Our Position in Education Is Cut Away - Essay Example

Our Position in Education is Cut Away President Bush and the congress have recently launched an assaulton education. In 2004, Bush made federal education spending cuts in several key educational areas including $680 million in No Child Left Behind, $393 million in the after-school programs and $304 million for vocational and adult education. In the same year, public college tuition went up by 14 percent nationally while Bush proposed cutting Pell Grants by $260 million. In 2005, Congress cut $1 billion from the so-called No Child Left Behind Act (Cahoon, 2005). Bush plans to unveil a $2.5 trillion budget eliminating dozens of politically sensitive domestic programs, including funding for education, to help meet his goal of shaving the budget deficit in half by 2009 (Allen & Baker, 2005). “The budget calls for 48 education program cuts totaling $4.3 billion, including $2.2 billion for high school programs, mostly state grants for vocational education. The budget would cut $440 million in Safe and Drug-Free School grants, $500 million in education technology state grants and $225 million for the Even Start literacy program according to the documents” (Allen & Baker, 2005). House Budget Committee Democrats said their analysis shows that the deficit will hit $495 billion in 2004, and will never go below $300 billion in the 2004-2013 period, reaching a total over the decade of $3.7 trillion. Rising federal deficits have triggered the need for the elimination of some monies for education (Federal Deficit, 2003). Vice President Dick Cheney defended the cuts as measured. "I think youll find, once people sit down and have a chance to look at the budget, that it is a fair, reasonable, responsible, serious piece of effort,” he told Fox News Sunday. “The Administrations claim that it will cut the deficit in half by 2009 lacks credibility,” said a report released last week by House Budget Committee Democrats. “When the omitted items are included, along with the impact of making Bushs first-term tax cuts permanent, the report estimated that the government would rack up $6.1 trillion in deficit spending over the next decade” (Allen & Baker, 2005). Therefore, these numerous cuts in education spending in such key areas as vocational education, after school programs, family literacy programs and college support are being made ostensibly to reduce the federal deficit but are, in reality, having little effect on the deficit and a huge detrimental effect on the country’s population. In presenting his fiscal 2006 budget request to Congress, Bush said he wants to reduce funding for the adult education program because an analysis by the Office of Management and Budget found that it was difficult to assess the programs effectiveness. The Administration plans to cut vocational education by an additional $26 million in 2006, this coming after similar cuts in 2005 when the administration slashed vocational education funding by $316 million. The President has tried to cut vocational education funding below the level that Congress provided for the previous year in each year of his Administration (Spratt, 2004, pp. 3-4). Administration officials, on their part, reasoned that the cuts are necessary for 2006 because a review found no evidence that vocational courses contribute to academic achievement or college enrollment. They then expressed similar doubts about the value of adult education. The Bush Administrations Program Assessment Rating Tool rated federal vocational education funding “ineffective because it has produced little or no evidence of improved outcomes for students despite decades of federal investment” (Edwards, 2005). “They should talk to employers such as auto repair shops and construction companies who hire vocational students, some of whom become nationally certified in a career before they even graduate from high school,” said Ray Arbour, director of the Skowhegan (Maine) Regional Vocational Center. Arbour went on to say students who arent going directly to work after leaving the vocational center are often going on to college. He said 50 percent of his students go on to four-year-colleges. The center, which has an annual budget of approximately $700,000, received $93,000 in federal grants this year. “These kids arent taking these courses for credits. Theyre taking them for their future. The president is advocating for a skilled work force. And here we are, at the same time, arguing for cuts to vocational education. I suspect people will make some noise and, when its done, I wouldnt be surprised if there is an increase in funding,” Arbour said (Edwards, 2005). "Adult education is able to give these students a second chance," said Mary Barnes, director of adult education in Augusta (Maine). “These are nuts-and-bolts programs, essential skills, not the frilly stuff” (Edwards, 2005). Through an affiliation with the Augusta Career Center, adult education programs in Augusta have helped retrain thousands of laid-off workers with new job skills, using federal Carl Perkins grants which could be eliminated in the currently-proposed budget (Edwards, 2005). At the same time, Bush’s 2006 budget cuts 64 percent of all federal funds from the adult education and family literacy programs, reducing funding from $569 million to $207 million nationwide. 470,000 people would be denied literacy, Adult Basic Education, GED (General Educational Development high school equivalency diploma), and English as a Second Language services according to The Center for Law and Social Policy. The Center estimates that at least 51 million out-of-school youth and adults lack a high school diploma or GED, and 29 million are in need of English language services. As with vocational training programs, administration officials said that the adult education program “was found to have a modest impact on adult literacy, skill attainment and job placement” (Edwards, 2005). A spokesman for the U.S. Department of Education Jim Bradshaw said, “Our budget request is consistent with the administrations goal of decreasing funding for programs with limited impact or for which there is little or no evidence of effectiveness. At a time when there are a lot of constraints being put on the budget, hard decisions had to be made” (Edwards, 2005). With a lack of adequate non-college courses, it is interesting to note a significant reduction in the availability of college funding for lower income students. As part of the 40 billion dollar Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, a congressional budget reduction plan will cut 13 billion dollars from the student loan program. These cuts give fewer subsidies of the interest costs associated with repaying the loans taken out for college. “Most importantly, Stafford loan rates on new loans disbursed after July 1, 2006 will go up to a fixed rate of 6.8 percent (a significant change from the current variable rate of 4.7 percent) and Parent PLUS Loan rates will go up to a fixed rate of 8.5 percent (up from the current 6.1 percent variable rate)” (Federal Student Loan Solutions, 2006). Daniel Rivera, President of Federal Student Loan Solutions and an industry veteran said “The short term effect of these changes will result in higher costs for students trying to pay for college, the long term effects of this bill are at this point uncertain” (Federal Student Loan Solutions, 2006). For 2006, the administration cut funding for Pell Grants by $327 million. “More than four million students rely on Pell Grants to help finance their college education, yet the maximum grant has been frozen at $4,050 since 2003 while college costs are rising quickly. Cutting the maximum award by at least $75, and thus cutting even deeper into the average award (which already drops to $2,399 for 2005), would make a post-secondary education even less attainable for millions of high school graduates in 2006” (Spratt, 2004, p. 2). Despite Bush’s campaign rhetoric in 2000 to push the maximum Pell Grant annual amount to $5,100, the maximum grant remains frozen at $4,050 for the fourth consecutive year. The Department of Education altered the financial eligibility formula which resulted in 90,000 students being severed from Pell Grant money and another 1.5 million students having their grants significantly reduced (White, 2005). Other programs on Bush’s chopping block include Literacy Programs for Prisoners and after school programs altogether (Spratt, 2004, pp. 3-4). “Virtually all 48 programs that Mr. Bush desires to end are intended to educate children, young adults and college students who are disabled, economically disadvantaged, limited English-proficient and even illiterate” (Broad Cuts, 2004). Even as it proposes these program cuts, the Administration also is proposing considerable tax cuts that would cost more than the program cuts would save.  The spending cuts are, in essence, being used to help pay for the tax cuts, not to reduce the deficit as the administration claims. The effective deficit reduction efforts made in the late 1980s and 1990s have been reversed. “Those efforts involved shared sacrifice and coupled reasonable restraints on discretionary programs with tax increases — especially on those who could most afford them — and entitlement reductions. The new proposals, by contrast, single out domestic discretionary programs and the people they serve for cuts, while conferring lavish tax benefits on the well-off” (Broad Cuts, 2004). In January, 2006, a student at Kansas State University asked the President during a question and answer session, “Recently, $12.7 billion was cut from education, how is that supposed to help our futures?” The student then clarified she was speaking specifically of student loans. Bush replied, “Actually I think what we did was reform the student loan program. We are not cutting money out of it. In other words, people arent going to be cut off the program. Were just making sure it functions better. In other words, we are not taking people off student loans. We are saving money in the student loan program because its inefficient. And secondly, were actually expanding the number of Pell grants through our budget” (Jackson, 2006). Obviously unprepared for the question, even though he was at a university, Bush evidently assumed no one read his proposed budget. At another school two weeks earlier Bush said, We have a moral obligation to make sure every child gets a good education. Its not right to have a system that quits on kids” (Jackson, 2006). Yet, it is crystal clear that Bush and the Congress have quit on the kids. “The questioner at Kansas State was correct. In December, the Senate passed a $12.7 billion cut in loan aid, which would force college students and their families to pay much higher interest rates on their loans. Pell grants would remain capped at $4,050 for the fourth straight year, further depressing a purchasing power which has declined, according to the American Council on Education, from covering 84 percent of the cost of a public four-year college in 1972 to 34 percent today” (Jackson, 2006). The administration blames spiraling deficits for the cost-cutting measures. Deficits, however, are not the problem. The real problem is government spending, and rising deficits are merely an indicator of that problem. A glut of pork-barrel projects and the war in Iraq are further limiting the U.S. educational system. References Allen, Mike & Baker, Peter. (February 7, 2005). “$2.5 Trillion Budget Plan Cuts Many Programs Domestic Spending Falls; Defense, Security Rise.” Washington Post. Retrieved February 5, 2006 from “Broad Cuts in Domestic Programs After 2005 Under Administration Budget.” (March 5, 2004). Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Retrieved February 5, 2006 from < http://www.cbpp.org/2-27-04bud-fact.htm> “Bush’s Proposed 2004 Education Cuts.” (2004). Institute for America’s Future. Retrieved February 5, 2005 from Cahoon, Cecil. (December 23, 2005). Congress Strips Billions from Public Education. National Education Association. Retrieved February 5, 2006 from < http://www.nea.org/newsreleases/2005/nr051223.html> Edwards, Keith. (March 5, 2005). “Vocational Education Cuts Bewilder Many.” Morning Sentinal Online. Retrieved February 5, 2005 from < http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.com/news/local/1428216.shtml> “Federal Deficit Expected to Approach $500 Billion Next Year.” (August 25, 2003). Washington/Politics. USA Today. Retrieved February 5, 2006 Federal Student Loan Solutions. (2006). “Federal Student Loan Solutions Offers Insight to Increased Costs Associated with New Federal Loan Program.” PR Web. Retrieved February 5, 2005 from Jackson, Derrick. (January 25, 2006). “Bush’s Education Gap.” Boston Globe. Retrieved February 5, 2006 from < http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/01/25/bushs_education_gap/> Spratt, John Jr. (August 31, 2004). “Will Back to School Be Harder Next Year?: Bush Administration Plans Steep Cuts for 2006 Education Funding.” House Budget Committee Democratic Caucus. Retrieved February 5, 2006 from White, Deborah. (August 5, 2005). “Good News – Bad News Scenario for 2006 Pell College Grant Legislation.” Liberal Politics [blog]. Retrieved February 5, 2006 from Read More