[Return to ED Homepage]
Statement by
Gerald N. Tirozzi
Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education
Before the House Appropriations Subcommittee
on Labor, Health & Human Services and Education
on the
Fiscal Year 1999 Budget Request
for Elementary and Secondary Education Programs
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee:
I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you to discuss the fiscal year 1999 budget request for Elementary and Secondary Education programs.
The President's 1999 budget proposal makes the largest commitment to elementary and secondary education in the history of the country. The budget includes significant increases for current programs and start-up funding for new initiatives to help schools to reduce class size in grades 1-3, build and modernize thousands of schools, improve teacher quality, target new assistance to poor urban and rural schools, and help integrate technology into the classroom. The purpose of these increases is straightforward -- we want to continue the national effort to improve the quality of our elementary and secondary schools to match the world-class quality of our colleges and universities. The budget is the most comprehensive effort yet to raise standards and give schools, teachers, and students the tools to reach high standards.
The total request for the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE) is $12 billion in discretionary budget authority for fiscal year 1999, an increase of $773 million over the 1998 level. In addition, the President is proposing $1.1 billion in mandatory spending to reduce class-sizes nationally and approximately $22 billion in bond authority to build and renovate public schools.
The Administration's school construction proposal would use tax credits to pay the interest cost on nearly $22 billion in bonds for school construction and renovation. These funds are needed not only to provide the additional classrooms necessary to reduce class size, but also to both repair existing schools and build additional space for swelling enrollments.
The primary Federal program for raising the reading and math achievement of school children most at risk of school failure is Title I Grants to Local Educational Agencies. We are requesting $7.7 billion for this program in 1999, a $392 million increase over 1998. Title I enables schools, especially in high-poverty areas, to help disadvantaged students in all grades progress along with their classmates and meet high State standards. With Title I, students have the benefit of extended-day kindergarten programs, extra help in reading and mathematics, and schoolwide programs to help accelerate academic progress. The 1999 request would enable Title I to reach over 50,000 schools and more than 10.5 million students. In addition, the request would target additional funds to poor schools by allocating most of the new funds through the Targeted Grants formula, which provides larger per-child shares to the higher-poverty districts.
The President's America Reads Challenge recognizes that when it comes to success in school, the ability to read independently makes all the difference. Children who learn to read well by the end of the third grade are prepared to use their reading skills to learn other subjects in the later grades. Children who don't learn to read well are more likely to drop out of school and face a lifetime of problems. The initiative will complement other OESE programs that focus on student achievement by providing opportunities for children to practice and further develop their reading skills in after-school, weekend, and summer reading programs, support educator professional development activities to strengthen in-school reading programs, and help parents advance their children's literacy. The 1999 budget requests $50 million in new funds for the initiative, in addition to the advance appropriation of $210 million already provided for 1999.
To help ensure that young children from low-income families not only enter school ready to learn but also maintain their preschool learning gains, our request includes $35 million for a new Title I Transition to School program. This program will help reinforce the learning experiences of children in Head Start and Even Start programs by testing promising approaches to building on preschool learning through kindergarten and on into the early elementary grades. Along with the $115 million request for Even Start family literacy program, which serves low-income families with children from birth through age 7, it would support national efforts to improve school readiness, empower parents, and ensure that all children will be able to read independently by the third grade.
As part of the Administration's aim to focus budget resources on programs that can help Hispanic Americans and other limited English proficient individuals succeed educationally and enter the economic mainstream, the request includes significant increases for the Title I Migrant Education program and the High School Equivalency and College Assistance Migrant programs. Migrant workers and their children are among the Hispanic community's (and the Nation's) most economically and educationally disadvantaged groups -- an estimated 45-65 percent of migrant children drop out of school. The increases requested for these three programs will help the children of migrant workers, and young migrant workers themselves, stay in school, complete high school requirements, and enter college.
About 90 percent of Indian children are enrolled in public schools; these Indian students are the primary focus of our Indian Education program. Our $66 million request would provide $62 million for Grants to Local Educational Agencies, our primary vehicle for improving the education of Indian children, and $4 million to reinstate Special Programs for Indian Children and to develop needed data on Indians' educational needs and status.
Although OESE's Impact Aid program does not provide funds exclusively to Indian students, it provides more money to educate Indian students than any other Federal elementary and secondary education program. Although our overall Impact Aid request would reduce program funding for Basic Support Payments from $662 million to $626 million, it would increase funding by 6 percent, on a per-child basis, for the two categories of federally connected children that impose the greatest burden on school districts -- children living on Indian lands and children of members of the uniformed services who live on Federal property.
Goals 2000 provides flexible resources that support States and communities in their efforts to set high standards, develop assessments of student performance linked to those standards, and prepare teachers to teach to high standards. In 1999, we are asking for $476 million, a $10 million increase, to provide support for the educational reform efforts of approximately 6,000 districts and 12,000 schools, and $25 million to continue support for parental assistance centers in all 52 States and jurisdictions.
Urban and rural school districts with high concentrations of poor children face the toughest challenges of any districts in America in educating all their children. Yet, some of these districts are making significant progress in preparing their children to meet high standards. The proposed Education Opportunity Zones, for which we are requesting $200 million in 1999, would enable more districts and schools to achieve that kind of success.
Under our proposal, districts that have large numbers of poor children, and that have already begun to implement reform policies and show significant improvement in the academic achievement of all their students, would be eligible to compete for grants. Grantees would use program funds to strengthen school accountability, improve teaching, and expand public school choice. Districts would be held accountable for results, with additional years of funding dependent upon the achievement of specific goals in student achievement, school attendance, and graduation rates.
An important resource for school reform is the Comprehensive School Reform Demonstrations program that received an initial appropriation in 1998. This program enables schools to implement comprehensive programs that are based on reliable research and effective practices. The OESE request would provide $150 million for the program, including a $30 million increase to support a second round of grants under the program and allow more Title I schools, especially those with high dropout rates, to implement research-based reforms.
The Department's Comprehensive Regional Assistance Centers provide technical assistance in support of State and local education reforms to improve teaching and learning for all children. The request includes $40 million for these Centers, an increase of $12.9 million over the 1998 level.
What teachers know and can do is one of the most important influences on what students learn. Only intensive and ongoing, high-quality professional development will provide educators with the skills and knowledge they need to prepare their students to meet high standards. The Eisenhower Professional Development program, for which we request $335 million in 1999, is the Department's largest effort dedicated solely to teacher professional development.
The Administration is requesting $475 million, an increase of $50 million, for the Technology Literacy Challenge Fund. This is the third installment of the President's plan to provide States and districts with $2 billion over 5 years to enable all schools to integrate technology fully into their curricula. We know that when properly used, computers can increase student learning and motivation, improve classroom management, and increase family involvement. The additional funds will, in particular, allow States and districts to provide more of the professional development teachers need to use technology effectively in their classrooms.
Our 1999 request includes $606 million for this program, including $526 million for State Grants, of which $125 million would be earmarked through appropriations language for competitive grants to local educational agencies based on the severity of their schools' drug or safety problems and the quality of their proposed prevention activities. Beginning in July, the Department's "principles of effectiveness" for the SDFSC program will require that all projects be based on research or evaluation evidence on what works.
The SDFSC request also includes $50 million for a major new Coordinator Initiative to strengthen early intervention efforts to reduce youth drug use and create safer schools by hiring and training drug and violence prevention program coordinators in half of the Nation's middle schools. Strong drug and violence prevention programs are especially critical in middle schools, which enroll students who are at the age when they begin an involvement with drugs and crime. The request also includes $30 million for national activities to improve the quality and effectiveness of drug and violence prevention efforts.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my prepared remarks. My colleagues and I would be happy to respond to any questions you may have.
-###-
[ Return to Speeches and Testimony ]
[Return to ED Homepage]