National Coalition for Literacy

—By Washington Partners with Jackie Taylor

The President sent his fiscal year 2013 budget to Capitol Hill last week to mixed reviews.  Republican Members were quick to criticize the proposal as too costly at a time that requires fiscal restraint.  Democratic Members offered muted praise and caution regarding the deficit and pending sequestration if the government doesn’t get its fiscal house in order.

For education advocates, the top line news was good.  The President has proposed a modest increase for education—a 2.5 percent bump, or $1.7 billion over FY2012.  As with past Obama budgets, however, concerns were raised over the White House’s focus on funding for new competitive grant programs that would require authorizing legislation while major formula grants that state and local education agencies rely on, such as Title I and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), are level-funded in the proposal.

With very few exceptions, all currently authorized and funded programs were frozen.

For adult education, the President proposes level funding at $606.3 million to support activities under the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act of 1998. Of the total, $594,993,000 is available for Adult Education State Grants. From these grants, $15,000,000 is available for the Workforce Innovation Fund, and $74,709,000 is available for English literacy and civics education. An additional $11,323,000 is provided for national activities.

While the Administration notes this as level funding, it is actually a slight reduction in state grants. The proposed $15M is set aside from the existing adult education state grants, thus reducing the total amount available to states through formula funding.

Additionally, the Pathways Back to Work Fund included in the American Jobs Act is provided $12.5 billion in funding, $10 billion of which would go toward promising strategies that lead to employment, which may include integrated education and training models that serve adults with low basic skills.

New proposed spending was reserved for Race to the Top, Investing in Innovation (i3) and Promise Neighborhoods.  The Administration once again proposed several consolidations that reflect the policies envisioned in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) reauthorization “Blueprint.”  In response to the budget, education groups praised the President for keeping education a top priority, but expressed concern about “application fatigue” among state and local education agencies.

One large new investment in education was a proposed modification that would take $5 billion from the President’s America’s Jobs Bill that has languished with the Congress for the past year.  These funds would be used to support a State based competitive grant program that Secretary of Education Arne Duncan detailed this week called RESPECT.  The goal would be funding to make teaching the country’s most important, respected profession by bringing educators together to discuss how to better select, train, support and compensate teachers.

While the discussions regarding the Administration’s budget proposal dominated political news on and off Capitol Hill all week, there were other interesting developments regarding education. Senator Webb introduced the Adult Education and Economic Growth (AEEG) Act of 2012, “…which will reform and increase investment in job training, adult education and other programs needed to build a 21st century workforce. Senators Jack Reed (D-RI) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) are original co-sponsors of the legislation.”

Secretary Duncan announced that New Mexico’s waiver application was approved.  This brings the total of approved packages to eleven.  Acknowledging that the waiver applications were time consuming for states, Secretary Duncan also announced this week an offer to state education agencies to freeze their annual adequate yearly progress targets.  In return for this “temporary flexibility,” states must adopt college- and career-ready standards; link educator evaluations with student test data; and identify schools persistently in need of improvement.  This announcement came the same day as a House hearing on two bills that would complete that chamber’s proposed reauthorization of the ESEA, and Education and the Workforce Committee Chair John Kline (R-MN) announced that a markup of these bills will take place next month.  Ironic? Maybe not.