Committee Statements

Statistics illustrate the urgent need to fix what’s broken in our nation’s education system.  Roughly two-thirds of eighth graders lack basic reading and math skills. Only 70 percent of students graduate high school. Meanwhile, federal education spending is at an all-time high.

Clearly, it’s not how much we spend on education, but how we spend it. And right now, far too many of those federal education dollars are dedicated to ineffective programs. The Setting New Priorities in Education Spending Act would eliminate 43 wasteful education programs, cutting the total number of Elementary and Secondary Education Act programs by half. This legislation is not designed to cut for the sake of cutting – the programs targeted for elimination in this bill are inefficient, redundant, and unnecessary.

Take, for example, the Ready to Learn Television program, which has received more than 100 million dollars over the last four years, including 27.2 million dollars in fiscal year 2011. This program funds the development of educational television, but has been criticized for failing to have any substantial impact on student outcomes. Or consider the Partnerships for Character Education program, which provides grants for poorly-defined programs to educate students on ‘elements of character,’ but is duplicative of the Safe and Drug Free National Grant program and has also shown negligible results.

Particularly in these times of trillion-dollar deficits and record debt, Congressional leaders must be careful stewards of taxpayer dollars. If a federally-funded program is failing, it is our duty to get rid of it. That is why H.R. 1891 proposes the elimination of programs such as Enhancing Education through Technology and Teaching American History. Despite a multi-million dollar investment, the Office of Management and Budget has reported both of these initiatives fail to produce demonstrable results. Additionally, they are duplicative of existing Teacher Quality programs.

We’ve also targeted programs that represent an inappropriate use of federal funds, including the Advanced Credentialing Program and the Special Education Teacher Training Program for the University of Northern Colorado. The former is operated by a single entity, the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. The latter provides funds solely for a training program at the University of Northern Colorado. In other words, these programs are earmarks and therefore banned in the 112th Congress.

At a time when we borrow more than 40 cents of every dollar we spend, it is simply irresponsible to continue dedicating millions of taxpayer dollars to programs that clearly aren’t working. The Setting New Priorities in Education Spending will take the first step toward curbing the overly intrusive federal presence in our nation’s classrooms. It will streamline education spending and reduce unnecessary regulatory burdens for states and local school districts. Most importantly, it will help ensure federal education funds are dedicated to programs that have a proven track record of success.