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AFSCME's Position – Fighting for Education Funding

Background

By this date in the calendar year, Congress is supposed to have completed action on funding education programs for the fiscal year, FY 2007, which begins on October 1, 2006. Unfortunately, this has not occurred. That means that education will once again be funded on a month-to-month basis based on the dollar amounts that the programs received in the last fiscal year, which were generally below the funding levels of the year before that, until at least after the November 2006 elections.  And, to make matters worse, the funding bills that are currently stalled in Congress would continue to slash federal dollars for education.

There is no question that without adequate funding American students will continue to be outclassed by students in other countries with whom they increasingly compete for jobs after they graduate from high school or college. According to “The Condition of Education 2006”, a report prepared for the Congress by the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), high school students in the United States are consistently outperformed by those from Asian and most European countries on international assessments of mathematics and science. American fourth grade students ranked 12th in reading literacy tests behind fourth grade students in 11 of the other countries participating in the report. Likewise, American fourth grade students also scored below their fourth grade counterparts in 11 other countries.

Summary of legislation

Education funding is contained in the Labor-Health and Human Services and Education (Labor-HHS) Appropriations bill. The Senate Appropriations Committee's education subcommittee approved a bill that shamefully under-funded education programs for FY 2007. The bill would cut overall education funding below both current levels and even below those contained in the bill passed by the House Appropriations Committee. The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) programs would receive an overall cut of $377 million while Title I elementary school funding would be frozen at current levels and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) would also not receive any increased funding. The maximum Pell Grant Award would be similarly frozen, at $4,050, despite the soaring costs of a college education.

The House Appropriations Committee has also approved a funding bill for FY 2007 that grossly shortchanged education programs. The bill would cut funding for programs under NCLB by nearly $500 million, bringing funding below the level provided four years ago in FY 2003. The bill would freeze funding for Title I at current levels (which already represent a cut from the previous year), cut funding for teacher quality state grants, and eliminate a number of education programs.  Neither the House nor Senate bills include the full $7 billion in additional funding for education and other priorities that was passed by the Senate and promised by House leaders during budget debates earlier this year.

AFSCME position

Federal funding for education would have to be increased by $14 billion in order to restore the cuts that were made in FY 2006 and provide the essential and long overdue increases to our nation’s major education programs. AFSCME supports federal action that moves toward providing these necessary funds. Without them our students will continue to fall behind the achievement levels of students in many other countries of the world.  .

What you can do

Contact your Senators and Representative and tell them that under-funding education programs means that America’s future is at peril. Strongly urge them to support additional education funding in fiscal year 2007 appropriations. 

Department of Legislation
October 2006

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