That’s $830 million that the Senate was counting on for education funds that it will now officially have.
Just two weeks after a bipartisan federal budget deal ended an eight-month impasse over $830 million in federal education funding, the U.S. Department of Education agreed Friday to send Texas the money that previously had been in dispute.
U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan quietly made the announcement on Good Friday. But Texas Republicans immediately declared victory in a two-front political war that had been waged for months.
“Today our schoolchildren and teachers received the funding they should have never been denied,” said Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Lewisville, who led Texas House Republican efforts to secure the aid. “This $830 million will give our schoolchildren, teachers and communities additional funding during this financial crisis. Today is indeed Good Friday.”
Burgess said he received word of the aid reversal during a conversation with Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who had condemned the attempt by Texas congressional Democrats to attach strings to the federal school funding.
Texas Democrats, led by Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, had required the state to pledge that it would not divert the federal education funding to other uses as the Legislature attempts to plug a state budget shortfall.
Republicans will celebrate the political win, which resulted from the budget deal that avoided a federal government shutdown, and everyone in Texas is no doubt glad to have these funds, but Doggett was right to do what he did. In the end, this money will be used for education and not for plugging other holes in our own budget, so as far as that goes Doggett got some of what he wanted as well. What happens in 2013 will be up to that Legislature.