Federal budget falls short of school district needs

2/18/03 -- President Bush's budget for fiscal year 2004 would increase funding by $1 billion each for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and Title I over the funding levels requested for 2003.

The proposed increase for IDEA, however, still falls short of the amounts needed to fully fund the federal commitment for special education.

And the proposed Title I increase is not enough to ensure that school districts and states will be able to comply with the costly mandates in the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act -- particularly at a time when states are facing huge budget shortfalls.

Furthermore, the funding increases proposed by the President are offset by cuts in other areas. The President's budget includes a $226 million tuition tax credit program, and it would divert additional resources toward vouchers and school choice initiatives.

Under the President's proposal for 2004, funding for IDEA would rise to $10.7 billion. Bush had requested $8.5 billion for 2003, and Congress had appropriated $7.5 billion for 2002.

The proposed increase does not go far enough in closing the gap between what Congress promised for IDEA and what it has provided. When IDEA was first enacted in 1975, Congress committed to paying for 40 percent of the cost of providing special education services to eligible children, but has never covered more than 17 percent of the cost.

NSBA urges Congress to provide an annual $2.5 billion increase for IDEA to reach full funding in six years. NSBA also proposes that IDEA funding be mandatory.

For Title I, the President's proposed $1 billion increase would bring the program up to $12.4 billion, an 8.8 percent increase over his 2003 budget proposal.

However, this is well below the $5 billion increase Congress authorized for Title I when it enacted NCLB just over a year ago.

NSBA also is concerned about a proposal in the budget to implement a pilot voucher program for the District of Columbia. Funding for this program would come out of the Choice Incentive Fund. The budget includes a 50 percent increase for this program, for a total of $75 million.

A poll sponsored by NSBA in December found 76 percent of voters in the District of Columbia oppose vouchers.

The President's budget also includes increases for several of his other initiatives, including a $50 million increase (5 percent) for the Reading First state grants program, and a $25 million increase (33 percent) for Early Reading First.

The budget includes a 10 percent increase for charter schools for a total of $220 million and a 25.4 percent increase for the Transition to Teaching program, for a total of $49.4 million.

The President also proposed replacing the current vocational education program with a new $1 billion Secondary and Technical Education State Grant program. This change would result in a 23.1 percent cut in vocational education funding.

The existing vocational education program would be cut by 23.1 percent, however.

The funding increases in the President's budget would be offset by the termination of 47 education programs, amounting to more than $1.5 billion in cuts. Among the programs the President would end are Rural Education, Comprehensive School Reform, Dropout Prevention, Improving Teacher Quality, and Smaller Learning Communities.

Impact Aid would be cut by 11 percent, and the 21st Century Community Learning Centers program, which provides after-school assistance, would be cut by 40 percent.

The U.S. Education Department released an evaluation of that program Feb. 3 stating that it needs to be better aligned with the accountability and research principles of NCLB. According to the report, the program had minimal impact on test scores and grades.