Two of those goals were improving teaching and providing kids who have a lot of needs with time in constructive settings beyond the school day.
That was then, when Congress passed a new national education law with strong bipartisan support.
This is now, and two of the things that would be dropped entirely under President Donald Trump’s budget outline released last week are programs that fund efforts to improve teaching and provide low-income kids good places to go after school.
The budget plan said that $2.4 billion a year in money for professional development programs for teachers (principals, too) “is poorly targeted and spread thinly across thousands of districts with scant evidence of impact.” And cutting $1.2 billion for “Community Learning Centers” for kids is justified because “the program lacks strong evidence of meeting its objectives, such as improving student achievement.”