Biden administration requests more funds for education

The FY 2024 budget for the U.S. Department of Education is $90 billion — a 13.6% or $10.8 billion increase over the current fiscal year. The two largest spending categories for K-12 education are for high-poverty schools, with $20.5 billion for Title I programs, and $16.8 billion for pre-K-12 special education services. Pillars of the Education Department’s K-12 budget include expanding access to affordable, high-quality child care and early learning, increasing supports for teachers and school-based support staff and strengthening environments for academic achievement. Highlights of FY 2024 program funding include:

• $578 million to increase the number of school-based counselors, psychologists, social workers, and other health professionals in K-12 schools. This funding is in addition to the $1 billion the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act provided to address mental health staffing shortages in schools.

• $368 million to support community schools, a $218 million increase over FY 2023, to improve the coordination, integration, accessibility and effectiveness of support services for children and families.

• A 17% increase for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, noting that the pandemic has had a disproportionate impact on children and students with the greatest needs.

• $200 million for a Career-Connected High Schools Initiative that awards competitive grants to partnerships of local educational agencies, institutions of higher education, community colleges and employers.

Teacher-focused investments

The Biden administration’s FY 2024 budget suggests over $3 billion in educator preparation, development and leadership programs to address teacher shortages and support mental health and wellness activities. Funding for these programs includes:

• $132 million, an increase of $62 million, for Teacher Quality Partnership grants to effectively prepare aspiring teachers by supporting comprehensive pathways into the profession, such as HighQuality Teacher Residencies and Grow Your Own programs that improve educator diversity, effectiveness and retention.

• $30 million, an increase of $15 million, for the Hawkins Centers of Excellence program to support teacher preparation programs at historically Black colleges and universities, tribal colleges and universities and other minority serving institutions.

• $200 million in Teacher and School Leader Incentive Grants to support school-based models of distributed leadership.

• $303 million to address shortages of special education teachers.

• $40 million to recruit and train school leaders.

• $90 million to build multilingual teacher pipelines and provide professional development in

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