In the Federal Register, which is where the U.S. government publishes agency rules and public notices, DeVos’ proposed priority is to “align the Department of Education’s … discretionary grant investments with the Administration’s Opportunity Zones initiative, which aims to spur economic development and job creation in distressed communities.”
Perhaps the best-known program to get funding through discretionary grants is the Expanding Opportunity Through Quality Charter Schools Program, which gets $440 million and supports new charters as well as those seeking to expand. In fact, the department announced at the start of this month in a rule that a priority for distributing these charter school grants will be to fund charters that are in Opportunity Zones, which provide tax breaks to investors in exchange for long-term investment in identified areas. (More on that below.)
But the department’s proposed rule, published on Monday, could broaden the extent to which these competitive federal grants are tied to the zones. It’s possible federal grants to magnet schools, arts education, and programs like TRIO and GEAR UP that help bridge gaps between K-12 and higher education could also prioritize Opportunity Zone investments in the future…
And in general, there’s some hope these Opportunity Zones could strengthen schools by bolstering and diversifying the services available to students in struggling communities.
Remember: The big-ticket education funding programs, such as Title I services for disadvantaged students and special education state grants, rely on formulas and not competitive-grant applications. So those funding streams wouldn’t be affected by this new grant priority.
To read the full article, visit Education Week. May require a subscription.
First, some background: The House vote last week dealt with a $15 billion “rescissions” package proposed earlier this year by President Donald Trump. The Trump team is seeking to slash the government’s bottom line—even though Trump signed a big spending increase into law for fiscal 2018. Most of the cuts would come from unspent federal funds.
Nearly half of that rescissions package, part of a bill that the House passed 210-206, comes from CHIP, which provides health care to kids from low-income families. As we reported earlier this year, $5.1 billion of the rescission would come out of a part of CHIP that reimburses states for certain expenses. Roughly $2 billion would be cut from CHIP reserves, which help states deal with higher-than-expected enrollment in the program. The Trump team has argued this unspent money is no longer needed. The rescissions would not impact current payments to states.
But when the Republican-controlled House moved to approve the rescission package, including the CHIP cut, opponents of the Trump administration’s move re-upped their previous criticisms of the proposal.
The rescission package included a $1.9 billion, or 80 percent, raid on the CHIP Child Enrollment Contingency Fund, while in the middle of the fiscal year. Again, the CHIP contingency fund is part of a fragile financing mechanism that protects the health coverage of children. (16)
U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is headed back to the Hill.
On Tuesday morning, DeVos will pitch the Trump administration’s fiscal 2019 budget plan for the Department of Education to the House appropriations subcommittee that oversees federal money for K-12. It’s a safe bet that DeVos’ public appearance before lawmakers will draw a crowd, given the hub-bub over her “60 Minutes” interview a week ago.
So what else can we expect besides the hot glare of the spotlight? Be sure to watch these three elements of the hearing:
1) Cuts Have Come Back
What’s changed between last year’s Trump budget request for education and this year’s? Aside from the total amount desired for the Education Department, not a ton. A lot was made last year about the Trump administration’s fiscal 2018 request to cut over $9 billion from the department, or about 13.5 percent. This year, the Trump team wants to cut 5 percent from DeVos’ department.
Like last year, the budget plan also proposes expanding school choice. This time around, there’s a $1 billion pot pitched for public and private school choice, although the divisions between those two aren’t as clear as they were in the fiscal 2018 budget. Like last year, DeVos also wants to eliminate both Title II, which covers professional development for educators, as well as Title IV, which covers a variety of programs like ed-tech, counseling services, and Advanced Placement course fees. Right now Title II gets about $2 billion, and Title IV gets $400 million…
Read the full article here: May require an Education Week subscription.
President Donald Trump is seeking a roughly 5 percent cut to the U.S. Department of Education’s budget for fiscal 2019 in a proposal that also mirrors his spending plan from last year by seeking to eliminate a major teacher-focused grant and to expand school choice.
In order to achieve those proposed spending cuts, the president copied two major education cuts he proposed last year: the elimination of Title II teacher grants and the 21st Century Community Learning Centers. Those two cuts combined would come to about $3.1 billion from current levels. Overall, 39 discretionary programs would be cut, eliminated, or “streamlined.”
“Decades of investments and billions of dollars in spending have shown that an increase in funding does not guarantee high-quality education,” the Office of Management and Budget states in the budget document. “While the budget reduces the overall federal role in education, the budget makes strategic investments to support and empower families and improve access to postsecondary education, ensuring a future of prosperity for all Americans.”
On the other side of the ledger, Trump is seeking $1 billion for new private and public school choice programs called Opportunity Grants. This new funding could also help schools that go for the weighted-funding pilot. He also wants $500 million in federal charter school funding, an increase of roughly 50 percent from current spending levels, which is also the same as his first budget blueprint.
Read the full article here: May require an Education Week subscription.
This is going to be a confusing year because Congress still hasn’t finalized last year’s spending plan, for fiscal year 2018, which started on Oct. 1 and generally impacts the 2018-19 school year. Congress recently passed legislation extending funding for all programs at fiscal year 2017 levels.
Trump’s newest proposal, though, will lay out his administration’s asks for fiscal year 2019, or the 2019-20 school year for most programs.
That’s according to Crooked, a news and opinion website run by several high-profile former staffers from President Barack Obama’s administration, among others. On Thursday, the site posted what it characterized as a Trump White House “wish list” for several policy areas.
Included on that list, which isn’t dated, is “1 billion dollars to create an education savings account for military families living on bases.” There’s also an item for “a state opt-in funding stream that allows…
Probably not, say a couple dozen inside-the-beltway education experts surveyed by Whiteboard Advisors. In fact 79 percent of them don’t think Congress will follow through on the proposals.
Here’s a handy graphic breaking this down:
Most of those surveyed expected to see Title II, a $2.05 billion program aimed at improving teacher quality, stick around too, although it might be reduced…
Education Week — Three White House commissions that address education issues for black, Hispanic, and Asian American and Pacific Islander students say they haven’t met since President Donald Trump took office, and that his administration has ignored their attempts to reach out. They may not be around much longer.
That’s the important takeaway from Education Week’s Corey Mitchell’s story this week on three presidential advisory commissions on educational excellence. Their charter is also set to expire tomorrow. They were founded in 1990 under President George H.W. Bush. Here’s the latest:
Appointees to the African-American and Hispanic commissions, many of whom are educators, helped launch President Barack Obama’s My Brother’s Keeper initiative, which sought to improve education and expand opportunities for black, Latino and Native American boys. The program lives on as a nonprofit and recently merged with the Obama Foundation.
“The commissions were important places for us to reach out to these communities and engage people around issues that were important to them,” said Roberto Rodríguez, who worked in the White House as one of Obama’s top education advisers…
Last week, the House of Representatives voted to approve a package 
