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At one of his trademark elementary school photo ops earlier this year, President Bush said his
administration was pumping money into America’s schools like never before. “The federal government
is sending checks at record amounts,” he announced. In fact, Bush’s 2005 budget provides the smallest
increase in education funding since 1996; it also sends 38 federal education programs to the chopping
block, for a total of $1.4 billion in cuts (see sampling below). Even the president’s signature
education initiative, the No Child Left Behind Act, falls far short of the funding Bush promised
for it—one reason why legislators in at least 17 states have endorsed bills protesting the
law.

PROGRAM

PROPOSED CUT/
UNDERFUNDING

WHAT IT DOES

$9.4 billion
(27 percent)

Over the past four years, Bush has allocated $30 billion less than Congress authorized for the law, which requires increased testing and penalizes schools where scores don’t improve. Programs for disadvantaged students take the hardest hit; the budget leaves them underfunded by $7.2 billion.

$247 million

Eliminates program that teaches parents and children in poor families to read; in 2002, Bush praised Even Start’s work as “incredibly important.”

$5 million

Eliminates program to help at-risk students. Under No Child Left Behind, schools are penalized if students drop out.

$11 million

Eliminates program for gifted students who are minorities, disabled, or speak little English.

$10 million

Eliminates program that brings computers to places where kids don’t have access to technology, such as housing projects.

$17 million

Eliminates program.

$316 million

Cuts 20 percent of federal funding for job-training programs.

$35 million

Eliminates program.

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Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who wonā€™t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its futureā€”you.

And we need readers to show up for us big timeā€”again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We canā€™t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who wonā€™t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its futureā€”you.

And we need readers to show up for us big timeā€”again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

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