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In early August, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, a bill that would reauthorize the Child Nutrition Act. Now it is up to the House to pass the bill before the existing law expires on Thursday, September 30th. Although the Senate bill won strong bi-partisan support, things are not going so smoothly in the House mostly because of competing priorities for programs that address nutrition and hunger.

Currently, the Child Nutrition Act provides funding for school meal and after school food programs, benefits for low-income women and infants, and adult feeding programs. Most of this funding is distributed to states and school districts based on per student reimbursement rates.

The bill the Senate passed makes several changes to the existing Child Nutrition Act, particularly the School Nutrition Program. Perhaps most importantly, it compels the Secretary of Agriculture to implement new nutrition standards for school lunches and breakfasts. Under the law, schools that provide lunches that comply with these new standards will receive an increased reimbursement rate for every meal served. Additionally, the law would allow schools to directly certify students for free or reduced price meals using Medicaid data in addition to Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and food stamp data and would create a performance award program for states that reach benchmarks for direct certification.

The new nutrition standards will provide students with more healthful meals. The changes to direct certification will increase the number of students that receive free or reduced price lunches while also decreasing paper burden on schools. These changes are popular with many child nutrition organizations and other public policy organizations that have been seeking to improve the quality of federally-subsidized school meals and the bureaucracy surrounding enrolling students in the meal program.

In total, programmatic changes in the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act would increase the cost of the School Nutrition Program by $4.5 billion over ten years. The Senate found $2.2 billion in offsets for this additional spending by eliminating increased American Reinvestment and Recovery Act Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits (SNAP - formerly known as the food stamp program) in 2013 rather than 2014, as set in previous legislation.

Unsurprisingly, this change is unpopular with anti-hunger advocates who believe that ending the increased SNAP benefits in 2013 will leave needy families without enough money for food. And this is not the first time that funding for SNAP benefits from ARRA have been pilfered for other programs.

The $10 billion Education Jobs Fund and $16.1 billion Medicaid reimbursement increase, which Congress passed in mid-August, was also made possible by offsets from the SNAP benefits increase in ARRA. Specifically, Congress created $11.9 billion in offsets by setting a 2014 end date for the ARRA SNAP benefits increase. While this offset was also unpopular with anti-hunger advocates, it was less controversial because the ARRA SNAP benefits increase was originally intended to end in 2014 anyway.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 provided funds to increase the value of SNAP benefits until annual inflation adjustments to SNAP reached ARRA levels – believed at the time to be in 2014. But low levels of food cost inflation in 2009 and 2010 slowed down that timeline, meaning that SNAP adjustments wouldn’t meet ARRA levels until 2018. Although the 2014 deadline for the ARRA funds meant that SNAP benefits would likely drop from 2014 to 2018, the perceived urgency of the Education Jobs Fund and Medicaid increase made the offset politically viable.

Will advocates of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act be able to justify these additional cuts to the ARRA SNAP benefit increase and pass the bill before the current law expires? Or will the House delay a vote further to try to find alternative offsets for the improved School Nutrition program before they pass the bill? Check back with Ed Money Watch for updates.

States across the country are always trying to figure out how they compare to other states on educational outcomes. Which state does the best on the National Assessment of Education Progress? Which states spends the most on education? Which state gets the most return on each education dollar it spends? The Federal Education Budget Project, Ed Money Watch’s parent initiative, collects and analyzes data on exactly these kinds of questions. Today, we will take a closer look at how state graduation rates (as defined and calculated by the U.S. Department of Education) vary with state per pupil spending for the 2007-08 school year. While some states get a great return on their education investment – high graduation rates despite relatively low per pupil expenditures, some states seem to be getting very little for every education dollar, displaying low graduation rates and high per pupil expenditures.

One of the best ways to gain a quick understanding of the trends in education data is to create a scatter plot of the data of interest. This provides a visual depiction of the relationship between the two sets of data for each state where one data point of interest is plotted on the x axis and the other data point of interest is plotted on the y axis. This makes it easy to compare how each state fares on both indicators and to see trends in the data for all states. Below, we have created a scatter plot where per pupil expenditure is plotted on the x axis and graduation rate is plotted on the y axis.

Additionally, we have included a “trend line” in the scatter plot which shows the general pattern that the data points follow. The slight slope of the trend line suggests that states that spend more money per pupil tend to have higher graduation rates. For example, New Jersey has the highest per pupil expenditure in the country at $17,620 and the fifth highest graduation rate – 84.6 percent, following the trend. Other states follow the trend line almost exactly – North Carolina, Texas, Hawaii, Wyoming, and Rhode Island all fall very close to the trend line on the scatter plot, indicating that they are getting similar returns on their educational investments.

However, the small slope of the trend line indicates that the relationship between per pupil expenditure and graduation rate is not very strong. Several states do not follow the general trend, falling far below or far above the trend line.

In fact, there are many outliers (states that do not follow the overall pattern) on the scatter plot. These states typically have low graduation rates and high per pupil expenditures or high graduation rates and low per pupil expenditures. For example, Wisconsin appears to get some of the best returns on its education spending compared to other states – it has a relatively low per pupil expenditure ($10,791 – just over the national average) but the highest graduation rate in the country (89.6 percent). Iowa and Minnesota, with slightly lower graduation rates (84.6 percent for both), also buck the trend with lower than average per pupil expenditures ($9,520 in Iowa and $10,048 in Minnesota).

In contrast, New York has the second highest per pupil expenditure in the nation ($16,794) but one of the lowest graduation rates (70.8 percent). The disparity in the District of Columbia is even greater – it has the third highest per pupil expenditure ($16,353) but the second lowest graduation rate (56.0 percent).

Nevada, on the other hand, is an outlier of a different variety – it has both relatively low per pupil expenditures and an extremely low graduation rate. It falls significantly below the vast majority of states, suggesting that Nevada is getting worse returns on its education spending than any other state that spends a similar amount per pupil.

While using scatter plots to infer trends in education data is imperfect, it does reveal some important patterns and clearly identifies the states that do not follow them. In this particular case, the scatter plot makes it abundantly clear that states are not guaranteed a certain graduation rate depending on how much they spend per student. Instead, how a state (and school district, and school) spends its money matters significantly more than how much money it actually spends.

More than a year ago, Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) providing almost $100 billion for federal education programs including Title I, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and a new program called the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund (SFSF). But this new money, which was channeled through states and distributed to school districts and institutions of higher education, came with a major caveat – schools were required to extensively track and report on the use of these funds through a new federal website called Recovery.gov. These reporting requirements were intended to ensure transparency surrounding the use of the new federal funds for the public and policymakers. But how effective were the reporting requirements? A recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report suggests that the reporting requirements for education programs did not result in the kind of transparency Congress and the Obama Administration likely intended.

The reporting system that the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) put in place to track the use of ARRA funds requires primary recipients of funds (state governments in the case of education funds) to report details on their use of funds. This includes information such as the project name and description, a description of the purpose, outputs, and outcomes of the award, and a description of the projects and activities that would be conducted with the award funds. Additionally, sub-recipients of the funds (school districts and institutions of higher education) must report the location and amount of the sub-awards they receive but not any detailed information on how the funds are actually used. This means that state governments have to provide all details on how sub-recipients are using the funds to the extent possible.

According to the GAO, states rarely fulfill these requirements to the level of specificity intended. In many cases, the sheer amount of information that OMB requires to completely fulfill these requirements is more than the reporting system can handle. For example, the reporting system does not allow for enough characters for California to completely describe the activities of all 1,500 of its SFSF grant recipients.

In other cases, however, the U.S. Department of Education, through additional guidance it gave to states to guide their use of the OMB reporting system, provided the states with shortcuts to reduce the reporting burden. In its guidance, the Department of Education told states that they could use prefabricated text in both the award description and activities description sections, resulting in a loss of transparency. For example, a state could automatically enter “Assist States in providing special education and related services to children with disabilities in accordance with Part B of the IDEA” as the award description for their IDEA funds. This means that states do not have to provide any detailed or specific information on how the funds would be actually be used or what their intended outcomes would be.

Through a review of recently reported data at Recovery.gov, GAO found that only 9 percent of states provided fully transparent information in their reporting (as defined by GAO’s transparency criteria). This means that these states provided information beyond the suggested text provided by the Department of Education and fully satisfied the requirements outlined by OMB. An additional 13 percent of states provided a significant amount of information in their reporting, while the remaining 78 percent provided only limited information in their reporting. It appears that the information state governments have been providing through Recovery.gov is limited in its usefulness at best.

What does this all mean for ARRA reporting moving forward?

GAO suggests that the Department of Education require that states provide their own text for the section that describes the relevant activities rather than rely on standard text provided by ED (though they will continue to be able to use the standard text for the award description). Ideally, this will allow the public to determine how ARRA funds are actually being used at the local level. As states begin to receive a new infusion of $10 billion through the recently passed Education Jobs Fund, which is also subject to these reporting requirements, this information is likely to become more important than ever.

Ed Money Watch will be on vacation for the next two weeks and back on Tuesday, August 31st. Be sure to come back in the fall for more reporting and analysis on the new Education Jobs Fund, continuing distribution of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds, and the round two Race to the Top winners. We will also provide extensive coverage of the on-going fiscal year 2011 House and Senate appropriations processes, including the Pell Grant funding debate, and how they will affect the federal education budget.

Have a great summer!

This past Tuesday, President Obama signed HR 1586 into law, providing a $10 billion Education Jobs Fund to help states avoid teacher layoffs. Congressional leaders claim that the program will save as many as 160,000 K-12 education jobs that otherwise would be lost because of state budget cuts. However, that number is now being called into question by policymakers and stakeholders because of various implementation issues.

As Ed Money Watch discussed earlier this week, school districts in some states have already taken action to avoid teacher layoffs by freezing salaries or eliminating programs and services. For these districts, the Education Jobs Fund just came too late - they had to make and implement difficult decisions under the assumption that there would be no more federal funding to support teachers. And now they are effectively stuck with the outcomes of those decisions despite the presence of more federal funding.

Additionally, some states have been able to solve their education funding issues without the new federal funds. For example, Arkansas has been able to maintain state funding for education jobs, eliminating the need to layoff teachers and other K-12 staff. North Dakota is not faced with any potential teacher layoffs due to stable tax revenues. States in this situation will be receiving federal funds that they don’t directly need and must find other ways to spend it on education employment. Or, they can choose not to apply for the funds at all, giving the U.S. Secretary of Education the option to allocate those funds to another state.

Finally, some school districts, who really could use the extra funds but were also functioning under the assumption that they would never come, have already finalized classroom assignments, course schedules, and other staffing details. For them, it may be too big of a hassle to start over again on these decisions given the new funding. This is even more significant for districts that may not see extra federal funds until after the school year starts. Adding new teachers, classrooms, and course-offerings one month or later into the school year could cause more disruption than they are willing to handle.

So what will states and school districts in these situations do with the new Education Jobs Fund monies? They could hire temporary staff to provide additional services like tutoring, professional development, coaching, or administrative help. They could create new administrator, counselor, or teacher positions and hope that they have enough funding in the future to keep those new jobs. They could shift around funds to bring back programs and services that were previously eliminated during cost-cutting efforts.

Or, they could hold onto the funds for next year. According to Assistant U.S. Education Secretary Carmel Martin, a pre-existing law enables school districts to carry over the new federal funding into the 2011-12 school year. While the Education Jobs Fund is meant to provide funds that will be used immediately, this flexibility in the new funds could be helpful to school districts that have already ironed out their funding issues for the 2010-11 school year but are anticipating similar problems for 2011-12.

Of course, there are some states and school districts that desperately need the money and are willing to endure the bureaucratic hassle to use it quickly. For example, a recent report out of New Jersey suggests that many districts intend on rehiring previously let-go teachers if new federal funds are made available in time. This is also the case in similarly cash-strapped districts in California.

The real success of the Education Jobs Fund seems to depend on how quickly the Department of Education can get the money out to school districts. According to the legislation, each state’s governor must apply for the funds within 30 days of the law’s passage, but the application cannot require more information than is necessary to ensure that a state is in compliance with the law. The U.S. Secretary of Education must award the funds within 45 days of the law’s passage, or 15 days after state applications must be submitted. According to this timeline, Education Jobs Funds must be awarded to states by September 24, 2010, well after the school year has begun.

Then, the states must get the funds out to school districts, a process that was less than straightforward under the Education Jobs Fund’s predecessor, the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund. Though the legislation states that school districts do not need to submit new applications for the funds if their State Fiscal Stabilization Fund applications have already been approved, states can choose to distribute the funds on whatever timeline they see fit. Theoretically, that means that some school districts may not see funds until the beginning of the next state fiscal quarter or later.

For now, all school districts can do is plan as much as possible for the new federal funds, given the uncertainty about when they will actually arrive. Check back with Ed Money Watch as this process continues.

Yesterday, the Department of Education accidentally released the list of winners in the Investing in Innovation grant competition -- a day ahead of the scheduled announcement. The Investing in Innovation (i3) program provides competitive grants to school districts, consortia of schools, or partnerships between schools and non-profits to implement new innovative practices and programs. Thanks to Ed Week’s Michele McNeil, who posted ED’s list of winners on her Politics K-12 blog, and some earlier-released information, we can get some insight into who the winners are and which types of grants received the most money.

ED identified 49 winners who will be awarded grants once they secure a matching grant. There were four winners for Scale-up grants, which required the most supporting evidence of effectiveness, 15 winners for Validation grants, which required some evidence of effectiveness, and 30 winners for Development grants, where could be largely unproven. The grant awards total $648.5 million with $140.4 for Development grants, $194.5 for Validation grants, and $313.2 for Scale-up grants.

Scores for the winners ranged from a low of 81.17 points (for the Reading Recovery program at the Ohio State University) to a high of 116.95 points (for the Saint Vrain School District’s i3 project). Early guidance from ED suggests that i3 applications could earn a maximum of 105 points, so scores higher than 105 can apparently be attributed to "standardization," a process where ED accounts for variation in scores for different graders.

Thirteen local education agencies (school districts), 18 non-profit partnerships, and 17 consortia of schools were awarded grants. One winner did not provide information on the type of applicant it identifies as – the Erikson Institute.

As we’ve discussed before, i3 applications must design their applications to fit under one of four priorities, or goals. Twelve of the winners applied under the priority focusing on effective teachers and principals; nine applied the priority for projects focusing on the use of data; 15 applied under the “high standards and high-quality assessments” category; and 13 applied under the priority for grants that will focus on persistently low-performing schools.

And, i3 applicants could also apply under as many as four optional priorities which would give them an additional edge in the competition. This means that applicants could get an additional point (or two) in their score for focusing on one or more of four specific areas or populations identified by ED. Of the winners, 13 applied under the early learning priority, 20 applied under the college access and success priority, 28 applied under the unique learning needs priority, and 18 applied under the rural school district priority.

Of course, winners can only collect their grant awards once they have secured a private matching grant for their respective proposals. So far only 20 winners have secured such grants and the remaining winners have until September 8th to secure theirs. Assuming that all 49 of the winners are able to secure their matching grants, the amount of innovative activity occurring in schools and districts around the country is about to increase rapidly. This could mean a large scaling up of successful programs like KIPP and Teach for America or significantly more evidence to support (or refute) more local innovative efforts in college access, data use, standards, and low-performing schools. Either way, this represents an exciting step for the i3 winners, their communities, and the education arena as a whole.

To download all of these data for the 49 winners, click here.

UPDATE: Michele McNeil at Ed Week has a great explanation of the i3 scores and why they are difficult to interpret here.

Last week, the Department of Education released data on the 339 applicants for the 2010 Promise Neighborhood competitive grant program. Congress included $10 million in 2010 appropriations for Promise Neighborhood planning grants, a particular priority of President Obama. The Promise Neighborhood program is a new program that was first funded in 2010. These grants provide funds to support the development of a plan to implement a comprehensive approach to education in a high-need area that includes a focus on community and family involvement in education. Promise Neighborhoods seek to break down the silo-ed nature of public services in local areas to create a more supportive and synchronized system.

The Department of Education plans to award up to 20 Promise Neighborhood grants ranging from $400,000 to $500,000 under the fiscal year 2010 appropriation that was made last December. These grants, which will support organizations as they plan their Promise Neighborhoods, will last for 12 months. Depending on the further availability of funds, the Department of Education may provide further grant aid that will fund the implementation of projects receiving planning grants.

For the 2010 grant competition, 339 non-profits, institutions of higher education (IHEs) and other organizations applied for grants. Unsurprisingly, the vast majority (260) of the applicants were non-profit organizations. Sixty-two IHEs applied for grants and 17 other types of organizations applied. In most cases, “other” organizations included city governments and school boards.

The Department of Education also identified three “absolute” priorities under which each applicant must apply. The first priority requires an applicant to submit a proposal for how it plans to create a Promise Neighborhood. This proposal must include descriptions of the community it will serve, how it will maintain the programs it implements, and what methods it will use to evaluate its progress. Every applicant must fulfill the requirements of this priority. Applicants that only apply under the first priority must find matching grants equal to 50 percent of their Promise Neighborhood grants. Of the total applicants, 270 applied under only the first priority.

Applicants can also choose to apply under the second or third absolute priorities, given that they also meet the requirements under the first priority. Forty-eight applicants applied from rural communities, qualifying them for the second priority, while 21 applicants applied from tribal communities, qualifying them for the third priority. Applicants under the second and third priorities must find matching grants equal to only 25 percent of their Promise Neighborhood grants.

Organizations applied from all 50 states and the District of Columbia and larger states tended to have more applicants than smaller states. For example, California had 45 applicants and New York had 29. In contrast, only three organizations applied for grants in Iowa and only one applied in South Dakota. Surprisingly, Texas had only 19 applicants, relatively few given its large population size. The District of Columbia, on the other hand, had 9 applicants, significantly more than 37 other states.

The Department of Education expects to announce grant winners in September 2010, meaning they have less than two months to weed through 339 applications and narrow it down to around 20 winners. But for those 20 winners, this grant could be the first step in a major overhaul of how American communities deliver education services.

According to the President’s 2011 budget request, the Obama Administration hopes to make the Promise Neighborhood program more permanent with $210 million in fiscal year 2011 appropriations. However, both the House and Senate Appropriations Subcommittee bills suggest that this goal may be difficult to achieve – they only provide $60 million and $20 million, respectively, for the program in 2011.

Yesterday, the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education released some of the details on their marked up fiscal year 2011 appropriations bill for the Department of Education. These appropriations bills determine nearly all funding for the Department of Education for fiscal year 2011 which begins on October 1st, 2010. Much like the information on the House Appropriations Subcommittee mark up, the details currently available on the Senate Subcommittee mark up are less than thorough. However, we can draw some conclusions from the available information.

The Senate Subcommittee bill provides $14.9 billion for Title I Grants to Local Education Agencies, $450 million more than the president request and than was appropriated for fiscal year 2010. This is $50 million more than the House Subcommittee provides. The Senate Subcommittee mark up would also provide $11.9 billion for Special Education Grants to States, $170 million more than the president’s request and $220 more than was appropriated in 2010. The House Subcommittee does not provide a comparable number for their bill.

The Senate Subcommittee included $300 million in its mark up for the Early Learning Challenge Fund, a brand new competitive grant program for early education programs. The Senate subcommittee bill also includes $100 million for the High School Graduation Initiative, twice as much as was appropriated for that program in fiscal year 2011. We do not yet know whether the House subcommittee also included either of these programs in its mark up because they have not released details information.

The Senate Subcommittee also included $20 million for Promise Neighborhoods, twice as much as was appropriated in 2010. However, the President requested an appropriation of $210 million for fiscal year 2011 and the House Appropriations Subcommittee mark up includes $60 million for the program. This likely means that the final Promise Neighborhoods appropriation will fall somewhere between $20 million and $60 million assuming the full House and Senate approve the Subcommittee’s level.

The Senate Subcommittee also provided far below the President’s requested funding level for Race to the Top and Investing in Innovation, $675 million and $250 million, respectively. The president requested $1.350 billion for Race to the Top and $500 million for Investing in Innovation. The House subcommittee provided $800 million for Race to the Top and $400 million for Investing in Innovation in its mark up, also below the president’s request but above the Senate subcommittee level.

Beyond these few programs, its hard to compare funding levels between the House and Senate Subcommittee mark ups due to lack of information. See the table below for all the available information on both the Senate and House subcommittee bills. Check back with Ed Money Watch as the two appropriations bills make it through their respective full Appropriations committees and on to the floors of the full House and Senate.

Earlier this week, Ed Money Watch provided details on the Labor-Health and Human Services-Education Appropriations Subcommittee bill for fiscal year 2011. In total, the subcommittee provided $72.0 billion for Department of Education discretionary spending. But the subcommittee also released another document detailing an entirely different kind of discretionary spending – Congressional earmarks.

Earmarks are funds Congress provides to projects and programs under a budget account that do not require a formula-based or competitive allocation process. Essentially, this means that members of Congress can direct specific funds provided under certain programs to projects of their liking, most often within their Congressional district. Earmarks are sometimes referred to as “Congressionally Directed Spending Items,” but many stakeholders call them “pork barrel spending.”

This year, Congress included $355.9 million in earmarks in the fiscal year 2011 appropriations bill split among several different accounts, less than one-half of one percent of the total Department of Education funding. This includes $95.5 million in “Presidentially Directed Spending Items.” Earmarks range anywhere from $70,000 (for the Eastmont Community Center in Los Angeles, CA) to $33.3 million (for Alaska Native Educational Equity) but the majority of earmarks goes to local programs ranging between $200,000 and $700,000.

The majority of individual earmarks are made under two programs, the Fund for the Improvement of Education (FIE) and the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE). There is a reason for this. These two programs are so broadly defined in their scope and mission that nearly any program a Member of Congress could think up can fit under them. In other words, they have become earmark slush funds.

For 2011, the House subcommittee provided $27.6 million in FIE earmarks and $30.4 million in FIPSE earmarks. For example, Rep. Rosa Delauro (D-CT) requested $325,000 for the Connecticut Technical High School System in Ansonia, CT under FIE. Rep. Henry Brown (R-SC) requested a $250,000 earmark under FIPSE for Trident Technical College in North Charleston, SC.

Admittedly, the House has shown some restraint in the earmark process so far this year. For fiscal year 2010, the House passed version of the Labor-HHS-Education bill included $77.6 million in earmarks for FIE, $50 million more than this year, and $132.9 million for FIPSE, $102.5 million more than this year's subcommittee bill (which hasn't yet been considered by the full house).

A few larger earmarks are made under a few of the Department of Education’s National Projects accounts. These larger earmarks tend to be for existing programs or organizations that typically receive federal support like Teach for America (which was provided a $20.0 million earmark). For example, House members requested $141.6 million in earmarks under the Innovation and Improvement National Projects. This includes $10.6 million for the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards requested by Rep. Bob Etheridge (D-NC). Under the School Improvement National Project Account, House members requested $71.6 million in earmarks including $5.0 million for New Leaders for New Schools requested by George Miller (D-CA).

In all, earmarks account for less than one-half of one percent of the Department of Education’s fiscal year 2011 discretionary budget under the subcommittee’s bill. But they do represent some of the most targeted spending that will occur in the annual budget process. Moreover, they are never subjected to the type of performance reviews that other federal programs would be and they help to fuel lobbying on Capitol Hill. Check back with Ed Money Watch as we keep a close eye on the earmarks as the budget process continues.

Last Thursday the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education passed its fiscal year 2011 funding bill – the first step in the annual appropriations process that will determine funding levels for all but a few federal education programs. Fiscal year 2011 begins October 1st, 2010. Overall, the chairman’s mark included total funding of $176.4 billion, $1.5 billion less than the president’s 2011 budget request. This includes $72.0 billion for the Department of Education, $1.5 billion less than the president’s request and $7.7 billion more than the current year funding level.

The Subcommittee’s mark up provides more funding for education programs than the fiscal year 2010 appropriations bill in all but a couple occasions. The largest increase (in terms of percent of funds) went to the Promise Neighborhood program, which the subcommittee provided $60 million up from $10 million in 2010. However, the Promise Neighborhood increase provided in the mark up dwarfs the president’s requested funding level of $210 million for the program.

The subcommittee mark up also includes a significant increase for Innovation and Improvement programs, which would receive $2.4 billion in 2011, up from $1.4 billion in 2010. The Innovation and Improvement increase over 2010 levels can be attributed almost entirely to Race to the Top and the Investing in Innovation fund, which received no appropriation in the 2010 fiscal budget. These programs, which were created by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and funded at a combined $5 billion, have become favorites of the Obama Administration for their emphasis on education reforms. The president requested $1.5 billion for Race to the Top and $500 million for Investing in Innovation for fiscal year 2011. However, the subcommittee mark up provides $800 million for Race to the Top in fiscal year 2011 and $400 million for Investing in Innovation.

Innovation and Improvement programs also include teacher-centric programs like the Teacher Incentive Fund, school choice programs like Charter School Grants, and subject-specific programs like Teaching American History grants. The president’s budget request included a substantial reorganization of these programs including several consolidations and a few eliminations which would have brought total Innovation and Improvement spending not include Race to the Top and the Investing in Innovation fund funding to $4.5 billion. The relatively low appropriation for these programs included in the subcommittee-passed bill suggests that the Democratic majority on the subcommittee has chosen to ignore the President’s proposed program consolidations in this budget cycle, likely so they can be considered during the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act next year.

The subcommittee mark up also includes $23.1 billion for Pell Grants, $5.7 billion more than the 2010 appropriation. In contrast, the president requested $0 in discretionary spending for Pell Grants because he proposed making it a mandatory spending program. Congress rejected this proposal. But the $23.1 billion in the mark up is not enough to maintain the current maximum grant level of $4,860. Congress also passed a reconciliation bill earlier in 2010 that provides an additional $13.5 billion for Pell Grants. Combined with the $23.1 billion in 2011 spending, these funds will cover the full $35.1 billion cost of the program.

Title I Grants to School Districts and Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) Grants to States also received increases in the subcommittee mark up. Title I would be funded at $14.9 billion under the chairman’s mark, $400 million more than in 2010 and than the president’s requested level. IDEA would be funded at $13.0 billion, $412 million above the 2010 level and $153 million more than the president’s request.

The subcommittee mark up also provides $5.3 billion for School Improvement Programs, $30 million less than the 2010 funding level but $2.2 billion more than the president’s requested level. School Improvement Programs include Improving Teacher Quality State Grants, Educational Technology State Grants, State Assessment Grants, and other programs aimed at improving education services. The president’s budget request made dramatic changes to these programs including some consolidations and eliminations that would have resulted in a total appropriation of on $3.1 billion. However, the subcommittee’s mark up maintains near 2010 spending levels for these programs, suggesting that they have chosen to ignore the president’s requested changes.

Unfortunately, the subcommittee has only made a summary table of its mark up available to the public – instead of the full text or a comprehensive table. The summary includes very few program-specific funding levels, making it impossible to determine how much a program like the Teacher Incentive Fund would receive in 2011 based. That said, the House subcommittee mark up represents a large increase in education funding for 2011 over 2010 levels, though it does not quite reach the president’s request. This increase is sure to be unpopular with deficit-sensitive legislators once the bill reaches the full Appropriations Committee and is later considered on the House Floor (which might not be until after the November election). Check back with Ed Money Watch for updates on this process.

The Education Jobs Fund, a $10 billion program passed in the House to support state K-12 education budgets, has been a common topic of conversation in the policy world. Debates surrounding proposed cuts to Race to the Top to pay for the program, along with discussions about whether the Education Jobs Fund is even necessary, have dominated recent media publications. But little has been said about the condition of higher education spending at the state level, a sector explicitly excluded from the version of the Education Jobs Fund passed in the House – though earlier House and Senate versions of the proposal included funding for higher education. Should we be concerned that higher education funding has dropped off the Congressional radar?

According to the Education Commission of the States, higher education spending accounts for an average of 23 percent of total state spending for education purposes. But the degree to which the economic downturn has affected public institutions of higher education varies greatly from state to state. For example, budget cuts to higher education in California resulted in a 32 percent increase in tuition at University of California campuses. Similarly, Florida’s Board of Governors and legislature passed a combined 15 percent tuition increase at the state’s universities. And in Wisconsin, a shortage of resources for higher education resulted in a 5.5 percent increase in tuition at University of Wisconsin campuses.

Ed Money Watch analysis shows that states have relied on State Fiscal Stabilization Funds (SFSF) provided as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 to maintain higher education spending in addition to K-12 spending. According to its State Fiscal Stabilization Fund phase one application, Louisiana planned to spend 59.7 percent of its total SFSF allocation on higher education spending. Colorado planned to spend 48.6 percent of its SFSF allocation on higher education and Arizona planned to spend 43.1 percent. On average, states planned to use 17.3 percent of their SFSF monies on higher education purposes.

Despite all this, the House recently chose to exclude institutions of higher education from the Education Jobs Fund. Any funds provided through the program must be used on K-12 salary and benefits expenses. However, higher education spending is still included in the maintenance of effort provision included in the pending proposal. States would be required to maintain both K-12 and higher education spending or proportion of total spending at 2009, 2010, or 2006 levels, depending on which option of the maintenance of effort provision they are eligible for. The decision to include higher education in the maintenance of effort requirement is somewhat perplexing. It seems questionable that Congress would require certain levels of higher education spending from the states if states are not able to use Education Jobs Fund monies to support higher education.

A new resource from U.S. News & World Report provides more details on the future of higher education funding in the country given current budget woes. U.S. News & World Report compiled data on each state’s probability of facing a recession in the next six months, estimated budget shortfall, estimated change in tax support for higher education, and typical per-pupil support from state tax dollars and created a map that shows whether a state’s public education system faces high or low financial pressure in 2011.

For example, the map shows that California has a 30 percent change of a recession in the next six months and is estimated to face a 9.1 percent budget shortfall in 2011. The state’s tax support for higher education is estimated to drop 8.6 percent and typical per-pupil tax support for higher education is $6.928. California’s higher education system is considered to face “very high” financial pressure in 2011.

In contrast, Arkansas’ higher education system is considered to face a “negligible” amount of pressure in 2011. The state has a 15 percent change of recession and faces a 0.0 percent budget shortfall for 2011. The tax support for higher education is estimated to increase by 2.9 percent and typical per-pupil tax support for higher education is $7,955.

Though it looks unlikely that the Education Jobs Fund (if it passed the Senate and is ultimately signed into law) will ever include higher education spending, public higher education is still an important part of the dialogue on greater education spending. Unfortunately, the current debate ignores the role higher education plays in state budgets and the education pipeline despite information available through the U.S. News & World Report map and news coverage of state level higher education budget decisions. Ed Money Watch hopes Congress incorporates higher education spending more explicitly into the debate for the sake of current and potential students and the on-going success of the nation’s public higher education system.