Education Policy Program

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett’s budget plan would give more money to schools, but most would go to pensions

Michigan’s 3% proposed funding hike for public universities tied to performance

Florida House approves $69 billion state budget

Missouri Governor Jay Nixon adds $40 million to proposed higher education budget

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett’s budget plan would give more money to schools, but most would go to pensions
Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett this week released his fiscal year 2013 budget proposal. The plan would include $10 billion for public schools, 3.4 percent more than K-12 education received in fiscal year 2012. Most of that new funding, though, will be directed to teacher pensions. Funding for school districts and special education programs – $5.4 billion and $1 billion, respectively – is virtually the same as in 2012, and the state pre-K program will lose about $5 million from 2012 levels. In fiscal year 2012, the legislature avoided significant cuts to the K-12 budget by reducing spending increases in other areas, including welfare; legislators said that would not be the case in this year’s budget. In addition to the effective cuts to school districts for public K-12 education, Governor Corbett proposed a 25 percent cut to state colleges and universities. More here…

Michigan’s 3% proposed funding hike for public universities tied to performance
In his fiscal year 2013 budget proposal, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder will include a provision to increase funding for state universities by 3 percent. However, the funds will be divided according to a formula that accounts for growth in college completion rates, number of students graduating in particular fields, number of students receiving Pell Grants, and the degree to which schools are able to avoid tuition hikes. In fiscal year 2012, Governor Snyder’s budget also offered incentives to restrain tuition increases, only cutting state aid by 15 percent for schools that held hold tuition increases to below 7.1 percent as opposed to 22 percent. Michigan’s state aid to public universities has fallen in recent years – per-undergraduate student state support has fallen from $6,869 in fiscal year 2001 to $4,577 in 2012 – but this year’s budget reverses that pattern due to the small increase in spending. More here…

Florida House approves $69 billion state budget
Florida lawmakers advanced the state’s fiscal year 2013 budget process this week with a House vote on a $69.2 billion budget. The bill included a $1 billion increase for public K-12 education – not quite covering last year’s $1.3 billion cut to public schools – paid for with cuts to low-income healthcare programs. It would also raise college tuition by 8 percent and cut the Bright Futures state scholarship program by 9.3 percent. The bill does not include any new taxes to provide additional revenue. The state senate has not yet voted on a budget plan, but one moving through the chamber now would freeze tuition at the state’s public universities and increase it by 3 percent at public colleges. More here…

Missouri Governor Jay Nixon adds $40 million to proposed higher education budget
Missouri Governor Jay Nixon’s 2013 budget proposal, released last month, originally included a 12.5 percent, or $106 million, cut to higher education. But controversy over the spending reduction from Republican lawmakers and university officials led him to release an amended version of the proposal this week that adds back $40 million for state colleges and universities. College and university officials had warned that the budget cuts may force them to raise tuition, furlough employees, and limit course offerings. The additional funding will come from a state lawsuit with mortgage banks. A settlement in that case is expected to yield $140 million for the state; of that, $100 million will be used to aid homeowners, and the remaining $40 million will be spent on higher education. More here…

In his State of the Union address, President Obama called on Congress to prevent federal student loan interest rates from doubling later this year. This is the culmination of decades of legislative changes to the federal student loan program. Few people are aware of the policies that led to the pending student loan interest rate increase and many question whether the 6.8 percent fixed interest rate charged on the most widely-available loans provides a real benefit to students.

The Federal Education Budget Project today released an issue brief regarding federal student loan interest rates. This issue brief details the history of interest rates on federal loans, including the decisions that led to today’s fixed rates and the pending rate increase. It also examines the popular argument that current rates are unfavorable for borrowers and disputes the claim that student loans earn revenue for the government. 

The timeline below shows the interest rates on federal student loans taken out in each year, as well as the Congressional action that led to these interest rates. Roll over the points in the graph for more information.

President Obama announced this week that 10 states will receive waivers of some of the most punitive provisions of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), kicking off a year of focus on how and if states will start changing their systems to align with the administration’s priorities.

This week and next, the STEM acronym will get some major airtime, as the Obama Administration tries to drive home the importance of science, technology, engineering and mathematics in its new budget proposals.  The President kicked off the conversation in his State of the Union Address, and he provided some memorable visuals two days ago when he gleefully launched marshmallows from student-invented cannons at the second-annual White House Science Fair.  

All this talk of science and innovation might lead one to think that literacy and early education are sliding down a notch on the Administration’s priority list.

This is the second post in a series on winners of the Race to the Top – Early Learning Challenge (RTT-ELC), the Obama Administration’s competition to spur improvements in early learning for children up to age 5.  Earlier this week, we wrote about states’ plans to use quality rating and improvement systems (QRIS). In this post, we’ll look at how states plan to evaluate those systems. Later posts will explore plans to improve early learning standards, develop the early childhood workforce and implement kindergarten entry assessments.

State and federal policymakers seem to have bought into the idea that rating systems are the best mechanism to encourage early learning programs to improve their quality and assist parents in selecting centers that will best prepare their children to learn.

In his State of the Union address, President Obama called on Congress to prevent federal student loan interest rates from doubling later this year. This is the culmination of decades of legislative changes to the federal student loan program. Few people are aware of the policies that led to the pending student loan interest rate increase and many question whether the 6.8 percent fixed interest rate charged on the most widely-available loans provides a real benefit to students.

The Federal Education Budget Project today released an issue brief regarding federal student loan interest rates. This issue brief details the history of interest rates on federal loans, including the decisions that led to today’s fixed rates and the pending rate increase. It also examines the popular argument that current rates are unfavorable for borrowers and disputes the claim that student loans earn revenue for the government. 

The timeline below shows the interest rates on federal student loans taken out in each year, as well as the Congressional action that led to these interest rates. Roll over the points in the graph for more information.

In his State of the Union address, President Obama called on Congress to prevent federal student loan interest rates from doubling later this year. This is the culmination of decades of legislative changes to the federal student loan program. Few people are aware of the policies that led to the pending student loan interest rate increase and many question whether the 6.8 percent fixed interest rate charged on the most widely-available loans provides a real benefit to students.

Science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) have featured prominently in the Obama administration’s education policy priorities, most recently as the focus of the third round of Race to the Top funding. And it looks like it will play a big role moving forward: An announcement from President Obama at today’s White House Science Fair offers a peek into the administration’s fiscal year 2013 budget proposal, which will apparently include a spotlight on STEM learning. But the real story is buried behind the budget rhetoric – the president also proposes a new STEM focus to the existing Teacher Incentive Fund program, which will require no Congressional action.

The details on the budget request should not be ignored, of course. This year, says the White House, the president’s budget request will include a host of new and revitalized STEM programs. Among them is $80 million for a new competitive grant program to provide funding for STEM teacher preparation programs. The federal funds will be accompanied by private investments from a coalition of companies and organizations called 100Kin10; 14 members will collectively contribute $22 million to a fund dedicated to STEM teacher preparation and support, distributed by the group. These efforts are a follow-up to his 2011 State of the Union address, in which Obama issued a challenge to the education community to prepare 100,000 new STEM teachers.

The president will also propose a $100 million investment in the National Science Foundation to support new and existing programs to improve the quality of postsecondary STEM education. He will resubmit a request for funding for the First in the World program, now with a new STEM priority. The program would reward applicants with innovative ideas for improving college completion rates and lowering the costs of postsecondary education. And the president will recommend a joint Department of Education-National Science Foundation project to support K-16 education reforms through evidence-based approaches to mathematics learning. The project will be jointly funded, with $30 million contributed each from the Department and NSF.

But it is unlikely that Congress will even pass a budget for fiscal year 2013 before the fiscal year begins – many members will be busy running for reelection or consumed by the presidential election – so most of these proposals probably won’t see the light of day on the Hill.

Instead, the real story lies in the proposals that require no Congressional approval.

The Department of Education, promised the announcement, will continue to focus on STEM education in its next Race to the Top (RTT) competition. This refers to the nearly $550 million Congress appropriated for Race to the Top in its fiscal year 2012 budget. The competition, which is open to both states and school districts, is likely to take place later this year.

More significantly, however, the president announced that a portion of funding already appropriated for the Department of Education’s fiscal year 2012 Teacher Incentive Fund – $300 million – will be newly dedicated to improving “compensation, evaluation, and professional development systems for STEM educators.” These types of interventions have the potential to strengthen the STEM teacher force by attracting and retaining STEM professionals in teaching. And because the change will require no legislative changes, the Department can begin to implement it immediately, starting with the next round of TIF grants.

To improve general teacher quality, the president announced that the TEACH Grant program, funded with nearly $24 million in fiscal year 2012 to distribute grants to undergraduate students who plan to teach in schools that serve low-income students, will now target postsecondary students at top schools. The Department will also factor quality into its TEACH Grant distribution.

President Obama’s proposal represents a marked policy shift toward focusing on STEM, adding some weight to his rhetoric on improving STEM readiness. But most of the administration’s proposals are likely to be tossed aside if and when Congress starts its own 2013 appropriations process (as are most White House budget requests), particularly if Congress is weary of increased domestic spending. Given that reality, the president may have to rely on the Department of Education to head up this new STEM charge through programmatic changes to the Teacher Incentive Fund alone.

This is the first post in a month-long series examining the nine winning states in the 2011 Race to the Top - Early Learning Challenge (RTT-ELC) and their plans to improve the quality and coordination of early childhood programs.

Decades ago, as researchers began to study what young children might learn from educational TV, they often found that "co-viewing" -- the act of parents and children watching together -- was strongly associated with children learning from what they watched.  Today, although TV is still the number-one type of media used by young children, new forms of media are begging new questions.