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Spending Bill Boosting Education Funding Clears Congress, Heads to Trump

By Andrew Ujifusa — September 26, 2018 1 min read
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U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is very close to knowing how much money her department has to spend in the next fiscal year.

On Wednesday, the House approved a spending package that includes fiscal 2019 funding for the U.S. Department of Education. The legislation, which the Senate passed last week, includes several increases for programs such as Title I, special education, a big block grant that districts can use for creating safer schools and education technology, and charter schools grants, among others. The legislation now heads to President Donald Trump for his signature.

The spending package largely ignores the push from Trump and DeVos to create new school choice programs, as well as their proposals to cut the Education Department’s overall budget. In total, the deal sets the department’s budget at $71.5 billion, an increase over fiscal 2018 of $581 million, although that figure doesn’t include a rescission of $500 million from Pell Grant reserves. In general, the fiscal 2019 budget impacts education funding for the 2019-20 school year.

The education spending bill also includes funding for the Departments of Defense, Labor, and Health and Human Services. In addition, the legislation includes a continuing resolution to fund other portions of the federal government through Dec. 7; without such a resolution, portions of the federal government would shut down on Monday.

A ban on using Every Student Succeeds Act money to pay for arming educators is not included in the deal, despite pressure from Democrats.

For a program-by-program breakdown of the spending bill, see our chart below: