House Education Spending Bill Approved in Committee, Would Provide Increases to IDEA, Javits

On Monday, the House Appropriations Committee approved its Fiscal Year (FY) 2021 spending bill for Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies (Labor-H) along party lines, with all Committee Democrats supporting the measure. The bill would provide small increases to the education programs that CEC advocates for. Specifically, the bill provides:

• $12,957,892,000 for Part B Grants to States, which is $193,500,000 more than FY 2020
• $397,620,000 for Preschool Grants, which is $3,500,000 more than FY 2020
• $481,850,000 for Grants for Infants and Families, which is $4,850,000 above FY 2020
• $255,633,000 for the IDEA National Activities program, which is $5,917,000 more than FY 2020
  • Included in that sum is $90,700,000 for Personnel Preparation, which is $1,000,000 above FY 2020
• $58,500,000 for Research in Special Education, which is $2,000,000 more than FY 2020
• $14,000,000 for the Javits Gifted and Talented Education Program, which is $1,000,000 more than FY 2020

Passage of the Labor-H bill is just the beginning of the process for finalizing FY 2021 spending. The full House will now need to approve the bill—which it is expected to consider before the end of July—and the Senate will need to act on its FY 2021 Labor-H bill. Then, both bodies of Congress will need to agree on funding levels before a bill can make it to the President’s desk for signature.

A summary of the House Labor-H bill can be found here. The bill text can be found here, while the committee report can be found here.