Education grant frontloading needs a program-by-program accounting

What the release says

In an October 14 letter to Education Secretary Linda McMahon, Senators Patty Murray and Tammy Baldwin urged the department to reverse its expanded practice of funding multiple grant years at once.

The senators estimate that approximately $630 million across about 35 programs is reserved for future periods and that annual funding could have supported more than 1,000 additional grants. Those are the letter's estimates, not independently established findings here.

Their examples include literacy, child care for student parents and teacher preparation. The letter also warns about proposed changes to grant-termination rules; it does not establish that those proposals are final or that the grants will be cancelled.

Our centrist perspective

Committing several years of support to fewer recipients and funding more recipients for one year produce different distributions of help. An obligation entered in a budget system is not the same thing as a service reaching a student this semester.

A useful agency response would show, for each affected program, awards, recipients, payment timing and the reason for its approach. That would let Congress test the senators' counterfactual instead of choosing between competing labels for the same accounting decision.

The tradeoffs

Longer commitments can give a grantee more room to plan, while spreading the same appropriation more broadly can reach additional communities immediately. Whether either benefit is realized depends on payment terms, cancellation protections and program needs. The letter does not provide the department's defense of its decisions.

What to watch next

• Watch for the department's written response, program-level award data and the final disposition of the proposed termination rules. A senator's allegation of unlawful withholding should not be presented as a court ruling.