Update on Legislative Action:
After a busy couple of weeks, Congress has
completed its work for 2005. However, as
AASA anticipated, the FY 2006 (2006 – 2007
school year) education funding remained an
important part of the debate in the closing
hours of the session.
Labor HHS and Education Appropriations
Last month, by a vote of 209 to 224, the
House of Representatives defeated the FY
2006 Labor, HHS and Education Appropriations
conference report. This vote took the
Republican leadership by surprise and sent
it back to the drawing board to make changes
necessary to garner enough support. The
loud voice of school administrators
nationwide made House members realize the
importance of funding education and the
unacceptable spending levels in the bill.
This bill reverses the federal commitment to
fully fund the Individuals with Disabilities
in Education Act, will result in a net loss
of Title I dollars for most districts and
slash the formula funding for Education
Technology, Safe and Drug Free Schools and
the Education Innovative Block Grant. No
Child Left Behind funding is reduced by $750
million. In total, this bill represents the
first time education funding will be cut at
the federal level in over a decade.
Unfortunately, with minor changes to
increase funding for rural healthcare and
expand coverage of Viagra by Medicaid, the
House Republican leadership was able to
gather enough votes to secure its passage.
No improvements were made to the education
funding levels. On, Dec. 14, 2005, the
House passed the revised conference report
by a narrow margin, 215 to 213. Twelve
Republicans joined all of the Democrats to
oppose passage of these drastic cuts to
education. To view how your member voted go
to:
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2005/roll628.xml.
If your member is in the “Nay” column, be
sure to thank him or her for supporting
education funding.
On the Senate side, it became clear that the
Republican leadership did not have the
necessary votes to secure final passage.
Members of the Senate said that they were
hearing from their local educators and were
concerned about the funding levels for
education. However, due to last minute
legislative maneuvering, the FY 2006
Education appropriations passed by voice
vote late on Dec. 21, 2005. This passage
locked in the funding cuts for education
despite the large opposition from the
Senate.
In addition, both the House and the Senate
passed the FY 2006 Defense Appropriations
bill. In addition to funding for the
military, this bill also contained a one
percent across-the-board cut for all
government spending. This will be applied
on top of the cuts already passed for
education. Therefore Title I will be cut
$28 million from last years level and IDEA
will be cut by $7 million. This
demonstrates that Congress has abandoned its
commitment to fully fund its share of
special education by reducing their
contribution to 17.8 percent from the
current 18.6 percent.
When Congress reconvenes in January, they
will begin discussions of funding for FY
2007 (2007 – 2008 school year). AASA does
not anticipate that the current environment
will change. Education will remain in
serious danger of being cut again. It will
be important for educators across the
country to keep the pressure on members of
Congress to make public education a priority
when the FY 2007 budget is developed.
Hurricane Relief for Schools
Almost five months after Hurricane Katrina
devastated the Gulf Coast; Congress finally
made assistance available for schools that
were directly impacted by both Katrina and
Rita and those that have been serving
students displaced by these tragedies.
While the money that will flow as relief is
dramatically lower than AASA’s original
request for assistance, there is no doubt
that the impacted districts will put the
available money to good use. Unfortunately,
the final language secures that private
schools will receive assistance at a greater
per capita then the public schools that were
affected.
Katrina assistance for schools will total
$1.4 billion for the coming school year.
The assistance will be broken down into
three areas: assistance to restart school
operations, help for displaced students, and
funding for the McKinney-Vento Homeless
Act. The McKinney section was funded at $5
million to help replace some of the McKinney
money that was spent to serve displaced
students right after the hurricane.
Every school that served displaced students
will receive $6,000 for general education
students and $7,500 for special education
students based on quarterly counts. The
money will flow in January from the U.S.
Department of Education to the states. The
states are then responsible for passing the
money to the impacted school districts.
However, this assistance also extends to
private schools. Local school districts are
responsible for transferring assistance to
“accounts set up on behalf of students” in
the private schools. Though ambiguity
remains, the local school district will most
likely transfer the eligible money directly
to the private school. For any local school
district that is “unable” to complete this
transfer within 14 days, they can turn their
private school money back to the state and
request that they transfer the payments.
(This may help the public schools stay out
of constitutionally murky waters.)
In the final days of negotiations, members
of Congress made clarifications to the
assistance language to ensure the private
schools a greater share. Specifically, they
allowed private schools to be eligible for
the restart monies. Though private schools
will be served under equitable participation
through the state, they were guaranteed a
portion of the money which equals their
proportion to the public schools in the
state. For instance, if there were ten
schools and two were private, they would
receive 20 percent of the funding even if
they only served a small percentage of the
students. Also, it is still not clear if
the change to include private schools will
prevent directly impacted public schools
from receiving the federal money directly.
Due to the changes, public schools may be
limited to assistance as well.
While relieved that assistance for affected
school districts is finally flowing, AASA
remains concerned that the needs of private
schools were put before those in public
schools.
New Problems in Budget Reconciliation
Last-minute scurrying failed to bring final
passage this year of legislation designed to
lower the federal deficit. This so-called
budget “reconciliation” bill --- which will
be reconsidered by the House of
Representatives in late January--- targeted
student aid and social service programs such
as Medicaid for draconian cuts. The final
savings to the deficit in the bill were
targeted at $40 billion, which is still less
than the tax cuts that member of Congress
hope to pass early in the second session of
Congress.
In addition, the reconciliation bill
(S.1932) contained two provisions of concern
to educators. The first provision proposes
to grant $17,500 in student loan forgiveness
to private school teachers.
Under current law, public school teachers
are allowed to receive loan forgiveness but
they are required to hold certification in
math, science or special education. Private
school teachers, on the other hand, would
face no subject certification requirement
and, further, would need no certification at
all to teach. This is a clear extension of
preference to private schools over public
schools.
The other, onerous, provision also relates
to college student aid.
To be eligible for a new enhanced Pell
Grant, which is available to economically
disadvantaged college-bound students, a
Pell-‘plus’ applicant must have received a
“rigorous
secondary school program of study
established by a State or local educational
agency and recognized as such by the U.S.
Secretary of Education.”
Clearly, this curriculum approval mandate by
the Secretary of Education oversteps federal
authority. We will call on you to help us
defeat this federal intrusion into local
schools, when it surfaces again in January.
