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Last Thursday, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor/HHS and
Education passed an Appropriations bill that would devastate critical
investments in education and training and other programs. The bill
would seriously undermine our efforts to strengthen public education,
protect workers, and move people from welfare to work. This bill is
proof that America's highest priority - improving our schools - remains
the Republican Congress's lowest priority.
House Appropriations Bill Guts Critical Investments
House Bill Guts Investment in Accountability, Teacher Quality and
Class Size Reduction The House bill provides no funding for class size
reduction and fails to address teacher training issues. Instead, the
bill folds three programs (Goals 2000, Eisenhower Professional
Development and the President's Class Size Reduction plan) into a $1.8
billion block grant, which is $396 million below the President's request
for the three programs. By failing to fund class size reduction this
bill does not guarantee that the more than 30,000 teachers hired last
year can continue teaching in smaller classes and eliminates funding for
an additional 8,000 teachers that would be hired under the President's
Budget for next year. The bill also fails to invest in proven teacher
professional development practices and undermines standards-based
reform.
House Bill Guts Investment in Title I Grants Title I of the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act currently provides much-needed
academic support to nearly 12 million children in high-poverty
communities. The House bill provides $264 million less than the
President's budget for Title I. As a result, 400,000 fewer children in
high poverty communities would receive additional educational services.
Title I funding is a key component of efforts to help disadvantaged
students reach high standards. The House bill fails to fund the
President's plan to set aside $200 million of Title I funds to help
states and localities turn around or reconstitute failing schools using
Title I resources.
House Bill Terminates GEAR UP GEAR UP is a nation-wide initiative to
encourage more young people to have high expectations, stay in school,
study hard, and take the right courses to go to college. The House bill
eliminates funding, compared to $120 million funded last year and $240
million proposed in the President's Budget. Over 260,000 low-income
students who received services in FY 1999 to help them succeed in school
and prepare for college would receive no such services in FY 2000. The
President's Budget extends GEAR-UP services to over 570,000 students in
FY 2000.
House Bill Guts Investment in After School. The House bill provides
only $300 million of the President's $600 million request for After
School programs, and would result in the participation of nearly 850,000
fewer students than the 1.8 million served in the President's Budget.
After-school programs are one of the most effective ways to help
students reach high academic standards and end harmful practices such as
social promotion.
House Bill Guts Investment in Educational Technology The House bill
provides $251 million less than the President's request of $801 million
for a variety of innovative educational technology programs. Funds to
help all states and thousands of school districts buy hardware and
software, train teachers, and link up to the Internet were cut by $25
million. Seven programs are eliminated, including a program to support
pre-service teacher training for hundreds of thousands of new teachers.
Funding to establish up to 500 Community Technology Centers was cut from
$65 million to $10 million.
House Bill Guts Investment in America Reads The House bill cuts the
Reading Excellence program by $86 million below the President's request
of $ 286 million, which would result in the participation of 330,000
fewer students and undercut efforts to ensure that all children can read
independently by the end of the third grade.
House Bill Guts Investment in Work Study The House bill funds Work
Study at $54 million below the President's request of $ 934 million,
which would result in the participation of about 62,000 fewer students
and not attaining the President's goal of giving one million students
the opportunity to work their way through college by the year 2000.
House Bill Cuts Head Start. The House bill funds Head Start at $507
million below the President's request. The Head Start program has
enjoyed bipartisan support for several years, and grown an average of
30,000 children per year since President Clinton took office. Under the
Subcommittee's mark, for the first time in over a decade (1987), Head
Start participation will not increase. The mark would freeze
participation at its current level.
House Bill Terminates Youth Opportunity Grants Youth Opportunity
Grants are an initiative to provide comprehensive employment and
training assistance to all out-of-school young people in high poverty
areas. The program was passed last year as part of the bipartisan
Workforce Investment Act. Eliminating this program would deny essential
support for up to 58,000 of the most disadvantaged young people in
central cities and rural communities across America. The President's
budget provides $250 million for Youth Opportunity Grants, which are a
critical component of the New Markets Initiative
House Bill Guts Investment in Hispanic Education The House bill
barely increases funding for the Hispanic Education Agenda, providing
only $53 million of the $444 million increase requested in key programs,
such as migrant, bilingual, and adult education, to raise achievement
and reduce dropout rates in the Hispanic community.
House Bill Cuts Summer Jobs Program and Youth and Adult Training The
House bill provides almost $200 million below the President's request of
$ 1.96 billion for Youth and Adult Training. These cuts would result in
lost job training, summer employment, and education opportunities to
some 60,000 disadvantaged youth, and 38,200 adults would not have access
to essential job training and placement services.
House Bill Cuts Dislocated Worker Assistance The House bill cuts
Dislocated Worker Assistance by $335 million below the President's
request of $ 1.6 billion. The Dislocated Worker Employment and Training
program provides core services, intensive services, training and support
to help permanently separated workers return to productive, unsubsidized
employment. The President's Universal Reemployment initiative would put
us on a five-year path toward universal job training services to all
dislocated workers, by gradually increasing funding for Dislocated
Worker Assistance. Instead of taking a step forward for dislocated
workers, the House is proposing a giant leap backward by proposing cuts
that will deny 176,000 dislocated workers access to these vital
services. The bill also cuts funding for One-Stop Career Centers and
Reemployment Services.
House Bill Threatens Enforcement of Labor Protections The House bill
freezes or cuts all Department of Labor domestic workplace enforcement
programs at or below FY 1999 levels, resulting in a $112 million
reduction below the President's request. For example, OSHA is cut $51
million below the President's budget. As a result of this cut, some
5,000 fewer OSHA compliance inspections would be performed.
House Bill Jeopardizes Temporary Assistance for Needy Families
(TANF) The bill delays the availability of $3 billion in TANF funds (the
welfare block grant), sending the wrong message to states who have
prudently set aside "rainy day" reserves, and to states otherwise
preparing to invest in new programs for welfare recipients with multiple
barriers and for those who have already begun the transition to work.
Through the first quarter of FY 1999 states have obligated 88% of their
TANF dollars and have met all maintenance of effort requirements. By
cutting billions from the program, the federal government would
undermine the true goals of welfare reform and abandon its commitment to
provide a fixed level of funding to states who live up to their
commitment to invest their own dollars in assistance to needy families.
House Bill Cuts the Social Service Block Grant (SSBG) The bill cuts
SSBG by $471 million below the President's request. SSBG provides
funding to states to support a wide range of programs including child
protection and child welfare, as well as services focused on the needs
of the elderly and disabled.
House Bill Eliminates the President's Family Caregiver Support
Program The House bill does not include funds for the President's $125
million new initiative to support those who care for the over 5 million
disabled Americans who have long term care needs. The Family Caregiver
Program is one piece of the Administration's four-part Long Term Care
proposal to provide comprehensive services to support caregivers.
House Bill Fails to Increase Funding for Home-Delivered Meals The
House bill funds the widely supported home-delivered meals program at
$112 million, which is $35 million below the President's request. The
President's funding level would provide 27 million additional meals to
at-risk older adults. These meals allow many of these adults to remain
in their homes and communities, avoiding or delaying the need for costly
institutionalization.
House Bill Cuts Important Health Initiatives The bill cuts public
health priorities, including preventive health, mental health and
substance abuse, health care access for the poor, and efforts to reduce
racial health disparities and the spread of AIDS worldwide. The bill
would also threaten our ability to manage key entitlement programs, such
as Medicare and Medicaid. It would prevent us from continuing to
provide important patient protections to American workers, and improving
our nation's organ distribution system.