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February 7, 2006
A Quick Look at the Proposed 2007 Federal Budget and Its Impact on Things I Care About
For those of you looking for some not-so-light reading, the proposed 2007 US federal budget has been released. It's at least a gazillion pages long (but who's counting?) so I haven't had the time or inclination to peruse the whole thing, so instead I downloaded some key sections to see how the proposed budget impacts certain key programs. Being that this is my blog, I've decided to focus on some topics I care about, such as the digital divide, education technology, literacy and technology policy. I encourage you to download the budget and blog about things you care about; that way we can all do a Technorati search for "FY 2007 US budget" and see what everyone's talking about. (Oh yeah - you'd also have to include the phrase "FY 2007 US budget" in your blog entry for that to work.)
Anyway, let's take a look at some federal programs and see where things stand. This list is far from comprehensive, of course; it's just representative of some of the broad topics that relate to my role as a digital divide/edtech activist. -andy
Education Technology State Grants
This year: $279 million. Next year: Zippo.
At one time in history, the US Department of Education awarded millions of dollars in challenge grants for improving access to education technology in America's schools. The No Child Left Behind Act revamped the way this money got doled out, essentially giving it to states in the form of block grants. We've already seen this number drop from more than half a billion dollars in 2005 to less than 300 million this year, and now the White House wants to shut it altogether. Edtech advocates, quite understandably, are furious. "The elimination of this funding - which allows all children access to technology and the Internet, helps train teachers how to use and integrate technology into the curriculum, and provides funding and support for core-curricular content - runs completely counter to the goals and vision outline by the President," stated Sheryl Abshire in yesterday's press release from the Consortium for School Networking. "I urge the Administration to rethink this grave misstep on education technology funding."
21st Century Community Learning Centers
This year: $991 million. Next year: $981 million.
The purpose of this Department of Education program is "to provide expanded academic enrichment opportunities for children attending low performing schools." It's been touted by some as a community technology center initiative, but the main focus is on helping students prepare for NCLB-mandated standardized tests rather than technology education in general.
Assistive Technology
This year: $30 million. Next year: $22 million.
The US Department of Education provides this money to states as formula grants so that students with disabilities have access to assistive technologies. Without these technologies, students with disabilities are left at a severe disadvantage when compared to their non-disabled peers.
Vocational Education
This year: $1.3 billion. Next year: 800 million.
Half a billion bucks that were previously spent on vocational education are going the way of the dodo, including $105 million tech-prep education state grants, five million for tech prep demonstration funds and $23 million for incarcerated youth education.
Adult Education
This year: $579 million. Next year: $580 million.
Adult ed basically dodged a bullet, with more than half a billion going for state grants, and the National Institute of Literacy remaining steady at seven million.
Community Technology Centers
This year: Zilch. Next year: Bupkus.
Once a hallmark digital divide program of the Clinton Administration, the Bush White House killed it off last year. Why they bother to even list it in the budget even though it's been zeroed out two years in a row is beyond me. Twisting the knife, perhaps?
Literacy Through School Libraries
This year: $20 million. Next year: $20 million.
Funds support competitive grants to local educational agencies to provide students with increased access to up-to-date school library materials and certified professional library media specialists. Contrast this with....
Literacy Program for Youth Offenders
This year: $5 million. Next year: Nada.
Improving your literacy is okay if your library doesn't have prison guards, it would seem. Or another way to look at it: Teaching young prisoners to make license plates, apparently, is more important than teaching them to read them.
Civic Education
This year: $29 million. Next year: Nichevo.
Given all the terrible, complex things going on in the world, why bother to turn our children into civic worry-warts when we can pretend everything is hunky-dory?
Minority Science and Engineering Improvement
This year: Nine mil. Next year: Nine mil.
Not a huge program to begin with, but at least it didn't get asked to tip the axeman.
Telecommunication sciences Research
This year: $25 million. Next year: $8 million.
This money, managed by the NTIA at the US Department of Commerce, exists to support the "strategic goal of fostering science and technological leadership by protecting intellectual property, enhancing technical standards, and advancing measurement science." No wonder our broadband infrastructure is hardly the envy of the world anymore.
Corporation for Public Broadcasting
This year: $400 million. Next year: $346.5 million.
A constant target of conservatives, CPB is once again taking it on the chin, making it harder for small, rural public broadcasters to survive. To make matters worse, they're proposed zeroing out the $65 million allocation for helping PBS stations make the transition to digital television. As media advocate Timothy Karr writes, "These cuts would hobble NPR and PBS stations' ability to deliver the investigative reporting and in-depth news and information that's absent from the programming of their commercial counterparts."
Technology Opportunity Program
This year: gone. Next year: Still gone.
The TOP program was once the flagship digital divide program of the federal government. Despite its successes, it was seen as "Too Clinton/Gore" and was wiped off the map.
Low Income Scholarship Program
This year: $165 million. Next year: $75 million.
This National Science Foundation gives low-income students the opportunity to study science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) at the university level.
H-1B non-immigrant petitioner fee activities
This year: $190 million. Next year: $100 million.
H-1B visas allow foreigners with valuable skills to come to the US and work for companies or universities. Given how countries like China and India are churning out more highly-qualified science and technology professionals than the US is, the program helps increase the resident brain power at American universities. The NSF has funds to offset the costs of visa fees, but these funds are being cut almost in half.
Office of Cyberinfrastructure
This year: $127 million. Next year: $182 million.
Betcha didn't know that there was a federal office of cyberinfrastructure. There is, and it's at the NSF - and they're getting almost a 50% raise. The office "supports acquisitions, operations, and upgrades of cyberinfrastructure in support of the nation's science and engineering research and education community."
Posted by acarvin at February 7, 2006 4:42 PM
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