We’ve already heard the Trump people’s plans to cut $9.2 billion from next year’s federal education budget. Now comes news they want to cut about $3 billion from the budget for rest of this fiscal year, which has five months left. From Politico’s Morning Education report:

After proposing a $9.2 billion cut to the Education Department’s budget for next year, the President Donald Trump is now calling on Congress to slash nearly $3 billion in education funding for the remaining five months of this fiscal year, according to a document obtained by POLITICO. The White House on Friday sent House and Senate appropriators detailed instructions on how they should craft spending legislation to fund the federal government beyond April 28, when the current stopgap spending bill expires.

The proposed cuts include: Pell Grant money ($1.3 billion); Title II funding to provide professional development for teachers and principals and to reduce class sizes; Grants for physical education programs ($47 million); Grants for school counseling ($49 million); Money to increase math and science instruction ($152 million) [Fun fact: Ed Sec Betsy DeVos and First Daughter Ivanka Trump will be attending an event promoting STEM education today.]; and the Striving Readers program to improve literacy instruction ($189 million).

Meanwhile, the conservative Heritage Foundation has put out its budget proposal for 2018. Here’s are some of its education cuts, which include phasing out Head Start entirely over the next decade and cutting the budget for the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights in half.

— Among Heritage’s proposals: Eliminate the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act’s job-training programs, which involves many community colleges; eliminate the Corporation for National and Community Service, which supports AmeriCorps; and reduce funding for Head Start with the intention of eliminating it completely over the next decade. The think tank also proposes to halve the budget for the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights and eliminate competitive and project grant programs under the Every Student Succeeds Act. Other formula grant programs for K-12 education would be slashed by 10 percent under the plan.

— The budget proposal also proposes getting rid of the Obama administration’s “gainful employment” regulation, which judges career college programs based on the ratio of graduates’ student loan debt relative to their earnings; switching to fair-value accounting for how the government tallies the cost of federal student loans; and making “major reforms to accreditation, including decoupling federal financing from the ossified accreditation system.”

This article appears in Mar 23-29, 2017.

10 replies on “Education Budget Rumblings from D.C. — All Cuts, All the Time”

  1. They have to cut the budget because they are going to deport some of the student body. The sanctuary cities are going to become compliant with federal laws, or lose even more money. The lawlessness must end.

    What other laws are these cities breaking?

  2. This is an interesting and related story to the one above. Democrats are being beaten by smarter less educated voters. It makes one ask the billion dollar question, “why is education failing us?” It may be a good thing to cut funding until we get some answers, as there is no point to wasting even more.

  4. The money is taken from everyone, not just liberals. It’s then “rewarded” to scumbag conservatives. Nobody expects you to notice the obvious though, you never have and never will. You’ll never open your eyes and see the truth, you find it so much easier to be in denial.

    Also, you added a period after an exclamation point. That’s probably the most original thing you’ve ever done.

    Keep up with the (unintended) originality. That would be great!.

  6. Wow – don’t dare say to cut taxpayer dollars to liberals is a good thing, your comment will be deleted. All Pray to the Almighty Government and Liberals! Otherwise, you will be censored.

  7. “What, Again is exactly right, again!”

    You could threaten to stick hot pokers in my eyes and I still would never, ever say that.

    I have an account dumb ass. You know, the type of account your chicken shit ass never bothered to establish.

    You can’t imitate me successfully. I would say nice try, but that would be a lie.

    Get out of the basement and do something constructive Wrong, Again.

    P.S. : I notice that you’re being a snowflake about your comment being removed. You should be used to it by now, but the crybaby in you just can’t take it. When your commentary is off-topic and disrespectful, it may actually get removed. Imagine that!

  8. Republicons don’t believe it’s necessary to be educated because they rely on what they know already which is virtually nothing. Every other civilized nation in the world values education above everything else but the Repubtards in the United States consider it a waste of 7 years of their time since most of them couldn’t make it above the 7th grade. But don’t get me wrong they did go to school for 12 years except they repeated the 3rd,4th,5th grades,then three years in the 7th does account for that time. The ones who managed to learn rudimentary reading are the conservative politicians that decide our fate today. If the Republickunts could finagle the education system into the pockets of their wealthy donors,give a sub-par education to our children, and relegate Progressive Democrats to an insignificant bunch of whining know-it-alls then we might as well have never left England to become an independent country.

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