Higher Education Act Reauthorization Moves Toward Conference
On February 7, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 4137, its version of a bill to reauthorize the Higher Education Act. The bill had bi-partisan support and passed 354-58. A summary of the bill is available on the House Education and Labor Committee Web site.
The recent House action allows negotiations to begin with the Senate on its version of HEA reauthorization passed last summer, S. 1642. House and Senate education committee staff have begun “pre-conference” discussions aimed at finally finishing the bill, which has been extended numerous times since its original expiration in 2003, but time is of the essence. The current HEA extension expires March 30, but with Congress leaving for its spring recess, work must be completed by March 14.
This leaves a great deal of work to be done in a short time period, and it looks at this time like yet another extension will be needed. The Higher Education Act is huge in scope, for example the House bill is over 700 pages, and governs a broad range of programs from federal aid to postsecondary institutions and students to teacher training programs.
Some of the specific issues included in the current House and/or Senate bills include increasing the amount of information that schools and lenders must provide students, creating a “higher education price index” that allows for the comparison of tuition increases over time, and penalties for states that reduce support for higher education.
Most importantly to CTE programs, the bills look at issues such as allowing Pell Grants to be used year-round and opening the Academic Competitiveness Grant Program to students attending college at least half time and to those in certificate programs. These changes, if enacted, would make it easier for the typical CTE student at a community or technical college to access federal financial aid.
More information and the latest updates can be found on the Higher Education Act Reauthorization page of ACTE’s Web site.
Secretary Spellings Testifies Before House Appropriations Subcommittee
Last Tuesday, February 26, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings testified before the House Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee in defense of the Bush Administration’s proposed budget for Fiscal Year (FY) 2009. During this hearing, Secretary Spellings suffered extreme criticism from Democrat and Republican Subcommittee Members who believe that the proposed budget “shortchanges” education.
The Administration’s proposed budget funds education at $59.2 billion, the same amount signed into law for FY 2008. In this budget, 47 programs were eliminated, including all Perkins career and technical education (CTE) programs. Chairman David Obey stressed his disproval of the budget by demanding that the White House compromise. If a compromise can not be reached, the Subcommittee, according to Chairman Obey, plans to delay all education appropriations work until a new Administration is in control.
Before the hearing, ACTE sent research and proposed questions to all Members of the Subcommittee. Representatives Dennis Rehberg (MT), John Peterson (PA), and Mike Simpson (ID) appeared to be most vocal on CTE, asking why the Administration would “zero out” CTE, when today’s employers are in need of a skilled workforce. The Secretary defended the elimination of CTE by declaring that the programs are ineffective due to the Office of Management and Budget’s Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART) score that the Administration has used to justify cuts and eliminations. ACTE believes that PART is a highly flawed evaluation tool. Please see OMB Watch’s Web site for a more detailed description of the weaknesses of the PART system.
Secretary Spellings said that the Bush Administration proposes to use CTE funding to increase Advanced Placement programs in math and science. Mr. Peterson summed up his comments to the Secretary by saying, “Technical education has not been a priority of the Bush Administration, and it just astounds me.”
More information can be found on the Federal Budget and Appropriations page of ACTE’s Web site.
