A Breakdown of Congress’ Spending on K-12 Education (and its implications)
In a 68-29 vote earlier this week, the Senate passed the 4,155-page, 1.7 trillion-dollar beast known as the 2023 Consolidated Appropriations Act. The House of Representatives followed suit, with a 225-201 vote in favor of the bill, which consisted of myriad legislative actions spanning every aspect of society, ranging from electoral reform to defense funding. Though its passage averted a federal government shutdown, the omnibus bill has been criticized for funneling through “all kinds of pork and pet projects,” as Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) put it.
Despite the controversy that the bill has garnered, it is undeniable that certain provisions have beneficial implications, particularly in K-12 education. The Department of Education received $79.6 billion worth of discretionary spending, a $3.2 billion bump from the previous appropriations bill. This includes $808 million for the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), the statistical analysis and evaluation branch of the DoED. The IES’ data collection efforts are crucial to continue tracking disparities and inequities in educational systems.
Within that discretionary spending, $45 billion is allocated specifically for K-12 education (the total includes higher education, financial aid, and CTE (Career, Technical, and Adult Education) funding. The largest portion of that is $18.4 billion in Title I grants to local education agencies, which fund programs that are designed to “improve educational opportunities for educationally deprived children,” according to the Pennsylvania Dept. of Education. Typically in Pennsylvania, the largest recipients of Title I grants are urban school districts, such as in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh – fairly intuitive, given that these serve the largest student bodies in the state. By proportion of schools that receive Title I grants, however, many rural counties (eg. Potter, Sullivan, Elk) either meet or exceed their urban counterparts. In addition to the schoolwide programs, certain schools use Title I grants for the “Targeted Assistance” model, which is meant specifically to aid students who are “failing, or at risk of failing, to meet state standards”
With over 622,000 acres of land owned by the Federal Government, Pennsylvanian school districts will receive a sizable chunk of the $1.6 billion in Impact Aid. IA allocations are given to school districts that lose tax revenue due to the local presence of untaxable federally-owned land. Since tax revenue consists of approximately 50% of public school funding on average, IA is a vital form of compensation.
Although not directly targeted toward education, there is another allocation of the bill which has equally significant and arguably more immediate on educational equity. In the “Rural Development and Infrastructure” portion, there is a $455 million provision for increasing rural broadband access. Much of this is for the USDA’s ReConnect program, which has helped over 200,000 rural Americans gain access in the past few years. With much of Northern and Western Pennsylvania severely lacking in coverage, these programs are a crucial step. As often highlighted at The Rejuvenate Project, the digital access and literacy gap is quickly becoming one of the most important areas of educational equity in an era of increasingly digitized education.