Education Spending

President Bush's budget would freeze education spending, essentially cutting programs while expanding a controversial reading program and spending money on school vouchers.

The budget would add $300 million for Pell Grants for Kids, a new voucher program aimed at giving low-income students in struggling schools aid to help them switch to private schools. It also would provide $1 billion for Reading First, up from the $393 million that Congress appropriated for the current fiscal year. The reading program has been beset by allegations of conflicts of interest.

It seems this is a last ditch effort to advance the Rightwing's goal to privative the education system with vouchers, while the rest of the education system will suffer from no extra funding.

At the state level, the Iowa House approved a 4% increase in allowable growth for 2009-2010 school year.

House File 2140 would set allowable growth for the 2009-10 school year at 4 percent or $112.6 million in state aid and $45 million more from local property taxes due to increases in assessed valuation, according to an analysis by the Legislative Services Agency. The increase would boost the state average per pupil cost from $5,546 to $5,768 or $222.