House takes up appropriations bill

The bill would provide a $100 million increase for Title I, which is used to help raise student achievement as required by the No Child Left Behind Act. If passed by Congress, Title I would receive a total of $12.7 billion in fiscal year 2006.

For IDEA, the House Appropriations Committee approved a $150 million increase, for a total amount of $10.7 billion for fiscal 2006.

Last year, Congress approved small funding increases for Title 1 ($400 million) and IDEA ($514 million), and the increases proposed in this bill are even smaller.

The committee requests $198.6 million for Title V Innovative Education programs in 2006. That is the same amount appropriated for this year, but it is a huge drop from the amount provided in 2004.

The committee proposes $300 million for state education technology grants, which is a decrease of $196 million from current levels.

During the committee’s action on the spending bill, it rejected an amendment by Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.) to repeal all NCLB mandates due to insufficient funding for Title I and IDEA.

“When federal funding commitments to NCLB, IDEA, and other vital education programs remain underfunded, local governments are forced to make up the difference by increasing local property taxes and imposing budget cuts that impact the overall school curriculum,” NSBA Associate Executive Director Michael A. Resnick wrote to House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.).

Even in areas where additional funding is requested, the proposed spending bill would not keep up with the demands imposed by NCLB, Resnick says. Although the House bill would increase Title I by $100 million, “the Title I shortfall would increase by morv than $9 billion in comparison to the amount of funding that Congress authorized for FY 2006 when passing NCLB act.”