Education Funding

Today the New America Foundation's Federal Education Budget Project released "A Primer on the Budget Resolution's Impact on Education Funding," by the project's Research Director Jason Delisle. The primer serves as an insightful guide to this confusing and often partisan process by which federal education funding is determined. Last week the Congressional budget committees adopted the first drafts of the fiscal year 2009 budget resolution, marking the start of the annual Congressional budget… more

Senate Budget Would Boost Advance Approps By $4 Billion (CongressDaily PM, subscription only)

. . . "There's no reason to do it other than to increase spending," said Jason Delisle, an education analyst at the New America Foundation. Backers "want the money by any means necessary, but the trade-off is the debate gets confused and the budget lacks transparency." Advance funding for education grew out of a timing quirk whereby the academic year… more

The New America Foundation released a paper today providing a detailed analysis of the current budget battle and its implications for education funding. The report finds that education funding has not been a driver of recent increases in federal spending and proposed increases are relatively minor compared to the overall budget.

“One can sincerely argue against education funding increases because of concerns about program effectiveness, efficiency, or value; but to suggest that education spending is the main culprit… more

The White House and Congress are approaching a major budget debate that could markedly influence federal education funding. This is the first budget cycle since 2000 during which different political parties control the Executive Branch and both chambers of Congress. The federal budget and appropriations process is rarely without acrimony, but this year’s battle may be especially rancorous.

The Federal Education Budget Project finds that although Congress plans a significant increase in federal spending on schools, teachers, and students --… more

On Monday, the ACLU of Southern California and Public Advocates Inc. released an upbeat progress report on the results of the settlement of Williams vs. California, a class-action suit brought on behalf of the state’s most-neglected students. In the lowest-performing schools, there are more textbooks, adequate facilities and teachers with proper credentials. However, the report, like the settlement, failed to address the bigger issue: achieving "teacher equity" across the state.

More so than textbooks or school facilities, research has shown that… more

And Democrats who voted for the [No Child Left Behind] law five years ago in the glow of post-September 11 bipartisanship are unlikely to do so again now that Bush has failed to deliver the hefty budget increases for education that they expected would accompany it. For the president to persuade a Democratic Congress to reauthorize No Child Left Behind without dismantling it, the bottom line may very well be the bottom line.

"The reason he's still relevant is money,"… more

Five hundred million dollars is a lot of money -- especially for a public university. When the giant oil company BP announced Feb. 1 that it had chosen the University of California, Berkeley, to lead the largest academic-industry research consortium in U.S. history, University of California officials appeared giddy.

If the deal is approved, BP, formerly known as British Petroleum, will give $500 million over 10 years to create a multidisciplinary Energy Biosciences Institute at UC Berkeley. Berkeley would partner with… more

The alliance between the oil giant BP and the University of California, Berkeley, stands out because of its $500 million price tag, its commercial scope and the potential for BP to exert excessive influence over the academic research. But it isn’t an isolated case.

The second largest such partnership is a 10-year, $225-million deal Stanford University signed with Exxon Mobil and other energy firms in 2002 to fund a Global Climate and Energy Project.

The Stanford deal was controversial from the… more

America’s financial-aid system provides too much taxpayer support to banks that make college loans, asks too little of students who assume them, and burdens families with too much debt. We need to rethink the system in order to improve college access and affordability. Federal higher-education policy largely fails to reward rigorous college-preparatory work in high school. It penalizes students who hold jobs while in college. Lenders make extraordinary profits, while young people leave college burdened with debt and, more often… more

President Bush's Secretary of Education, Margaret Spellings, has endorsed the principle underlying a national education standards incentive plan developed with the support of the New… more