GOP victories could affect education funding, ed tech

Chairmanship of the House appropriations committee, which has enormous influence over what lawmakers ultimately agree to spend on education funding, will shift from Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., to an as-yet undisclosed Republican. Rep. Jerry Lewis of California is the ranking Republican member of the committee, but some media reports are speculating that the chairmanship could go to Rep. Hal Rogers of Kentucky instead.

Obey had been a strong advocate for education funding and the need for 21^st-century skills, pushing for more education funding for items such as student aid and after-school programs. He also defended the need for the federal stimulus package, which provided a one-time boost of more than $100 billion for education—including $650 million for ed tech.

Rogers, too, has spoken of the need for better education. “In today’s modern world, we must ensure that students not only have the fundamental building blocks of an education—such as reading, writing, and arithmetic—but that they also have the technological skills to compete for the jobs of the future,” his web site states.

Rogers has helped steer federal education funding to projects such as CenterNET2, an interactive video conferencing network that is being used to connect schools and educators throughout Kentucky, creating a statewide virtual education community. But, like every one of his Republican colleagues in the House, Rogers also voted against the federal stimulus package that has saved thousands of education jobs.

As House speaker, Boehner has promised to “[cut] spending instead of increasing it, [make] government smaller and more accountable, and [help] small businesses get back to creating jobs again.” His leadership could result in across-the-board cuts in the House versions of appropriations bills, including cuts to federal education funding—setting up a possible showdown over education funding with President Obama and the Democratic Senate.

Federal lawmakers have yet to pass a budget for fiscal year 2011, which began Oct. 1. Lawmakers enacted a continuing resolution that funds federal programs at FY10 spending levels, but this resolution expires in early December. That means the lame-duck Congress will have to reconvene and either “muster together an omnibus [spending] bill prior to adjournment,” or pass another continuing resolution to fund all of fiscal 2011 at FY10 levels, said Hilary Goldmann, director of government affairs for the International Society for Technology in Education.

At this point, it looks like the latter option might be more likely, Goldmann said, as there has been “no agreement on what the top line [spending] for FY11 even should be.”

A continuing resolution covering all of FY11 would fund the Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT) block-grant program—the largest single source of federal ed-tech funding—at $100 million for the year, a much smaller amount than in the years prior to FY10. Lawmakers funded EETT at $100 million last year because the stimulus package provided an additional $650 million for ed tech in 2009 and 2010, but now that stimulus money is gone.

Looking beyond FY11, Goldmann said ed-tech leaders are concerned about the prospects for future education funding.

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