The U.S. House and Senate at the end of the session in December passed federal appropriation bills for the rest of the fiscal year 2020, including a $1.4 billion increase in education funding.
This provides large increases for early childhood programs in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as well as increases for library and museum programs. It allows virtually every program to get an increase.
The allocation for the Labor-Health and Human Services Education bill increased by $5 billion (2.8%), and education programs got a good portion of that increase.
Here’s a round up of the funding by programs from AASA:
Program Specific Details
K-12 Programs
- ESSA Title I: $450m increase to $16.3 b
- ESSA Title II: $76m increase to 2.1b (first increases in 6 years)
- ESSA Title III: $50m increase to $787 (first increase in 5 years)
- ESSA Title IV: $40 m increase to $1.2b
- IDEA State Grants (Part B): $417m increase to $13.9b (3% increase)
- Impact Aid: $40m increase, to $1.4b
- 21st Century Community Learning Centers: $28 m increase, to $1.2b
- REAP: $5m increase to $186m
- Career and Technical Education State Grants: $20m increase to $1.28b
- Homeless Youth/Children: $8 m increase to 105m
- School Safety National Activities: $10m increase to $105m
- A new Social-Emotional Learning initiative would get $123 to support SEL and “whole child” approaches to education.
Early Education
- Head Start: $550m increase to $10.6b
- Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG): $550m increase to $5.8b
Funding and Policy Beyond The Labor-Health-Education Bill
- STOP School Violence Act Grants: $25m increase to $125m
- Secure Rural Schools/Forest Counties: The bill reauthorizes and provides two years of funding for the SRS program for FY19 and FY20
- DC Voucher: Reauthorizes the program for 4 additional years
- Raises the age for purchasing tobacco products including e-cigarettes to 21 from 18.
- Provides $12.5m in funding for researching gun violence prevention
- Adequately funds the Census to ensure it can be properly administered
- Contains policy language instructing CMS and ED to work together to reduce administrative barriers for providing health services in and in coordination with schools and provide technical assistance to assist with billing and payment administration for Medicaid services in schools.
- Repeal of the Cadillac tax in the Affordable Care Act.
- This is the third largest increase for ED since FY 2011 (the year that ED funding stated being cut or frozen).
- We are happy that education investments are growing – but there’s still more work to be done. Even with this increase, ED funding is almost $6 billion below the 2011 level in inflation-adjusted terms.
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