Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona continued to place emphasis on increasing funding of mental health services in public schools at a hearing on May 11 before the Appropriations Committee on his historically high $90 billion proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2024.
The budget represents a $10.8 billion increase and a review of it shows that nearly every existing and new program contains substantial funding to increase mental health services in schools—including the doubling of what Cardona referred to as school social workers.
“The student in her family would get wraparound support,” said Cardona, who always refers to a fictional student as “she.”
He added: “And if she faced some challenges with her mental health, as we know many students do, she can go directly to a mental health professional right at her school because the school benefited from our budget investment of another half-billion dollars to advance the goal of doubling the number of school counselors, school social workers, and mental health providers that are available to our kids at this time when we’re living in a youth mental health crisis.”
In general funding, Cardona’s asked for an additional $578 million to pay for the increase in mental health providers in schools.
That’s in addition to $1 billion recently allocated under the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA) to address what the Education Department calls “mental health staffing shortages.”
In addition to the $578 million, several new programs proposed in the Education Department’s 2024 budget also include earmarks for mental health services and programs in schools.
Among them—an additional $30 million to the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) to fund “mental health supports” for students’ basic needs.
It also seeks $368 million to further advance Full-Service Community Schools programs with $25 million of that money dedicated for school districts to help them address what the budget calls “a range of student and family needs.”
Adding mental health workers to public schools across the United States is seen by some parent and conservative groups as a positioning tactic to make children wards of the state when their parents reject or challenge school recommendations that they undergo gender affirming treatment.
That concern has risen out of some states designating themselves as transgender sanctuary states for minors—which includes provisions that sidestep parental consent and make children automatic wards of the state.
After taking custody, the state can place the children in gender treatment care.
Ramona Bessinger, a parent advocate in Rhode Island, told The Epoch Times she is aware of at least two families in the state who have lost custody of their children after their school reported them to child protection services for objecting to the use of transgender pronouns, names, or sex-changing hormone therapy like puberty blockers.
“The partnership between the public education system and the mental and medical industry appears to be as thick as thieves,” said Bessinger, a high school middle teacher who is now on suspension for what she says was her challenges to woke ideology in the schools.
What will not be in the budget is funding for placing two armed guards in every public school, something that was recently proposed by Republicans in response to school shootings.
Opposed to the idea, Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) asked Cardona how the estimated $36 billion would impact the budget, if the idea was implemented.
“There’s no other way to answer that than to say that it would take from what we’re currently trying to do, which is help our students learn how to read, achieve ... and have college and career pathways,” replied Cardona.
Schatz also brought up the issue of parent-led book bans in school libraries, calling it “basically a private right of action to come in and say I don’t like that book.”
He admitted it was not a budgetary matter and seemed to raise the issue, which has become a national debate, only to have a brief dialogue with Cardona.
“I know these are local decisions,” said Schatz, “but as Secretary of the Department federally, just tell me your thoughts on book bans.”
Cardona said that as a father and an educator he found them “alarming.”
“Taking books out of the hands of kids and decimating libraries and politicizing—which should be something that unifies us—making sure that our students are literate, providing them diverse text, so they can learn about different cultures, and even explicit bans on history that teaches the experience of black Americans, that to me is extremely troubling,” he said.
Only four of the 14 Republicans that serve on the 29-member Committee spoke against the proposed budget, although none questioned the push for funding more mental health workers in America’s schools.
A couple of Republicans did briefly raise the issue of rising illiteracy and declining test scores.
But they mostly turned their focus to the Biden administration’s controversial push to expunge up to $20,000 student loan debt for their borrowers.
Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) cornered Cardona into admitting that student loans should be paid back like any other debt—such as a car loan or a mortgage—by using a comment made earlier last week by White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre about raising the debt ceiling.
“The White House press secretary said if you buy a car, you’re expected to pay the monthly payments. If you buy a home, you’re expected to pay the mortgage every month. That is the expectation and quote, do you agree with that statement?” Sen. Britt asked Cardona.
Others like Sen. Shelley Capito (R-W.V.) also questioned Cardona about his position on student loan forgiveness. She specifically honed in on the longstanding pause on repaying government-funded student loans.
According to Capito, the payments have been paused eight times over the course of the past three years.
Cardona assured the committee that he was fully on board with ending the pause and favored repayment of loans, although he likened college loan bailouts to the COVID relief money paid out to businesses during the pandemic.
Other indicators that the budget favors displacing the partial cost of college onto taxpayers included a call for millions of dollars more in Pell Grants, which do not have to be paid back and in an increase in interest free grace periods and more deferral programs.
Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) questioned Cardona why—with all the increases for other programs—that there was still no increase for charter schools after five years of flat funding.
Cardona offered no explanation, only stating that he would continue to support the existing funding in the budget for charter schools.
