Perkins Grants at Center of Looming Senate Debate
WASHINGTON — A U.S. Senate showdown is looming on yet another plan that may tinker with vocational education funding under the Carl D. Perkins Act.
Funding for vocational schooling is already under the budget microscope in the Clinton administration's fiscal 2001 budget, which calls for a $200 million funding decrease to support a corresponding increase in technology education. That issue is now in the hands of the House and Senate. Both branches are writing education-spending bills for the next fiscal year.
In this latest Senate challenge, lawmakers have added Perkins to a list of programs that states could combine into a flexible education block grant. The chief sponsor, Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., says the plan would increase state flexibility to reform K-12 services. Many Democrats are critical of the idea, however, and the moderate Republican who chairs the Senate's education committee, Sen. James Jeffords, R-Vt., also may seek to remove the provision.
States provide the bulk of Perkins grants to school districts, but about 35 percent of program funding goes to the higher education sector, where funding flows primarily to community colleges.
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