Many of us in the American educational community are deeply disturbed by proposals before Congress to cut or eliminate programs that support education. If enacted, these cuts in programs for children would be the largest since the early 1980s. Cuts of this magnitude would undermine our national commitment to investing in children and our nation's future.
However serious our budgetary pressures, these deep cuts—which slash resources from core programs of educational reform and equalization of opportunity, at both the national and state levels—take us in precisely the wrong direction as we enter the 21st century.
Beyond the specter of block grants, and the reductions of federal support that they will surely usher in, the recent and proposed Congressional actions would make cuts and terminations on an uprecedented scale, crippling or eliminating some of the most promising—as well as historically beneficial—federal initiatives. These reductions would hit education programs disproportionately hard.
We believe these budget cuts are short-sighted and misguided. We underscore the continued importance of the Goals 2000 program; Title I LEA grants; state and local grants under the school-to-work opportunities program; national challenge grants to local districts; Eisenhower professional development state grants; the Star Schools program; the Safe and Drug-Free Schools program; the federal activities and parental assistance programs; and state and local improvement grants. We support the continuation of the Office of Educational Technology in the U.S. Department of Education and oppose the consolidation of the Departments of Education and Labor.
ASCD's Issues Process
Given the centrality to ASCD of the belief in genuine federalism and the interdependence of federal, state, and local education reform efforts, ASCD must take the initiative in calling for a reversal of this trend toward excessive budget cuts. One means we can use to achieve this end is the Association's issues process.
- Emerging issues, which require action after study and deliberation, are selected through a process that involves member surveys, followed by consideration and adoption by the Issues Committee and Board of Directors.
- Fast-breaking issues, which require timely action, are selected and approved based on input from the Executive Director, senior staff and officers, and Executive Council.
- Urgent issues, which require immediate action, are identified by the Executive Director, as advised by senior staff, and reported to senior officers, the Executive Council, and, ultimately, the Board of Directors.
The developments on Capitol Hill pose a severe threat to core ASCD values and the future of education reform efforts. Therefore, it is likely that ASCD policy positions over the critical next three to four months will encompass initiatives that fall under the latter two strands of the issues process.
ASCD will monitor the disturbing information from Washington about drastic cuts in federal programs that would hurt our students. We will keep the Board and membership fully informed, in a timely fashion, of our intentions and policy strategies, which currently are under careful consideration by our senior officers.
If we at ASCD do not act, we would fail to assert our most deeply held values in the face of this sweeping reversal of national policy commitments, which threatens to harm our children's future in a dramatic way. History teaches us that the federal government plays a vital role in seeding and nurturing reforms at the state and local levels. Wholesale abdication of the federal role, through widespread block granting and folding together of many specifically targeted and unique programs, such as Title I, ignores this lesson from history at our peril.