UPDATE: March 25, 2024: President Joe Biden signed the FY 2024 budget for the U.S. Department of Education and other agencies on Saturday, following its approval by the House and Senate on Friday and Saturday, respectively.
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The U.S. Department of Education would get $500 million less for fiscal year 2024 compared to the previous year — the agency's first potential cut since FY 2015 — under a $79.1 billion bicameral, bipartisan proposal released by congressional leaders Thursday for the agencies still without permanent appropriations bills for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1.
Congress and President Joe Biden are expected to approve the plan by the end of day Friday when the current continuing resolution expires.
The tentative agreement comes more than six months after the Oct. 1 deadline to finalize Education Department and several other agencies' annual appropriations. A series of continuing resolutions has shielded the federal agencies from a government shutdown in the meantime, and six other federal appropriations bills were finalized on March 8.
The proposed decrease in discretionary appropriations for the Education Department also comes as K-12 districts and states are weaning themselves from the one-time federal COVID-19 emergency aid that brought a historic $189.5 billion in their coffers since 2020.
In announcing the budget agreement, Sens. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, chair and vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, respectively, said in a joint statement that members of Congress should "waste no time" in passing the budget plan, "which will greatly benefit every state in America and reflect important priorities of many Senators."
Under the proposal, Title I and state grants for special education services — two of the largest K-12 federal funding programs — would each get a $20 million increase over FY 2023 allocations.
While a bump of $20 million for both doesn't seem like a financial victory, Murray, in a separate statement, said the plan rejects "devastating cuts that would have forced teachers out of our nation’s K-12 classrooms."
A Republican-led proposal last year recommended cutting Title I funding by 80%. That suggestion came from lawmakers who complained of waste in government spending and questioned whether districts and states were being too slow to spend K-12 COVID-19 emergency funds.
In a statement issued Wednesday, House Appropriations Chair Kay Granger, R-Texas, said, "House Republicans made a commitment to strategically increase defense spending, make targeted cuts to overfunded non-defense programs, and pull back wasteful spending from previous years. I am proud to say that we have delivered on that promise, and this bill is proof."
On the higher education side, the agreement calls for a maximum Pell Grant award of $7,395 for the 2024-25 school year, maintaining the $900 increase of the last two fiscal years, according to a Senate summary of the funding bill..
The FY 2024 proposal also protects Federal Work Study and the Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant, which some Republican lawmakers had targeted for elimination, according to Senate Democrats.
Murray, in a statement, highlighted the budget plan's inclusion of $8.75 billion, or 9% more over FY 2023 for the Child Care and Development Block Grant to help families afford child care. Also included in the spending plan is $12.3 billion — up $275 million from FY 2023 — for Head Start early education services, including money to support and retain teachers and staff.
A budget summary from the House Appropriations Committee spotlighted a $10 million increase for career and technical education and a $7 million increase to the Impact Aid Program to support school districts affected by federal properties and activities, such as a military base.
The House Appropriations Committee also noted what it called "wasteful programs" not included in the budget plan, including a new preschool demonstration program, the Fostering Diverse Schools Demonstration Grants Program, and a new Free Community College program.
