Education Budget

It is deceptively difficult to determine how much money the federal government spends on America's children each year. Money spent on children's health, education, and nutrition -- as well as a host of other government programs that promote child welfare -- comes from 180 different federal programs, making it hard to account for just how much is spent each year.

Enter First Focus, a nonpartisan children's advocacy organization that created the Children's Budget, a document that provides a birds' eye view of all federal spending on education. This week, using data from Congressional appropriations bills through fiscal year 2009, First Focus released its latest report. It shows that, while there are 82 different federal programs aimed at children from birth through age 18, the share of federal money spent on children in the non-defense budget has decreased from 10.5 percent to 9.2 percent over the past five years.

The report comes with an array of helpful charts and searchable databases at ChildrensBudget.org. We here at Early Ed Watch were curious about whether spending on education programs in particular has been going up or down over the years. Using the tools on the site, we found:

A recently released study by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) suggests that states have been spending increasingly more money - over $640 million in 2007-08 - on creating and implementing academic assessment tests associated with the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). While some federal funds have gone to support these efforts, states have provided most of the funds in the past. The findings from this report have particularly important implications now that Education Secretary Duncan has allocated $350 million of the $4.35 billion for Race to the Top grants for improving standards and assessments and 46 states have joined the effort to develop a common core of standards.

The GAO study found that while states spent anywhere from $500,000 to $83 million on state assessments in 2007-08, the majority of these funds went to outside vendors that developed, administered, scored, and reported the results of the tests. A much smaller fraction of the costs cover salaries for state employees that participate in assessment production. Additionally, it appears that test development, as opposed to scoring or administration, was the most costly part of the process. Due to the fixed nature of costs for test development, smaller states found it particularly difficult to cover these expenses.

In early September the Department of Education (ED) released additional guidance that provides details on how states and school districts can use Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) stimulus funds for reform activities. This guidance seeks to ease some of the inherent tension in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) goals of saving jobs and promoting education reform - a tension that likely has slowed the speed with which states and districts have been able to spend funds. However, one piece of the outlined reform efforts can bridge the gap between these two seemingly opposite goals. Specifically, the guidance provides methods for using ARRA IDEA funds to improve teacher effectiveness and distribution that also have important implications for the teacher workforce.

The guidance lays out four potential ways states and school districts might use ARRA IDEA funds to improve teacher effectiveness and distribution: dual certification, induction and mentoring, using technology in instruction, and assistive technology. Each of these methods seeks to dramatically improve the way teachers instruct special education students by providing them with powerful tools or knowledge.

The Federal Education Budget Project (FEBP), Ed Money Watch's parent initiative, provides a wealth of state and school district level data on federal funding, demographics, and achievement through its website www.edbudgetproject.org. These data can tell important stories about how federal education funding interacts with student demographics and achievement. Moreover, the data often reveal rarely-discussed idiosyncrasies in federal funding and education. From time to time, Ed Money Watch will take a close look at one aspect of the data available through FEBP to highlight the value of this information.

This week, we'll take a look at the free and reduced price lunch related data available through the FEBP database. These data reveal important details about student populations in states and school districts and how these details affect federal reimbursement rates. Data include federal funding for school nutrition programs including meals and commodities, the percent of students enrolled in free and reduced price meals, and the percent of students living in poverty.

Last week we examined the rate at which stimulus funds for different programs have been disbursed by states for spending. Despite encouragement from the Department of Education to spend funds quickly, the majority of education stimulus funds have not yet left the bank. However, this is not the case in all states. While some states are moving quickly to disburse their stimulus funds, others have not, emphasizing the lack of connection between the funds allocated to states and their financial need. Today we will explore the disbursement of stimulus funds at the state level with a close look at activity in two particular states.

As of September 4^th, the Department of Education had obligated (made available for spending) $66.5 billion in stimulus funds to the states. However, states had only disbursed $16.6 billion of those funds for spending at the local level. On average, that's just over 25 percent. While some states have disbursed significantly more than 25 percent of their obligated funds, many states have disbursed far less. The story becomes even more interesting when a state's budget deficit is included in the consideration. While logic would suggest that states with particularly high projected budget deficits would have incentive to spend their stimulus funds more quickly, that is not always the case.

Congress is getting ready to vote on the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act, and our fellow bloggers here in New America's Education Policy program have been preparing for a wild ride. The bill would eliminate the guaranteed lending program, resulting in savings that would be redirected toward other education programs and Pell grants.

Happily for early education advocates, a small slice of the savings would be spent on improving state's systems of childcare and education for children birth to age 5. 

At Ed Money Watch, our colleagues have analyzed the budget data in the bill, creating a helpful table that shows exactly how many billions will be saved and how many will be spent over the next five years. Using that data, we've created this chart to show you early childhood's piece of the pie.

Since the release of the Race to the Top grant priorities in late July, states across the country have been scrambling to ensure their eligibility for their share of the $4.35 billion in federal funds to encourage innovation in education reform. Several states, including California, Nevada, Wisconsin, New York, Alaska, Missouri, and Texas, were immediately identified as ineligible for the program due to student data "fire walls" or unwillingness to participate in the common standards process. But California's Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, is unwilling to let as much as $500 million slip through his fingers. On August 20^th he called a special session of the legislature to consider a bill that would immediately enact sweeping changes to the state's education system and remove any barriers to the Race to the Top funds. Below, we discuss details of the proposed California bill.

The bill includes six major changes to existing California education law:

It has been nearly seven months since President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) with the hopes of stimulating the economy and encouraging education reform across the states. While some pundits have already declared the bill a failure, others claim that the stimulus funds are hard at work. At the heart of this discussion are both whether the stimulus funds are available to be spent and whether they have actually been obligated and disbursed to states for spending. Below we discuss the major programs funded through the stimulus and the status of their funds as of August 28^th, 2009.

The ARRA provided nearly $97 billion to the Department of Education (ED) through a variety of existing federal k-12 and higher education programs, as well as a new State Fiscal Stabalization Fund. About $55 billion of this funding is currently obligated to states. Despite encouragement from ED for speedy spending, less than one-third of those funds have been disbursed to states. This leaves nearly $40 billion sitting in ED coffers waiting to be spent.

At Ed Money Watch, we discuss and analyze major issues affecting education funding. In our Friday News Roundup, we try to highlight interesting stories that might otherwise get overlooked. These stories emphasize how federal and state policy changes can affect local schools and districts.

California Scales Back Class Size Reduction Program

More Cuts Could Coming in Mississippi

Pennsylvania Governor Urges Adequate Funding for Schools as State Grapples with Budget Standoff

In late July the Department of Education (ED) released the draft priorities for the Race to the Top grant funds for public comment. The document outlined 19 criteria on which states' applications will be judged, including the existence of charter school caps, laws preventing the use of student achievement data to determine teacher compensation, and approved alternative pathways to teacher certification. As of August 28^th, ED received over 1,100 comments, with many stakeholder groups voicing concern that the criteria were overly prescribed and stringent, requiring states to improve public education through specific channels like performance pay and charter schools. According to these groups and individuals, this is in direct contradiction with the administration's previous promise to focus on goals for educational improvement rather than the methods by which those goals are achieved. But the unique structure and competition involved in the Race to the Top grants justifies the priority document's specificity.