NEA Criticizes Bush’s $57.3 Billion

Education Budget For 2005

WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Bush’s $57.3 billion budget request for the US Department of Education in 2005, a three percent increase over 2004, was recently criticized by National Education Association (NEA) President Reg Weaver for under-funding the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB).

   “Federal education programs received their smallest increase in six years,” Mr Weaver said. “Schools charged with raising student standards and achievement will receive $7 billion less than what was called for in the NCLB law.” 

   Under NCLB, President Bush’s budget includes a one billion increase — to $13.3 billion — in Title I grants for the nation’s neediest schools, as well as a one billion increase for special education grants to states.

    In addition, President Bush is requesting $12.9 billion — an $823 million increase — for Pell Grants to help an estimated 5.3 million students from low-income families pay for their higher education.

President Bush’s budget also provides $2.9 billion in grants to help states and school districts improve teaching and raise student achievement, $692 million for educational technology grants to improve student achievement through effective technology use, $441 million for grants to support district and community efforts to foster a safe and drug-free learning environment and $297 million to help states and school districts implement “innovative” strategies, including “expanded school choice options and other reforms to improve student achievement.”

The $50 million for a new Choice Incentive Fund, for example, provides more parents with the opportunity to transfer their children to higher-performing public, private, or charter school.

But Mr Weaver contends that such actions “demonstrate misplaced priorities for public education funds.”

“Research confirms what parents and teachers already know,” he said, “[that] reducing class size and enhancing teacher quality make the real difference in the education of our children. It is wrong to divert scarce resources from the public schools that are open to all students and gamble them on private institutions not fully accountable to the public.”

Another of President Bush’s proposals include a $101 million increase — to $1.1 billion — to expanding Reading First, a program that supports state efforts to provide comprehensive reading instruction for children using scientifically proven teaching methods.

Mr Weaver, however, is concerned that states are currently too fiscally strapped to support such innovations.

“The gap is growing between what the federal government is providing and what is needed to get the job done,” he said.

For more information on the No Child Left Behind Act, visit www.ed.gov. To learn more about the NEA, representing 2.7 million educators nationwide, visit www.nea.org.