Dive Brief:
- On Monday, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan slammed Congressional budget bills that would include big cuts to preschool access grants.
- Both Congressional chambers’ proposed budgets include cuts that could eliminate funding during the final years of President Barack Obama’s Preschool Development Grant program, which gives states money to expand access to pre-K.
- According to a Department of Education press release, cuts to the program could endanger state and local initiatives that give almost 60,000 students access to preschool.
Dive Insight:
Research indicates that high-quality early childhood education can have big positive outcomes down the line, and Obama has made increasing access one of his administration’s final key education issues. But Duncan’s aggressive campaigning comes as Congress is gearing up for another budget battle, which could push some of those initiatives to the wayside. The two chambers must pass a budget ahead of an Oct. 1 deadline in order to once again dodge a government shutdown, but Congress is currently on break. When legislators return, they’ll be working under a time crunch, with just 10 days to craft some sort of fix.
And they are caught between competing forces. On the one hand, Republicans have committed to keeping government-wide spending caps in place. On the other hand, Obama has promised to veto any bill that locks those in. The preschool program is largely a casualty of those cuts. Republican budget leaders have said they’d put more money towards early childhood education if they had it, and Obama has encouraged them to find it.
It’s also worth noting that while the Preschool Development Program could see big cuts, other early childhood education programs may not. HeadStart, for example, which benefits low-income students, is getting an influx of $100 million.