AASA Responds to President’s FY21 Budget Proposal
Earlier this week, the president released his budget
proposal for federal fiscal year 20201 (FY21 runs from Oct 1 2020 through
September 30, 2021; FY21 dollars will be in school for the 21-22 school year).
The budget continues his trend of introducing federal budget proposals that
fall short of the simple willingness and ability to prioritize support for
strengthening and supporting our nation’s public schools and the students they
serve. AASA remains concerned about his chronic lack of support and
funding for programs that are fundamental to supporting students and children.
The FY21
budget proposal continues to prioritize privatization, at the direct
expense of the nation’s public schools and the 50 million students they serve
every day. The proposal’s FY21
education details would fund USED at $66.6 billion (A cut of $5.6 billion,
or 7.8%). Quick summary:
- One of the pillars of the FY21 proposal would
consolidate 29 programs within the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) into
one large, single block grant, funded at $19.4 billion (a cut of $4.7
billion from the current funding levels of the programs to be consolidated).
- The budget increases funding for IDEA state grants by
$100 million (0.8%). This brings the federal commitment to fully fund IDEA
(by funding 40% of the additional costs of educating students with special
needs) to just 13%, less than half of their authorized amount.
- The budget increases funding for Career and Technical
Education by $763 million.
- The budget includes $5 billion for annual federal tax
credits to support education privatization, such as vouchers.
- The budget for the US Department of Agriculture
includes a proposal to restrict participating in the Community Eligibility
Programs. CEP currently allows schools and districts with high enrolments
of students who quality for free/reduced priced meals to provide free
meals to all students. The budget proposal would restrict participation by
only allowing individual schools where at least 40% of students qualify
for the meal programs.
Read our full analysis here, as
well as the statement
from AASA executive director Dan Domenech.