Education Week - March 6, 2013 - 21

EDUCATION WEEK

n

MARCH 6, 2013

n

www.edweek.org

21

POLICY
BRIEF

Sequestration and Education:
a member of the board of the
28,000-student Rosemount-Apple
Valley-Eagen district, pressed
Rep. Kline about the long-stalled
reauthorization of the esea, the
current version of which is the No
Child Left Behind Act. “Is Congress going to lead, follow, or get
out of the way?” she asked.
“We absolutely are working on”
getting the legislation passed,
Chairman Kline told her. And
it’s clear he still has big concerns
about the current system for getting around the law—the waivers
from some its provisions that the
Obama administration is granting.
The waivers have been met with
“underwhelming enthusiasm almost everywhere,” he said, in part
because they are temporary and
don’t provide stability for states
and districts.

Sentiment for Renewal
Some of the superintendents
and others present said in interviews before the panel that they
agreed with those concerns, but
added that Minnesota’s waiver
is generally better than staying
under the nclb law as it is. Mr.
Richardson, for instance, said he
would rather have a reauthorization than a continuation of the
waivers. But he’s grateful that
Minnesota’s waiver will allow his
district to work toward a much
more “realistic” set of goals than
those in the nclb law.
In an interview after the session, the congressman also
touched generally on the issue of
school choice.
“We’d really like parents to have
as many options as possible,” he
said. “It’s an important part of
improving overall education and
[can give] kids a chance to break
out of really badly failing schools
or systems.”

Ed. Dept. Chided
On ‘i3’ Oversight

Frequently Asked Questions

The arrival of the March 1 deadline for automatic
federal spending cuts known as sequestration had
policymakers and administrators from Washington
to local school districts bracing for the possible
effects. The outcome—political and financial—was
unclear as of press time. Here, though, is a primer on
what educators should know about “the sequester.”
For up-to-the-minute developments on the federal
budget crisis, follow Education Week’s Politics K-12
blog at edweek.org.
What exactly is “sequestration”? Sequestration is a
series of across-the-board cuts to a broad range of federal
programs, including those in the U.S. Department of
Education, that was designed to hit on March 1, unless a
last-ditch effort by Congress and the Obama administration
stopped them. Programs in the Education Department would
be cut by about 5.3 percent, according to the Government
Accountability Office. The cuts wouldn’t be just for this year,
either. They’re aimed at chopping $1.2 trillion out of the
federal deficit over the next decade.
Where did these cuts come from? The threat of cuts was
put in place as part of a deal to raise the federal debt ceiling
back in August 2011. The cuts would affect both military
spending, typically favored by Republicans, and domestic
programs, typically favored by Democrats. The cuts were
supposed to be so dire and distasteful to lawmakers on both
sides of the aisle that Congress and the administration would
be forced to work together on a long-term deficit-reduction
deal to avert them. But that hadn’t happened as of last week,
and it looked as though the cuts would become a reality, at
least for a while. (Congress did delay the cuts once, as part
of a deal to avert the “fiscal cliff” at the start of the year.)
When would school districts be affected? Most school
districts wouldn’t get squeezed right away because key
formula-funding programs—including Title I grants for
districts and special education—are what’s called “forward
funded.” Schools wouldn’t feel the pinch until the start of the
2013-14 school year. Still, many districts are already in the
process of crafting their budgets for the coming school year,
and they’d like to know what their funding will look like. The
looming cuts had already made planning tough.
Would any school districts be affected right away?
Some districts would get hit fairly soon under sequestration—
some of them substantially. Among the hardest hit would be

those in the Impact Aid program, which helps some 1,200
districts nationwide. Most impact-aid districts have a lot of
Native American students or students whose parents work
on military bases, or they may have federal land in or near
the district. Their next federal payment, likely due out in
April, would probably be smaller. But that would be unlikely
to translate into widespread layoffs, according to John
Forkenbrock, the president of the National Association of
Federally Impacted Schools. Districts have known about the
possible cuts for a long time and have prepared, he said, by
doing things like delaying technology purchases. The big
problem for impact-aid districts may come next year.
What about all those numbers the Obama
administration is throwing out when it comes to job
losses? It’s true that U.S. Secretary of Education Arne
Duncan has said that 40,000 teachers could lose their jobs
if the cuts are carried out. That number is pretty scary—the
Obama administration has clearly been trying to get the
public riled up against the cuts. But it’s tough to say how
accurate the administration’s estimates are at this point.
So what will the cuts actually mean in districts?
School districts spend a majority of their funding on
personnel, so federal cuts could very well translate into
layoffs. But a lot would depend on how states and districts
decide to implement the cuts. The American Association
of School Administrators conducted a survey on
sequestration back in July. Superintendents told the group
they anticipated reducing professional development,
cutting programs, and laying off some staff members.
The bottom line? Schools have had time to prepare, but
in many cases, the cuts would come on top of state and
local reductions. Hard and fast figures on potential job
losses aren’t available yet.
Are any U.S. Department of Education programs
exempt from the cuts? Yes. Student loans and Pell
Grants, which help needy students cover the cost of
postsecondary education, are exempt.
What about early-childhood-education programs?
The Head Start program could face a cut right away,
but it’s unclear just how individual grantees would be
affected. Under sequestration, Head Start programs that
do not offer summer services either would end their
current school year earlier than planned or delay the
start of the next school year, the U.S. Department
of Health and Human Services says. Year-round
programs likely would decide not to fill openings
after children age out. And grantees could also cut
transportation services.
Are any other federal programs for children safe from
the sequester? Many are. Temporary Assistance for
Needy Families would not get cut, and neither would most
school nutrition programs and child-health programs.
What about Education Department employees?
Will they be furloughed? Secretary Duncan says it’s a
possibility.

Evan Vucci/AP

What about “maintenance of effort” and other
technical issues, such as the state school
improvement set-aside? Advocates have been asking
about such implications for months, but the administration
has yet to give them a good answer.

Supporters of the Voting Rights Act gather outside the U.S.
Supreme Court in Washington last week, as the justices
heard oral arguments in a case attempting to overturn
the law. The outcome could affect school districts.

What happens now? As of Education Week’s deadline,
congressional leaders hadn’t put forth a serious,
bipartisan bill that would actually avert or reverse
sequestration. Congress still has another looming
fiscal deadline: March 27. That’s when a temporary
measure funding most of the federal government
expires. Lawmakers may figure out a way to deal with
sequestration by then.
—ALYSON KLEIN

In its effort to track
implementation of programs
funded by the 2009 economicstimulus package, the U.S.
Department of Education’s
inspector general has reported
potential problems with federal
oversight of Investing in
Innovation grants.
Auditors specifically questioned
whether the Education
Department held some grant
recipients—including Teach For
America and Johns Hopkins
University, which got $50 million
and $30 million, respectively—
accountable for delays in
responding to various requests.
And they questioned whether the
department’s office of innovation
and improvement could handle an
increased workload.
That said, the auditors praised
the office and its program
officers overall for regularly
engaging with and monitoring
the winners—which were
collectively awarded $650 million
in 2010.
n

Department officials responded
to the auditors, according to the
report, by maintaining that the
program officers were in constant
communication with grant
recipients over delays and did not
find the delays to be significant.
The department, however, said it
would standardize its response
to delays and provide more clear
documentation about them in
grant files.
The audit did not examine
how i3 grant recipients used
their money, but how the
department is doing handling
implementation and oversight.
Each of the department’s
nine program officers handles
eight grants, and an office of
innovation and improvement
official said that’s about the
maximum that the officers can
handle. The auditors raised red
flags about any future grant
competitions (and department
officials said they would pay close
attention to workload issues).
U.S. Secretary of Education
Arne Duncan was asked more
generally about department
capacity during a round-table
discussion with national reporters
last week. The department’s
portfolio of grants is quite
extensive, from i3 to Race to the
Top to Promise Neighborhoods.
And that’s not counting the
monitoring of waivers granted to
states from provisions of the No
Child Left Behind Act.
Mr. Duncan seemed to deflect
discussion of oversight capacity,
instead taking the opportunity to
warn about the potential impact
on the department from the
continuing federal budget crisis.
—MICHELE McNEIL
http://www.edweek.org http://www.edweek.org
Education Week - March 6, 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Education Week - March 6, 2013
