Pork in Education Barrel

Delving for pork knows no bounds in Washington. In Congress, powerful senators go where the money is for home-district pet projects, sometimes at the behest of well-connected constituents. One new barrel, ripe for raiding, is the plumped-up federal education budget.

This money grab, as documented by Times staff writer Judy Pasternak, diverted to local projects federal funds that should have been awarded on a competitive basis and would have been better spent, as intended, on education reform, research, innovation and investment. Among the beneficiaries are the Robert J. Dole Institute for Public Service and Public Policy in Kansas and the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute in Illinois. These may be worthy, but they have nothing to do with training teachers or raising student achievement.

The hunt for pork had rarely zeroed in on the Education Department budget, which is comparatively small and contains only a sliver of discretionary funds. But that sliver has now been spotted as ready for the taking.

The pickings are easiest for members with high seniority or who control key legislative committees. A lab in West Virginia, home state of Sen. Robert C. Byrd, ranking Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, got funding to produce a CD-ROM to “enliven the Constitution.” And $10 million will be used to operate a National Constitution Center in Pennsylvania, home state of Sen. Arlen Specter, the Republican who chairs Appropriations’ education subcommittee.

A senior Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, Tom Harkin, helped his home state, Iowa, reap $21.3 million for special education projects, while California, with more than 10 times the population, can count on about 1/10th of that amount.

California routinely gets shortchanged in this area, partly due to a funding formula that rewards states that spend more on education; California ranks 37th in per-pupil spending. The shortfall can also be traced to the state’s lack of seniority on the Senate Appropriations Committee, in which during the last session Sen. Barbara Boxer ranked 13th among 13 Democrats. The pork grab starts at the top.

Bringing home the bacon is a Washington tradition, but funding pet pork at the expense of education projects is a new level of shortsighted greed, even for Washington.