EdSource, News Report, John Fensterwald, Posted: Jan 02, 2013

Congress’ New Year’s Day drama, ending a stalemate over extending tax cuts for all but the wealthy, delays rather than resolves an across-the-board 8.2 percent decrease in federal education spending. That’s the spending piece of the “fiscal cliff” that Congress decided to put off deciding until early March.

For California districts, that means a two-month reprieve from facing potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in funding cuts to special education programs and Title I aid for low-income students, along with tens of millions in cuts to the preschool program Head Start, career and technical education and grants for teacher training.

Even if all of those cuts were to happen, districts would have months to prepare for them. Except for Head Start, the cuts would happen starting July 1, the beginning of the next fiscal year for schools. The cuts to Head Start and to subsidies for school districts that serve families working at federal facilities, like Naval Base San Diego, were to take effect Jan. 1.

Read the rest here: EdSource