Federal Public Policy
The following was excerpted from Early Ed Watch of the New America Foundation.
The Senate voted on December 17, 2011morning to pass the omnibus year-end spending bill, and the result is small increases for early education. Although
the bill provides less funding for discretionary programs overall – for
the second consecutive year – many education programs will actually see
a boost. The table below shows funding levels for some Department of
Education and Department of Health and Human Services programs that
affect young children from birth through third grade.
Head
Start will receive an additional $400 million, upping the program’s
spending to $7.98 billion in 2012 and preserving the slots opened
through an expansion of the program in the 2009 American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act. Both Early Intervention Services for
Infants and the Child Care Development Block Grant
programs will see a lift in funding, with increases of $5 million and
$60 million, respectively.
Race to the Top is decreased from FY11 levels of $700 million to
$550 million, and those funds will now be available to local
educational agencies in addition to states. The Investing in Innovation
(i3) Fund remains steady at fiscal year 2011 levels, as does the School
Improvement Grants (SIG) program and Ready-to-Learn TV, which funds
research on and the development of educational television and software
programs.
Striving Readers, a competitive grant program to improve literacy
in children from birth through 12
th grade, received $160
million. The Administration had wanted its funding to be part of a
newly-titled and consolidated division within the Department of
Education, while the the House Appropriations Committee had not included
funding for it in its proposals.
The
president releases his fiscal year 2013 budget request in early
February.