House Spending Proposal Slashes Education Funding

Last Friday, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies approved a bill that would cut education spending by 28 percent for Fiscal Year 2024. The line-by-line details of the bill will remain unavailable until the full Appropriations Committee considers the measure, but details that have been made public paint a grim picture for federal public education funding. The bill would cut Title I by 80 percent, impacting an estimated 220,000 teacher positions and eliminate Title IIa, which supports educators, including educator professional development. Initiatives that support educator quality and diversity would be eliminated, along with provisions that support low-income students in institutions of higher education, including Work Study. Head Start would see a cut as well, and Preschool Development Grants would be eliminated. The bill also eliminates the Javits Gifted and Talented Program, the only federal program that directly supports students with gifts and talents, which make up an estimated six percent of the student population.  

While the bill appears to spare Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) funding from cuts, it would level-fund IDEA, resulting in a real dollar cut when accounting for inflation. Despite IDEA avoiding a cut, the bill would harm infants, toddlers, children, and youth with disabilities by eroding the essential programs that interface with IDEA to foster learning and development. House Appropriation Committee Republicans, who hold the majority and drafted the bill, said it “Eliminates programs that do not fulfill the core mission, tasks, and functions of the Department [of Education], including teacher training programs that send teachers to expensive weekend workshops, programs that support organizations that seek to undermine the unity of our country, and programs that are duplicative, or narrowly tailored to a small set of recipients.” In a strong rebuttal, House Appropriations Committee and Subcommittee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro said the bill “Decimates support for children in K-12 elementary schools and early childhood education [and] abandons college students and low-income workers trying to improve their lives through higher education or job training.”  

The bill could be considered by the full House Appropriations Committee next week and, if approved by the full House, would serve as the starting point for negotiations with a Senate bill which is expected to be much more favorable to education funding. 

To view the Republican summary of the bill, go here. 

To view the Democratic rebuttal, go here.