President Bush’s 2007 budget proposal recommends eliminating
42 and reducing four Department of Education programs
representing $3.468 billion, arguing they are duplicative
of other programs or not well targeted to those they are
intended to serve.
The largest chunk would come from terminating high school
programs for which $2.15 billion was enacted for fiscal 2006.
The “narrow-purpose”programs include the Vocational
Education State Grants and Voc Ed National Activities,
funded at about $1.2 billion for 2006. OMB cited a review
by the national assessment of vocational education that
did not provide evidence that high school vocational
courses themselves contribute to academic achievement or
college enrollment. The program received a PART score of
“ineffective”because it revealed little or no evidence of
improved outcomes for students.
Another high-school program, Upward Bound, funded at $311
million for 2006, which makes grants to higher education
institutions to help low-income secondary school students
graduate from high school and pursue higher education,
would be terminated based on a lack of performance data
and findings from a Mathematica evaluation the program
received, as well as an “ineffective”PART score,
according to OMB.
The administration proposed to consolidate funding from
the seven high school programs that it said “lack strong
accountability mechanisms and have largely failed to
demonstrate measurable results”and redirect it to the
President’s $1.5 billion high school reform program,
which would leave it up to states to show improved
achievement and graduation rates.
Other education programs that would be cut include State
Grants for Incarcerated Youth Offenders, $23 million;
Small Elementary and Secondary Education Programs, $278
million; Educational Technology State Grants, $272
million; Perkins Loans Institutional Fund Recall, $664
millio;, and Teaching American History, which would be
reduced by $50 million and funded at $70 million.
