Mercedes Schneider reports that the Senate Appropriations Committee that oversees education pointedly ignored the Trump-DeVos proposal to turn Title I into voucher funding or to approve Trump’s sweeping campaign promise to allocate $20 billion for private school choice.
Senate Appropriations Has No Funding for Betsy DeVos’ Private School Voucher Hopes
Schneider writes:
“On September 06, 2017, the Senate Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education (Labor-HHS) Appropriations Subcommittee approved a FY2018 funding bill that included no inkling of a $1 billion Title I allotment that would be devoted to Trump’s proposed private school voucher, Title I graft-in program.
“On September 07, 2017, the Senate Committee on Appropriations approved the Subcommittee’s Labor-HHS appropriations bill by a vote of 29-2. The bill must pass both houses of Congress and be signed by Trump by October 01, 2017, the first day of the federal fiscal year 2018. If the appropriations bills are not approved by the start to FY2018, then the Senate Committee on Appropriations would need to draft a continuing resolution, a carry-over piece of legislation to keep the government operating until appropriations bills are approved. (For more on the history of appropriations and the budget process in general, see this Government Printing Office publication.)
“Even though the Senate’s Labor-HHS appropriations bill has a way to go before it becomes law, one issue is clear: The private school choice latched onto by Trump and lovingly nurtured by US ed sec Betsy DeVos will not be bolstered by a billion Title I bucks.
“And it’s not just a Senate dismissal of the Trump-DeVos wish for private school choice mega funds. In July 2017, the House also bypassed Trump’s billion-dollar, private school choice funding request.
“In its remarks about the process of constructing its Labor-HHS bill, the Senate Labor-HHS Appropriations Subcommittee noted that its goal was to produce a workable, bipartisan compromise.
“The Trump-DeVos private school choice push was just too extreme for bipartisan agreement. Plus, the requested billion would have been used not for established Title I purposes but for funding an unapproved leech of a program.
“As Alyson Klein of EdWeek reports, The Senate Labor-HHS Appropriations Subcommittee directly addressed the attempt to funnel Title I funds into private school choice:
“The [Trump] administration had sought a $1 billion boost for the nearly $15 billion Title I program, the largest federal K-12 program, which is aimed at covering the cost of educating disadvantaged students. The Trump administration had wanted to use that increase to help districts create or expand public school choice programs. And it had hoped to use the Education Innovation and Research program to nurture private school choice.
“The Senate bill essentially rejects both of those pitches. It instead would provide a $25 million boost for Title I, and $95 million for the research program, a slight cut from the current level of $100 million.
“But importantly, the legislation wouldn’t give U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and her team the authority to use that money for school choice. In fact, the committee said in language accompanying the bill that the secretary of Education Betsy DeVos must get permission from Congress to create a school choice initiative with the funds. [Emphasis added.]
“So, if Betsy DeVos wants to use Title I money to fund her private school choice pet, she must be willing to subject her ambitions to a Congress that appears likely to award only token funding at best.”
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Diane Ravitch's blog 
Very good analysis. I doubt any senator on the committee could have explained it better.
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I hope the senate isn’t corrupt enough to believe that Title 1 funds should go to “choice” initiatives. They may as well flush that money down the toilet. That would be tremendous mistake! The ESL position I held in my district along with the compensatory reading and math teachers were partly funded by Title 1. It was a very effective and impactful way to use those funds. We made a huge difference in the lives of these poor students. As teachers each one of us held a master’s degree in the discipline we taught. Do we really think private schools with teachers with little to no training would be as effective? First of all, most of these schools wouldn’t even want these students in their school. They would ill prepared to handle the complexity of issues these students present. If they did take them, they would not know what to do with them. It would ultimately result in students that would rebel and be further and further behind.
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Congress should give some serious thought to doing something positive for the tens of millions of public school families they have decided they can safely take for granted.
It isn’t enough that they block the most rabid anti-public school initiatives. They’re supposed to add value to existing public schools.
They’re supposed to have a positive agenda for public schools. Maybe they could see their way clear to spending a day or two on the 90% of US families who rely on and value public schools.
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A little like governors now suddenly being forced to recognize that the ACA is a large, positive element in figuring their state’s overall well-being, perhpas more governors will wake up the fact that an overwhelming percent of their state’s students (and parents) depend upon public schools.
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“Congress should give some serious thought to doing something positive for the tens of millions of public school families they have decided they can safely take for granted.”
But why would they when they can, in fact, take them for granted? As long as we “have to” vote either Democrat or Republican, why would the Democrats or Republicans change what they’re doing? I mean, we can’t possibly think about a third party, could we?
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