On Monday, July 12, 2021, the House Labor Health Human Services (HHS) and Education Appropriations Subcommittee approved by voice vote a FY22 spending bill that would increase Department of Education funding by 41%, and by and large, would make the same major investments in Title I, IDEA, and mental health that President Biden sought in his full FY22 proposed budget. Also, on the K-12 side of the ledger, the bill would improve on the President’s proposals in many other key programs, including a $150 million funding increase for the Title II professional development program and an $85 million increase for the Title IV flexible block grant program. For higher education, the bill would increase maximum Pell awards by $400, invest more funding to strengthen Historically Black Colleges and Universities, and plus-up several existing college access programs. The full committee will mark-up this bill on July 15th.

At Monday’s Labor HHS Education bill mark-up, Republicans signaled strong opposition to the bill as written. Full committee ranking member Kay Granger (R-TX) declared that the bill’s overall 40% increase in size over last year is “simply too high,” particularly in light of the fact that so many institutions supported had already received significant funding through the COVID-19 relief acts. She also suggested that many of these institutions lacked the capacity to handle even more money.

Below is a chart showing how key programs fared in the President’s FY22 budget, the FY21 Omnibus Appropriations Act and the FY22 House Appropriations version (Not all funding levels available yet):

Jon Bernstein

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Bernstein Strategy Group’s Founder and President, has over 25 years of experience in education, technology, privacy, appropriations, and telecommunications policy. Jon began his Washington, DC tenure in 1994 as a Legislative Fellow for Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA). He later became legislative counsel for The Lightspan Partnership, an educational software company. In 1997, Jon moved on to lobby for the National Education Association, leaving there in 1999 to commence work for the Federal Communications Commission. He departed the Commission in 2001 to begin work in private practice and launched BSG in 2005. Today, Jon works closely with many of the major K-12 education associations as co-chair of both the Education and Libraries Networks Coalition and the Homework Gap Big Tent Coalition and as Executive Director of the National Coalition for Technology in Education and Training. He also helps lead the Principals Group, which focuses on professional development funding and related issues. He received his BA from Colgate University and his JD from the Northwestern University Law School.

• Jon Bernstein

  https://learningforward.org/author/jon-bernstein/

  Update from Capitol Hill: Education Secretary Miguel Cardona advocates in the Senate for big education increase