House Panel OKs Bill With Cuts to Ed. Department, Hike for Special Education

The U.S. Department of Education's current $68 billion budget would be cut by $1.3 billion overall in fiscal 2017, and some dozen education programs would be slashed or eliminated, under a bill approved on party lines Thursday by the House appropriations panel that oversees education spending.

It's not all bad news though: Special education state grants would see a considerable increase of $500 million, to $12.4 billion. And a new flexible spending fund created under the Every Student Succeeds would receive a lot more money than under a bipartisan Senate version of the measure.

Republicans supported the bill, while Democrats disparaged the cuts and expressed concerns about policy changes. The bill would block some Obama administration regulations, including prohibiting the Education Department from moving forward on regulations requiring teacher preparation institutions to be evaluated based in part on how well their graduates do when it comes to moving the needle on student test scores.

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2016/07/house_panel_oks_cut_to_educati.html