Both the House and Senate are continuing their fitful efforts to complete action on their versions of the 12 fiscal year 2024 Appropriations bills. The Labor, Health and Human Services, Education spending bill, which contains funding for all federal education programs including Title II-A, has not yet been brought to the floor in either chamber, but new House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, is aiming to have the House version of that bill debated and passed the week of November 13. A recently released House draft of that bill shows that the House continues to push for the elimination of Title II-A.
This week, Speaker Johnson is developing a plan to keep the government operating past November 17, when the current temporary budget expires. Reports indicate that he is considering three options:
- Passing a temporary budget that continues all program funding at last year’s levels until January 15, 2024;
- Passing a temporary budget until January 15 which would include a 1% across-the-board cut for all programs except U.S. Department of Defense programs; and
- Passing a temporary budget that establishes different expiration dates for each of the 12 spending bills. Both the 1% across-the-board cut and the varying deadlines proposals are likely non-starters for the Senate and the administration.
Even if Congress manages to prevent a government shutdown later this month, it still seems no closer to agreeing on final spending for fiscal year 2024. The House and Senate versions of the 12 spending bills remain light years apart in terms of funding levels. Additionally, many of the House bills contain poison pill provisions on hot-button topics like abortion and immigration that the Senate and the administration will not accept. For example, the latest version of the House’s Labor HHS Education bill included a provision that requires all K-12 schools to ban transgender student participation on sports teams that do not match their gender, with the penalty being the termination of their federal education funding.
Learning Forward continues to work to bolster support for continued federal education investments in professional learning. Please stop by our advocacy booth at our 2023 Annual Conference, Dec. 3-6, Washington, D.C., to learn how you can contribute to our efforts.
