For the second straight year, President Bush is asking Congress to cut education spending--this time, by more than $3 billion.

In his 2007 budget proposal, released Feb. 6, the president called for the elimination of 42 federal education-related initiatives--including the $275 million Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT) block-grant program, the federal government's primary source of funding for school technology, and the $347 million Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities program.

Bush had advanced the elimination of EETT last year, too, and Congress spared the program in its final 2006 budget--but not before cutting it nearly in half.

Overall, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) would receive $54.4 billion next year, down from $57.6 billion in 2006. Administration officials say the decrease is part of a broader campaign to reduce or eliminate funding for programs that have either fulfilled their promise or have failed to live up to expectations. The White House contends the cuts are necessary to rein in federal spending and trim the ballooning federal deficit--which Bush has vowed to cut in half by 2009--while balancing other priorities, including the war in Iraq, hurricane relief in the Gulf Coast, and massive tax cuts.

It's too soon to know if lawmakers will back these proposed cuts to education programs during a congressional election year, but ed-tech advocates who spoke with eSchool News following yesterday's announcement feared that possibility. Critics said the president's plan fails to provide the resources necessary to prepare today's students for the challenges posed by the global economy--a goal Bush himself identified during his State of the Union Address to Congress just six days earlier--and might prevent educators from achieving the promise of Bush's signature No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), the five-year-old law intended to boost student performance and bring more accountability to the nation's schools.

"We are deeply disappointed that the administration has chosen, once again, to eliminate federal funding for educational technology," said Don Knezek, chief executive officer for the International Society for Technology in Education. "Understanding and using technology are critical components of all students' academic careers and, most certainly, barometers of their future employment prospects. Given the president's emphasis in the State of the Union on the importance of developing math and science skills in America's students in order to keep America competitive globally, we do not see how eliminating federal educational technology funding advances his global competitiveness agenda or helps our students."

"While the governments of other nations--from the United Kingdom and Australia to Singapore, Japan, and China--believe that educational technology serves as the engine for their educational reform efforts, our federal leaders appear to believe otherwise," said Keith Krueger, chief executive officer of the Washington, D.C.-based Consortium for School Networking (CoSN). "All evidence points to the fact that our states and school districts consistently use federal educational technology dollars to improve student achievement in core curricular areas such as math and science and to engage in professional development--the central pillars of No Child Left Behind and of the president's new science and math initiatives. The administration's lack of leadership on this issue will not only inhibit student achievement but will have serious ramifications for the future of this country."