Some significant proposals championed by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and President Donald Trump were rejected in the $1.3 trillion spending bill that’s making its way through Congress.
DeVos and Trump proposed a budget that would have cut the Education Department’s budget by $3.6 billion and funneled more than $1 billion toward private school vouchers and other school choice plans.But lawmakers rejected a number of those proposals, including slashing funding for the department’s Office for Civil Rights, halving federal work study programs and spending $250 million on a private school choice program.During a congressional hearing earlier this week, DeVos defended the roughly 5% the White House sought to cut from the Education Department’s funding, saying it was aligned with the goal of reducing federal involvement in education.“When this department was created, it was charged with prohibiting federal control of education,” DeVos said. “Accordingly, President Trump is committed to reducing the federal footprint in education, and that is reflected in the budget.”Funding for charter schools did increase under the bill, up $58 million to a total of $400 million.The spending bill also includes a boost for after-school programs and adds $610 million to Head Start. DeVos and Trump had proposed eliminating the Federal Supplemental Education Opportunity Grant, which serves needy students, but the spending bill adds an additional $107 million to the program.
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