[Budget Supplement]
[Creating Opportunity and Encouraging Responsibility]
[8. Investing in Education and Training]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office, www.gpo.gov]
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We have worked on a simple strategy for education. We believe in high standards. We believe in high
expectations. We believe in high levels of opportunity. We believe in high technology. And we believe the doors
of college should be open to every single American citizen.
President Clinton
February 1996
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Today's most successful workers are those with technical skills and a
firm educational footing who continue to learn throughout their careers
in order to compete successfully in this fast-changing economy.
In recent years, education and wages have become increasingly
intertwined. Generally, those with the best skills and education have
made steady progress, enjoying higher living standards. Those without
the requisite skills and education have fallen behind. Tomorrow's
workers face an even greater challenge: As the very nature of work
changes with technological innovation, employers will demand even more
highly-skilled workers. The best-paying jobs increasingly will go only
to those with education and training beyond high school.
For the most part, our Nation places responsibility for education and
training on State and local governments, families and individuals, and
the private sector. Nevertheless, the Federal Government plays a
crucial, if limited, role in providing education for a lifetime--from
pre-school to adult career training.
Federal resources help States improve the quality of education and
training for the disadvantaged and people with disabilities; support
State- and locally-designed elementary and secondary school reform; and
help low- and middle-income families gain financial access to
postsecondary education and skill training through loans and grants. To
help States raise student achievement, the President has consistently
worked to make schools safer, improve teacher quality, move technology
into the classroom as quickly as possible, raise academic standards, and
better prepare students for college and the new workplace.
The budget reaffirms the President's longstanding commitment to
education and training. It builds on previous legislative and management
reforms, and continues support for policies that the President has
articulated since assuming office in 1993.
Over seven years, the budget proposes $311 billion for education and
training, $61 billion more than the 1996 congressional budget resolution
(see Chart 8-1). For selected programs, the budget proposes an increase
of $5.9 billion, or 24 percent, over the 1993 level (see Table 8-1).
The Education Department's programs play a key role in the Nation's
efforts to improve the quality of elementary and secondary education for
all children, and to help low- and middle-income families pay for
postsecondary education and skill training. For 1997, the budget
proposes $25.6 billion in discretionary funds for department programs.
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Table 8-1. THE BUDGET INCREASES SPENDING ON MAJOR EDUCATION AND TRAINING PROGRAMS BY $3.4 BILLION, OR 13 PERCENT, OVER 1995, AND BY $5.9 BILLION, OR 24
PERCENT, SINCE 1993
(Budget authority, dollar amounts in millions)
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Dollar Percent Dollar Percent
1993 1995 1996 1997 Change: Change: Change: Change:
Actual Actual Estimate\1\ Proposed 1995 to 1995 to 1993 to 1993 to
1997 1997 1997 1997
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Head Start.............................................................. 2,776 3,534 3,631 3,981 +447 +13% +1,205 +43%
Goals 2000.............................................................. ....... 372 486 491 +119 +32% +491 NA
Charter Schools......................................................... ....... 6 20 40 +34 +567% +40 NA
Title I--Ed for disadvantaged........................................... 6,709 7,228 7,328 7,679 +451 +6% +970 +14%
Education Technology.................................................... ....... 56 74 357 +301 +538% +357 NA
Safe and Drug-Free Schools.............................................. 582 466 500 540 +74 +16% -42 -10%
Special education....................................................... 2,966 3,253 3,342 3,553 +300 +9% +587 +20%
Eisenhower/Ch. 2 teacher training....................................... 682 599 599 610 +11 +2% -72 -11%
Summer jobs for youth................................................... 849 867 635 871 +4 +*% +22 +3%
Job Corps............................................................... 966 1,089 1,121 1,154 +65 +6% +188 +19%
Out-of-School Youth..................................................... ....... ....... ............ 250 +250 NA +250 NA
School-to-Work opportunities............................................ ....... 245 372 400 +155 +63% +400 NA
Vocational and adult education.......................................... 1,474 1,383 1,383 1,420 +37 +3% -54 -4%
Adult/dislocated worker training........................................ 1,666 2,226 2,176 2,240 +14 +1% +574 +34%
Honors scholarships..................................................... ....... ....... ............ 130 +130 NA +130 NA
Pell grants\2\.......................................................... 5,633 5,444 6,189 6,425 +981 +18% +792 +14%
College work-study...................................................... 616 617 617 679 +62 +10% +63 +10%
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Total................................................................. 24,919 27,385 28,473 30,820 +3,435 +13% +5,901 +24%
Student loans (dollar amount of loans, in millions):
New loans:
Direct loans........................................................ ....... 5,200 10,400 13,200 +8,000 +154% +13,200 NA
Guaranteed loans.................................................... 16,100 18,500 14,800 13,200 -5,300 -29% -2,900 -18%
Loan consolidations................................................... 1,500 3,400 4,900 6,100 +2,700 +79% +4,600 +307%
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Total loan volume..................................................... 17,600 27,100 30,100 32,500 +5,400 +20% +14,900 +85%
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NA = Not applicable.
*Less than $500 thousand or 0.5 percent.
\1\Includes Administration's proposed adjustments to 1996 continuing resolution levels.
\2\To permit comparability, data are shown at the program level, not budget authority.
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Preparing Children for School
Head Start: A healthy, caring family environment is the best
preparation for school. For over 30 years, Head Start has helped
families create this environment by taking a comprehensive approach to
child development--improving children's learning skills, health,
nutrition, and social competency. Head Start involves parents in their
children's learning,
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and links children and their families to a wide
array of services in their communities.
To ensure that all Head Start programs consistently deliver the high-
quality services needed to produce good results for children, the
President proposed, and Congress enacted, major quality improvements in
1994. This budget builds on these important gains by continuing to
support local efforts to improve the quality of instruction, attract and
retain better workers, improve child-to-staff ratios, and upgrade
facilities.
The budget proposes $3.98 billion for Head Start, $447 million more
than in 1995, which would enable another 46,000 children to participate.
The budget proposes to enable a million children to participate by 2002
(see Chart 8-2).
Elementary and Secondary Education
Education is a national priority and a State and local responsibility.
Americans widely support State and local control of elementary and
secondary education. At the same time, the Federal Government over the
years has helped to improve areas of critical concern to all Americans,
such as teacher education or schooling for low-income children or those
with disabilities.
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This Administration has energized State and local efforts to raise the
educational achievement of every child and to create safe learning
environments. It also has worked with Congress to improve the largest
Federal education programs for disadvantaged children, focusing them
more on results and less on process.
Goals 2000: This Administration initiative, enacted in 1994, supports
State efforts to raise academic achievement for all students. Goals 2000
helps States and communities focus on results. It builds on the National
Education Goals, first articulated by the Nation's governors (led by
then-Governor Bill Clinton) and President Bush in 1989, which provide
clear targets but encourage States to develop their own means to achieve
them.
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HOW STATES USE GOALS 2000 TO ADVANCE THEIR REFORMS
In Maryland, scores on tests designed to measure progress toward the State's standards are increasing year
after year.
In Michigan, 13 Upper Peninsula school districts are working with Bay Mills Community College and Lake
Superior University to train teachers to use technology to improve math and science teaching and learning.
In Harrison County, Kentucky, Goals 2000 is helping train parents as volunteer instructional aides and
reaching out to parents through cable television programs and homework hotlines.
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States and localities receive funds to set their own challenging
academic standards for all children, then design their curriculum,
teacher training, educational technology, instruction methods, and
assessment tools around them. Goals 2000 also helps States and schools
involve parents in the education of their children. Currently, nearly
all States participate in the program.
The budget proposes $491 million for the program, 32 percent more than
in 1995. Under it, every State and over 12,000 schools could receive
grants.
Charter Schools: Charter schools are public schools that parents,
teachers, and communities create, and that States free from most rules
and regulations and hold accountable for raising student achievement.
Begun as a grassroots movement in 1991, and supported by Federal start-
up funds since 1995, public charter schools now number 250 nationwide,
some of them already showing results in higher student test scores and
lower drop-out rates. The budget proposes $40 million for public charter
schools in 1997, and increases over the next five years to fund start-up
costs for up to 3,000 such new schools.
Title I--Education for the Disadvantaged: Title I provides funds to
raise the educational achievement of disadvantaged children. In 1994,
the President proposed and Congress adopted changes to: focus Title I
resources better on areas with the largest concentrations of low-income
children; set the same high standards for those children as for all
others; and hold schools accountable for progress toward achieving those
standards. Schools now have much more flexibility in using these funds.
The budget includes $7.7 billion, six percent more than in 1995.
Education Technology: Technology can expand learning opportunities for
all students and help raise student achievement. Yet many school
districts lack the necessary resources to integrate technology fully
into their school curricula.
The President has launched a national mission to ensure that all
children are technologically literate by the dawn of the 21st Century,
with communication, math, science, and critical thinking skills
essential to succeed in the Information Age. Specifically, the President
proposes a Technology Literacy Challenge Fund, with four goals: (1)
helping States put enough computers in every classroom; (2) connecting
these computers to the Information Superhighway; (3) giving teachers the
training they need to integrate technology into teaching; and (4)
fostering the development of high quality, widely available
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educational software. To be eligible for Federal funds, a State must meet three challenges:
develop a strategy that enables every school in the State to
meet the four goals by the dawn of the 21st Century, complete
with benchmarks and timetables;
demonstrate significant private sector participation and
commitments that should at least match the amount of Federal
support; and
publicly report at the end of every school year on progress in
achieving its benchmarks.
The budget requests $250 million for the Challenge Fund in 1997, and
$2 billion over five years.
The budget also expands the successful Technology Learning Challenge
program, which in 1995 began providing school-centered, public-private
partnerships with matching Federal funds to support projects that
integrate technology into the curriculum. In 1995, $10 million funded 19
partnerships and leveraged over $70 million in other public- and
private-sector resources. The budget provides $75 million for the
program.
Teacher Training: The Eisenhower Professional Development program
helps States invest in training teachers and other educators so that
they, in turn, can help all children reach the State's challenging
academic standards. The President proposed, and Congress enacted, major
improvements in 1994 to ensure that the training is of high enough
quality and sufficient duration to pay off in the classroom. For this
purpose, the budget combines funding for the Eisenhower program with
general funds now in Title VI of the Elementary and Secondary Education
Act; all told, it provides $610 million for these activities.
Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities: Students can reach their
full potential only if they can learn in safe and disciplined
environments. This program helps 97 percent of the Nation's school
districts implement anti-drug and anti-violence programs in our schools.
It helps students resolve conflicts before they escalate into tragedy,
teaches them the dangers of drug use, and helps schools increase
security measures. The budget includes $540 million for this program, a
$74 million increase over the 1995 level.
Special Education: States have made considerable progress in providing
children with disabilities ``free appropriate public education,'' as the
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) calls for. The
primary challenge now is to improve the quality of that education so
that children with disabilities can, as much as possible, meet
challenging standards that have been established for all children, and
be prepared to lead productive, independent adult lives.
To that end, the Administration proposed amendments to IDEA in 1995 to
link individualized education programs to participation in the general
curriculum; require that children with disabilities be included in
State- and district-wide assessment programs; and give States and
schools greater flexibility to use IDEA funds to meet children's needs
in the regular classroom.
The budget provides $3.6 billion for special education, nine percent
more than in 1995.
Postsecondary Education
The Federal Government's primary roles in postsecondary education and
skill training are to (1) help students finance their education; and (2)
help ensure the availability of skill training and access to good jobs
for youth and adults, including dislocated workers. (For information on
skill training, see the section on the G.I. Bill for America's Workers.)
Postsecondary costs continue to climb rapidly, outpacing the ability
of many working families to meet them without sizable assistance. To
that end, the budget proposes more aid to more individuals than ever
before (see Chart 8-3). It also proposes a phased-in, $10,000 tax
deduction to help families pay for education and career training beyond
high school. (For more details on the tax deduction, see Chapter 12.)
Student Loans: An estimated 5.7 million individuals will borrow over
$32 billion through the Federal student loan programs in 1997. Families
at any income level can receive loans, but needy students can get
interest
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subsidies. The loans finance study toward undergraduate or
graduate degrees, or short-term vocational training programs. The annual
maximum loan amount varies from $2,625 for a first-year student
financially dependent on his or her parents, to $18,500 for a graduate
or professional program student.
Eligible institutions of higher education may participate in either
the Federal Direct Loan Program (FDLP) or the Federal Family Education
Loan Program (FFELP). FDLP, enacted at the President's request in 1993,
offers an efficient, streamlined, low-cost system for students, parents,
and schools. It also offers flexible repayment options for students,
including repayment based on income. The Education Department estimates
that direct loans will make up half of total loan volume in academic
year 1996-97 (see Chart 8-4).
The FFELP, created in 1965, is a bank-based program, with over 7,000
commercial and other lenders receiving Federal guarantees through 36
non-profit and State intermediaries, 90 secondary markets eventually
holding most loans, and dozens of servicing companies. Federal and
school administrative burdens and complexities are much greater and
costlier under FFELP.
The budget proposes legislative changes to both programs to save money
without increasing costs or curtailing benefits to borrowers.
Pell Grants: Pell grants provide need-based grants to low- and middle-
income undergraduates for associate and bachelors degree programs and
vocational training. In the 1995-96 academic year, about 3.6 million
students, a fifth of all college students, are receiving grants. Over 61
percent of the recipients come from families with incomes under $15,000,
and over 90 percent from families with incomes under $30,000.
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Pell grants help raise the participation and graduation rates of low-
income students in postsecondary programs. Recipients from the poorest
families are twice as likely to earn a bachelor's degree as are college
students from similar families without grants.
For 1997, the budget would raise the maximum Pell grant to $2,700, a
$360 increase over 1995. It also would continue to raise the maximum
award by three percent a year, providing a maximum award of $3,128 in
2002.
Presidential Honors Scholarships: The President proposes to create an
achievement-based scholarship program, rewarding the best and the
brightest of high school students. This program would grant $1,000
honors awards to the top five percent of graduating students in every
secondary school in the Nation, making clear the Government's commitment
to excellence for all children. The budget requests $130 million for
this program.
College Work-Study: Work-study helps needy undergraduate and graduate
students through part-time employment, rewarding their hard work and
commitment to education. The President proposes a significant expansion
over the next four years, enabling the program to serve a million
students a year by 2000. The budget proposes $679 million, 10 percent
more than in 1995.
G.I. Bill for America's Workers
Most people change jobs and get new skills by themselves or through
employers. For others who need help, the Federal Government has
supported State and private efforts over the last 30 years to provide
it, but with mixed results.
Last year, the President proposed to dramatically overhaul the
complex, inefficient structure of Federal job training programs through
the G.I. Bill for America's Workers. It would consolidate some 70
programs into a single, integrated workforce development
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system. It would make the programs more effective by cutting bureaucracy,
streamlining administration, and improving accountability by freeing
States and localities to focus on results, not process.
As of this writing, Congress was considering legislation based on the
principles of the G.I. Bill. House- and Senate-passed bills differ, but
final legislation should embody the President's vision of fostering
individual opportunity by: giving workers the resources--i.e., Skill
Grants--and information they need to make good training choices;
providing access to employment services through customer-friendly,
``One-stop'' career centers; and designing youth programs based on the
School-to-Work Opportunities Act. But, because the new law may not take
full effect until 1998, the budget proposes funding for the separate
programs that would remain in place until then.
The budget provides sizeable new support for those with the biggest
job problems--out-of-school youth in low-income areas--building on
lessons of the past and relying on locally-tailored designs. It proposes
to maintain support for programs that come under the G.I. Bill. To
ensure that employers comply with Federal workplace laws, it maintains,
and often substantially reforms, enforcement programs.
Out-of-School Youth Opportunities Program: Recognizing the special
problems of out-of-school youth, the budget proposes $250 million for
new competitive grants to the lowest-income urban and rural areas with
major youth unemployment problems. These communities would have to
provide matching funds from State, local, or private sources. The Labor
Department would award funds based on the quality of applications--that
is, to those with the best chance of substantially increasing employment
among youth in the area.
In a related proposal, the Administration's plan to fund a second
round of Empowerment Zones and Enterprise Communities for distressed
communities includes $50 million for the Labor Department to support a
``Jobs for Residents'' component. (For more information on the
Empowerment Zones and Enterprise Communities program, see Chapter 5.)
School-to-Work: School-to-Work, which the Education and Labor
Departments administer jointly, gives States and communities competitive
grants to build comprehensive systems to help young people move from
high school to careers or postsecondary training and education. Young
people can prepare for high-skill, high-wage careers; receive top-
quality academic and occupational training; and pursue more education or
training. And businesses get the trained workers they need to stay
globally competitive.
By mid-1996, 27 States and 91 local partnerships will have received
grants to implement their school-to-work systems. The budget proposes
$400 million for the program, a 63 percent increase over 1995. With it,
the Government could allocate implementation grants to nearly every
State.
Summer Youth: The Summer Youth Employment and Training Program (SYETP)
gives many urban and rural disadvantaged students their first work
experiences, and localities may include an academic component that
reenforces the skills they have learned during the school year. Under
the G.I. Bill, SYETP would continue to provide these services, but would
be fully integrated into each local school-to-work system.
For 1996, Congress sought to eliminate SYETP, but the President is
committed to ensuring that it continues. The budget expands the program
to provide 574,000 opportunities for the summer of 1997.
Job Corps: The Job Corps provides intensive skill training, academic
and social education, and support services to severely disadvantaged
young people in a controlled residential setting. The budget provides
$1.2 billion to fund opportunities for 68,000 young people.
Dislocated Workers and Low-Income Adult Training: The budget proposes
$2.2 billion for Job Training Partnership Act programs that provide
training, job search assistance, and related services to laid-off
workers and economically disadvantaged adults. When the new workforce
development system begins operating in 1998, these funds would finance,
among other things, Skill Grants with which adults pay for the training
of their choice.