets plenty from the private sector. Not evaluated by OMB. Savings: $1.9 million.

Foundations for Learning: The program is too small for its broad mission of helping to promote the emotional, behavioral, and social development of at-risk kids, the department says. Plus, other parts of the budget address these issues. OMB hasn't evaluated this one either. Savings: $1 million.

Total Savings: $550.7 million.

Posted by Michele McNeil at 11:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

As I guessed earlier this week, this is all a little less exciting than it usually is, just because so much got done in the stimulus package.

But here are some highlights:

The Title I district grant program is slated to get $12.9 billion, which is actually a little bit lower than the $14.49 billion the program got in fiscal year 2009. Of course, it also received $10 billion in the stimulus.

At first glance, it looks like some of the difference may be due to the fact that Title I dollars have been diverted to some other purposes, including what looks like two brand new Title I programs: $500 million for Early Childhood grants, and $300 million for an Early Learning Challenge Fund. There's also an additional $50 million for a high school graduation initiative.

UPDATE: School districts are not happy about this. “The dollar amounts that districts build [their budgets] off of has been cut in the President’s budget,” said Mary Kusler, the assistant director of advocacy and policy for the American Association of School Administrators in Arlington, Va. “Districts have already budgeted these dollars. Districts will have to rethink their [stimulus] funds to potentially covering a shortfall in Title I, lessening the potential impact of [the stimulus].”

Special education state grants are slated to get $11.5 billion, the same level as in fiscal year 2009. The program also got $11.3 billion in the stimulus.

The Improving Teacher Quality State grants are slated for $2.9 billion. And it looks like the Teacher Incentive Fund may get a huge boost, bigger than the Bush administration may even have dreamed of. The budget proposes $717 million for the program, which I'm guessing includes the $200 million approved under the stimulus. But that's still a big increase from just under $100 million in fiscal year 2009.

The budget proposes $1.16 billion for career and technical state grants, which is pretty much level-funding from fiscal year 2009. Two major college-prep programs, TRIO and Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate programs, were also level-funded at $905 million and $313 million, respectively.

There's also a huge boost for school improvement grants to help schools struggling to meet the goals of the No Child Left Behind Act. That program, which was financed at $606 million in fiscal year 2009, got an extra $1 billion, plus another $3 billion in the stimulus, for a grand total of $4.6 billion.

If you want the fun of pouring through the budget documents yourself, the Education Department's Web site is happy to oblige.

Posted by Alyson Klein at 5:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Yesterday it was Even Start. Earlier this morning it was gifted education.

Now the White House has announced a few more education programs that it would like to see Congress scrap in the fiscal year 2010 budget.

The list includes: Civic Education, which received about $33 million in fiscal year 2009. That program pays for the We the People program, which, ironically, got a lot of kids I talked to in Indiana interested in volunteering for President Barack Obama's presidential campaign.

The budget also proposes getting rid of the $2 million Close-Up fellowships, which provide grants for students to visit Washington, and the $2 million Academies for History and Civics, which provide intensive workshops for teachers and students in those subjects.

Also on the hit list:

-Safe and Drug Free Schools and Communities State Grants: a $295 million program that the administration doesn't think is well designed. Instead, officials want to hike funding for the Safe and Drug free schools national program, which they think is more effective

- Foundations for Learning, a $1 million program aimed at providing mental health service to at-risk kids. Apparently, it's just too small to make much of an impact

- The National Institute for Literacy, a $6 million program that promotes adult literacy. The White House thinks that should be the job of the Office of Vocational and Adult Education

- The Ready to Teach program, an $11 million program which doles out grants to telecommunications entities to develop educational video programming. Apparently, the administration thinks that eligibility criteria is too limiting. Instead, the administration is proposing a brand new $5 million program called Digital Professional Development, which will make funds available a wider range of folks. No word yet on just who though.

- Student Mentoring Program, $47 million. The administration thinks this duplicates the work of other programs.

- Character Education, a $12 million that apparently doesn't have much of an effect student outcomes

And in addition to getting rid of that Paris representative, the administration wants to eliminate the Education Secretary's Regional Representatives, which help with outreach and program implementation. That will save $2 million.

For more reductions and eliminations, check out the White House Office of Management and Budget's Web site.

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President Obama's budget to be released Thursday will propose eliminating the $66 million Even Start family literacy program, which apparently hasn't done very well on performance evaluations.

Advocates for early childhood education shouldn't take this to mean that Obama doesn't care about their issue, White House aides were quick to point out.

"The President's commitment to early childhood education is well known," a senior White House aide told reporters on a conference call earlier today. "We're not going to hold back on eliminating programs simply because of their intentions."

Obama might have an uphill battle on this one. President Bush also tried to scrap the program, but its congressional champions keep restoring the funding. Will those folks have more qualms about bucking a Democratic President instead of a Republican? We'll see.

Even Start is just one of some 120 programs that are slated for the chopping block in tomorrow's budget proposal. Top administration aides said the reductions will save $17 billion, which sounds like a lot of money, but really isn't in the context a $3.5 trillion budget.

Aides mentioned just one other Education Department that they've decided is extraneous: that attaché to Paris we've already mentioned. Apparently, the White House agrees with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan that video-conferencing to Paris will work just as well.

My guess is there are at least a few more Education Department programs on the chopping block (the $8.8 million Exchanges with Historic Whaling and Trading Partners Program comes to mind).

But we won't know for sure until Thursday.

UPDATE: The $7 million Javits Gifted and Talented Education program is slated for elimination in Obama's budget. The Office of Management and Budget justified the decision, saying that the grants only go out to 15 school districts. Bush also tried to slash that program, but had no luck.

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So it looks like President Obama is going to propose extending the D.C. voucher program, just for the kids currently enrolled, in his fiscal year 2010 budget, to be released tomorrow.

Politically, it's probably a smart move. The administration will avoid stories and commentaries about kids, including a couple of Sasha and Malia's classmates at Sidwell Friends School, getting booted from their desks.

But it should put an interesting twist on the debate over reauthorizing the voucher program. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, an Independent Democrat from Connecticut, has said he will hold hearings on whether or not to renew the program, which is set to sunset this year.

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President Obama's proposed federal budget, the real one, with numbers and everything this time, is likely to come out any day now.

Usually, folks in Washington are on pins-and-needles waiting for this document, which lays out how much the administration thinks should be spent on federal programs.

It includes everything from a bottom-line number for the U.S. Department of Education to spending levels for programs from Title I (which got about $14 billion in fiscal year 2009) to the Javits Gifted Education program (which got just under $7.5 million).

You might recall that, a couple of months ago, Obama put out a preliminary version of this budget plan, which gave top-line numbers for agencies and proposed some new programs, but for the most part, avoided the nitty-gritty.

His proposal would fund the U.S. Department of Education at $46.7 billion in the next fiscal year. That figure doesn’t take into account $81 billion for the Education Department under the economic-stimulus package or a major budgetary change for the Pell Grant program for college students.

In this more fleshed out budget, the administration will tell us just how much it thinks should be spent on some of Obama's new proposals (like Promise Neighborhoods, which are supposed to mirror the Harlem Children's Zone). We might also see other new proposals, such as a possible successor to Reading First, which Congress zeroed out in fiscal year 2009.

And Obama's budget proposal, which will also outline spending for other departments that deal with education, including the Department of Health and Human Services, will give us an idea of which programs the new administration would like to eliminate. I wouldn't expect him to propose scrapping as many programs as President George W. Bush did. (Bush put 47 Ed. Dept. programs on the chopping block in fiscal year 2009.)

But a lot of the major work on this year's budget, is well...basically done. Educators are usually most interested in whether there will be significant increases to Title I and special education, two of the largest chunks of the department's discretionary budget. But those were already approved as part of the $115 billion for education in the economic stimulus package.

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The White House once again rejected South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford's request to use stimulus money to pay down school construction debt, so the governor is saying thanks, but no thanks, and rejecting $700 million in state stabilization fund dollars, which are intended primarily to prop up education budgets.

In a press release issued today, Sanford expresses a sentiment that others certainly share: "We simply cannot afford to base 10 percent of our state budget on money that will disappear in two years' time."

But he also takes aim at the White House: "We're obviously disappointed by the White House's decision, because it cuts against the notion of federalism and the idea of each state having the flexibility to act in a manner that best suits its needs."

Sanford also told lawmakers that if they decide to seek the stabilization money on their own, they should use the stabilization money for the intended purposes (education) but then use the state money that's freed up to pay down state debt. (There's some debate about whether legislatures can override governors on stimulus-related issues.) The legislature would have to be careful to steer clear of "maintenance of effort" requirements that are attached to the stabilization money that seek to keep states from replacing their own dollars with state dollars.

Joel Sawyer, the governor's spokesman, told me the White House's rejection applies only to state stabilization funds—and that Title I and special education funding will still flow through to the state.

Earlier this week, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin also announced she was rejecting stimulus dollars, including Title I and special education funding.

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In a two-hour hearing today before the House Budget Committee, members of Congress peppered education secretary Arne Duncan with questions seeking more details about President Obama's fiscal 2010 education spending plans. That's something a lot of people, from advocacy groups to media, have been clamoring for.

But Congress couldn't get any answers, either.

Duncan wouldn't budge on how much more money will be allotted to Title I or special education, or whether there will be funding for the Washington, D.C. voucher program in the president's budget. (Duncan did, however, echo the president's sentiments that current voucher students shouldn't have their schooling disrupted.) Read his prepared testimony here.

He did, however, use his first appearance at a congressional hearing to explain his overall approach to changes he will seek during No Child Left Behind reauthorization. He said that NCLB got what's "loose" and "tight" backwards...that the law is very loose on the education goals but very tight on how schools should get there. He wants to flip that, he said, and be very clear that schools and districts and states need college-ready, internationally benchmarked academic standards.

Republicans used the hearing as an opportunity to grill him on the D.C. voucher program (he said vouchers aren't a long-term solution but then talked about not disrupting current kids' educations), federal versus local control of the school curriculum (Duncan says he's more a believer of local curriculum decisions now than he even was in Chicago), and why a new $2.5 billion program to support innovative state efforts to help low-income students complete college is a mandatory and not discretionary program (because the ed department wants a stable funding source.)

And, in what has to be one of Duncan's least verbose answers to a question, he said that the answer to getting ineffective teachers out of the classrooms is: "You remove them."

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The U.S. Senate today voted to pass a $410 billion 2009 budget bill, which zeroes out funding for the Reading First program.
And the measure could spell the beginning of the end of the D.C voucher program.

Supporters of the voucher program had sponsored an amendment to strip out language that could keep it from receiving funding next year, unless lawmakers vote to renew its authorization.

The provision, which was rejected on a vote of 58-39, was offered by Sen. John Ensign of Nevada and a bunch of GOP lawmakers, including former presidential candidate Sen. John McCain of Arizona. Sen. Joesph Lieberman, an Independent Democrat from Connecticut, also championed the pro-voucher effort. The vote was mostly party line, with a couple of Democrats, including Sens. Mark Warner of Virginia and Robert Byrd of West Virginia, crossing over to vote with the GOP.

The amendment's defeat means the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program will lose its federal funding after this year unless Congress steps in to reauthorize it. Most folks think that's a pretty unlikely scenario, given that Democrats have hefty margins in both houses and, for the most part, aren't huge fans of vouchers.

Still, Lieberman, who chairs the committee that has jurisdiction over D.C., is planning to hold hearings on the program's future later this year. He may not be able to keep the it going, but it still should make for a pretty interesting debate, especially if he brings in D.C. schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, a Dem, who has been supportive of the program in the past.

The spending bill, which was approved by a voice vote after it cleared a key procedural hurdle by a vote of 62-35, will now go to President Barack Obama for his signature.

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We got lots of proposals, but very few hard numbers, from the Office of Management and Budget today on President Obama's education proposals.

Reporters in an afternoon call-in briefing pressed U.S. Department of Education officials on whether future budgets will make room for the increases to K-12 programs, including Title I and special education, that are in the economic stimulus just passed by Congress.

The budget documents say the Department of Education would get $46.7 billion in fiscal year 2010, which seems low compared to the $59.2 the department got in fiscal year 2008. But the reason for that apparent drop is that the money for the Pell Grant program for college students was shifted from the discretionary part of the budget to the mandatory side.

The budget projects that the department would get $53.6 billion in fiscal year 2011, the first year no longer covered by the stimulus money. It's unclear whether the stimulus-funded increases for Title I and special education would be preserved.

Department folks stressed that we wouldn't get the official numbers till April.

“In 2010 there’s not a lot of room," one budget official said. "What have you done for me lately? [K-12] just got a lot of money in the [stimulus package].”

In addition to all the higher education news we already blogged about, President Barack Obama's fiscal year 2010 budget seems to have some big changes in the works for prekindergarten programs.

It looks like the budget would preserve a boosted budget for Head Start, which got a $2 billion bump in the stimulus. And the administration is working on a new early-education initiative aimed at helping states improve the quality and coordination of their prekindergarten programs, an idea that President Obama hit hard on the campaign trail last year. No details yet on whether that would be located in the Department of Education or in Head Start, which is administered by the Department of Health and Human Services. There would also be mandatory funding to expand home visits by nurses for at-risk children.

There's a proposal to fund a Promise Neighborhood program, which would be modeled after the Harlem Children's Zone. The program aims to boost college-going rates by combining K-12 education programs with a network of support services, including early childhood education, after-school activities and college counseling. No word on just how many cities would get access to the money; aides said those details are still being worked out.

There's also language stating that the budget would provide funds for education research to help scale up promising programs. And the budget documents indicate that the Obama administration is going to "get started" on its plan to double spending on charter schools. Again, no numbers. The budget documents say the administration will close charter schools that aren't performing well.

There's also a $1 billion annual increase for child nutrition program reforms, which is supposed to improve the nutritional quality of school meals, and new money to expand service learning programs.

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The fiscal year 2010 budget proposal being released today by President Barack Obama would seek to eliminate the Federal Family Education Loan Program by 2010. The program subsidizes private lenders who make government-backed college loans. Its elimination would be a huge change, the equivalent of a nuclear bomb going off in the higher education loan world.

I'm guessing that the new administration is hoping the federal government's direct lending program, in which students borrow from the U.S. Treasury, rather than allowing subsidized lenders to do the job, will step up to take its place. After 2010, all loans would originate through that program.

UPDATE: In another big bombshell, the budget would seek to make the Pell Grant program mandatory, which would mean that it wouldn't be subject to the whims of the appropriations process. This is just about the best thing that can happen to any federal program. School districts have been trying to get mandatory funding for special education for decades, with no success.

The subsidized loan program came under fire recently because of mismanagement and conflict of interest problems.

President Barack Obama did not highlight the major loan change in a press conference today at which he announced his budget outline. But he did say that his fiscal 2010 budget would build on the investments in the recently passed economic stimulus law, in terms of education.

This budget supports the historic investment in education we made as part of the recovery plan by matching new resources with new reform. We want to create incentives for better teacher performance and pathways for advancement. We want to reward success in the classroom. And we'll invest in innovative initiatives that will help schools meet high standards and close achievement gaps, preparing students for the high-paying jobs of tomorrow -- but also helping them fulfill their God-given potential.

Obama's top budget aide, Peter Orszag, said in a briefing today that the budget would build on the investments in early education in the stimulus. Read a three-page summary of the education budget proposals here. You'll see there's also a new $2.5 billion program to support innovative state efforts to help low-income students complete college.

And he mentioned that the fiscal 2010 budget would eliminate an ineffective mentoring program in the U.S. Department of Education. Wonder where else Obama used his scalpel?

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The House of Representatives just passed the $410 billion fiscal year 2009 omnibus spending bill, which eliminates the Reading First program and provides boosts for other education programs that would seem modest, but really aren't when you add in the dizzying figures in the economic stimulus package, which covers fiscal years 2009 and 2010.

The omnibus bill was approved on a vote of 245-178. Democratic leaders have been sitting on this bill for months, waiting for a Democratic president to sign it.

The measure includes:

- $11.5 billion for special education.

- $15 billion for Title I, which includes $648 million for school improvement.

- $97 million for the Teacher Incentive Fund.

- $7.1 billion for Head Start.

- $1.1 billion for after-school programs.

Rep. John A. Boehner, the Ohio Republican, House Minority Leader and former chairman of the House education committee, railed against language in the bill that he said makes it clear that this is the last year Congress will provide funding for the D.C. Scholarship and Opportunity Program. He called that provision "hideous" and said it was done in secret.

And Republican members lambasted the earmarks in the bill.

Democrats had bragged that the stimulus was earmark-free, but that's not the case with the omnibus measure.For instance, after Congress just had a big fight over whether the federal government should be paying for school facilities, the bill directs $1.5 million in funds from the Education for Native Hawaiians program to be used for modernization, construction, and repair of schools that primarily serve native Hawaiian kids.

One of the most influential lawmakers in the appropriations process is Sen. Daniel Inouye, who just happens to come from Hawaii.

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After all the excitement with the stimulus, I'll bet you've totally forgotten about that other fiscal year 2009 spending bill...you know, the regular, old budget bill for the fiscal year that started way back on Oct. 1, 2008.

Usually, Congress passes its spending bills sometime in the fall. But this year Democratic leaders in Congress said they were going to sit on most spending bills until they got someone in the White House who might be more disposed to funding their priorities, including education. They didn't want to have to go through another veto showdown with President Bush, who would have had final say on the bill if it had passed in the fall. So they extended funding for most programs at fiscal year 2008 levels until March.

Well, now that President Barack Obama is in the White House, Congress is going ahead with that long-stalled measure. In fact, it will be on the floor of House, and possibly the Senate, this week.

The House Appropriations Committee just released a not-too-detailed summary.

Here are the highlights:

- Reading First is still out. In fact, the summary takes yet another swat at the controversial program, saying it has been plagued with conflicts of interest and cronyism. And it cites this study, which they say concludes that the program hasn't helped much with comprehension.

- Title I would be boosted by $648 million to $15 billion total, not counting the stimulus money. Compared to the dizzying numbers in the stimulus that increase sounds like a rounding error.

- The bill would also provide a $235 million hike for Head Start, bringing it to $7.1 billion, not counting the stimulus increase, which was $2.1 billion over two years split between Head Start and Early Head Start.

And, for your background, here are our stories on the House and Senate Appropriations panels markups of this bill from over the summer.

UPDATED: Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon of California, the top Republican on the House Education and Labor Committee, isn't happy about the committee's decision to eliminate Reading First, or language he says signals that this will be the last year for the D.C. Scholarship and Opportunity Program. He called the moves "a partisan powerplay." Here's what McKeon said in a statement released today:

Democrats have crafted another massive federal spending package in secret, this time advancing their partisan agenda at the expense of some of the poorest children in some of the most troubled schools in the country. Even as they plan to spend nearly half a trillion in taxpayer dollars, the majority is undermining critical education initiatives that help disadvantaged children.

Will such opposition derail the bill in the House? Probably not, the Democrats have too big of a majority for that. But expect to hear similar arguments repeated during floor debate this week.

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Here's some potentially good news for cash-strapped school districts: It looks like Congress is going to work on a real, honest-to-goodness budget for education in fiscal year 2009, which actually began back on Oct.1.

In September, Congress passed a measure extending funding for most federal programs—including education—at fiscal year 2008 levels until March to avoid a repeat of last year's showdown with President Bush.

It even looked like lawmakers were just going to pass another extension covering the rest of fiscal 2009, then get to working on the fiscal 2010 budget, which will be the first proposed by the incoming Obama administration.

But that would have meant that education programs such as Title I wouldn't see any sort of increase. They would just get the same amount as the year before ($13.9 billion in the case of that program). Most education groups really hate budget extensions because they believe such measures basically amount to a cut, since inflation and rising enrollment mean that the same amount of money doesn't go as far.

But now, I've heard from a spokeswoman for the House Appropriations Committee that there's likely to be a regular budget for education this year. Which means schools might actually see some sort of increase for major programs.

The House and Senate appropriations committees, which oversee all federal spending, have already gotten started on their bills, both of which included modest increases for Title I and for students in special education.

You can read Edweek's stories on those measures (which centered around the decision to provide absolutely no funding for Reading First). Also, the folks in the Department of Education's budget office do a great job of tracking what's going on on the Hill. You can check out their budget tables here.

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