Will Even Start Get the Ax in FY2010?

Earlier this week, Ed Money Watch compared House and Senate versions of the fiscal year 2010 Labor – HHS – Education appropriations bills and showed that there are significant differences among the President’s request and House- and Senate-proposed education funding levels. These funding differences might spell the end of the Even Start program when the 2010 appropriation becomes law later this year.

Even Start is a small education program ($66.5 million in fiscal year 2009) that has been under fire since early in the Bush Administration. It is intended to integrate early education, adult education, and parenting education into “family literacy” programs in order to improve educational opportunities for low-income children and parents.

Evaluations of the program’s effectiveness have been mixed, which prompted the Bush Administration to recommend year after year that Congress eliminate the program. The often-cited Third National Even Start Evaluation: Program Impacts and Implications for Improvement of 2003 concluded that Even Start participants did not make significantly greater gains than those in a comparison group not receiving services. However, many Even Start supporters and advocates have argued that this evaluation is now outdated, and it relies on too small a sample to represent the entire Even Start program. They also claim that the program’s results cannot be adequately measured through quantitative evaluations.

Despite the Bush Administration’s repeated recommendation to discontinue Event Start, both Republican and Democratically controlled Congresses continued to fund the program, albeit at lower levels in recent years. But what on the surface has appeared to be a Bush Administration pet issue is actually more complicated.

The House has always included Even Start funding in its appropriation bill. The Senate, on the other hand, has flip-flopped on support for the program. It acquiesced to the President from 2005 through 2008, eliminating all funding, but included funding in 2009. Interestingly, President Obama recommended eliminating the program in his first budget request to Congress. The Senate has once again changed course and eliminated funding for the program in its proposed 2010 Labor – HHS – Education appropriation bill. The House appears again to be the last holdout for the Even Start program, including $66.5 million for the program.

A final 2010 education funding bill isn’t expected until later this fall. We will have to wait and see if Even Start will yet again find its way into the final funding bill.