President Bush s Education Budget Proposal Overview President Bush released his Fiscal Year 2002 Budget on Monday, April 9, 2001. Overall, President Bush s budget reflects program consolidation included in the administration s No Child Left Behind Initiative. However, Congress must approve and authorize the new structure of many of these programs to reflect the president s approach on consolidation. Significant funding increases are proposed for a few existing programs and the teaching block grant. The technology block grant and the choice and innovation block grant funding levels that are proposed for FY 2002 are less than the FY 2001 appropriations of the individual programs last year.
Many programs are level-funded or frozen at the previous year s level.
Additionally, there are expansions of funding opportunities for faith-based organizations and incentives for vouchers. This program would consolidate nine existing technology programs into a single performance-based grant. The funding would flow by formula to the states and be targeted to rural and high poverty schools. The funds may be used for hardware, software, teacher technology training and Internet filtering tools. Under this proposal, states would distribute money to districts for such activities as school choice including private school choice and charter school programs.