Sequestration and Education: 12 Frequently Asked Questions

From Alyson Klein, writing for Education Week:

Now that sequestration, that looming, scary, Inside-the-Beltway possibility, is finally upon us, what does that mean for states and school districts? Here's a rundown:

1) What exactly is sequestration? Sequestration is a series of across-the-board cuts to a broad range of federal programs, including those in the U.S. Department of Education, set to hit the government on Friday, March 1, unless Congress and the Obama administration make a last-ditch effort to stop them. Programs in the U.S. Department of Education would be cut by about 5.3 percent, according to the Government Accountability Office. The cuts aren't just for this year, either. They're aimed at chopping $1.2 trillion out of the federal deficit over the next decade. So, if nothing happens, they're the new normal.

2) Where did these cuts come from? The threat of cuts was put in place as part of a deal to raise the debt ceiling back in August of 2011. The cuts would affect both military spending, typically favored by Republicans, and domestic programs, typically favored by Democrats. The cuts were supposed to be so dire and distasteful to lawmakers on both sides of the aisle that Congress and the administration would be forced to work together on some sort of long-term deficit reduction deal to avert them. But that hasn't happened, and now it looks like the cuts will become a reality, at least for a while. Congress, however, did delay the cuts once, as part of a deal to avert the fiscal cliff at the turn of the year.

3) When would school districts be affected? Most school districts wouldn't get squeezed right away because key formula-funding programs—including Title I grants for districts, and special education—are what's called "forward-funded." That means that districts already have money in hand through June. Schools wouldn't feel the pinch until the start of the 2013-14 school year. Still, many districts are already in the process of crafting their budgets for the coming school year, and they'd like to know what their funding will look like. The looming cuts make planning tough.

4) Would any school districts be affected right away? Some districts would get hit fairly soon, some of them substantially. Among the hardest hit would be those in the Impact Aid program, which services some 1,200 districts nationwide. Most impact-aid districts have a lot of Native American students, students whose parents work on military bases, or have federal land near the district. Their next federal payment, likely due out in April, would likely be smaller. But that's unlikely to translate into widespread layoffs, according to John Forkenbrock, the president of the National Association of Federally Impacted Schools. Districts have known about the cuts for a long time and have prepared, he said, by doing things like delaying technology purchases. The big problem for impact-aid districts may come next year.

Read the full article.