Blog

Today, America Forward submitted the America Forward Coalition’s FY2027 appropriations recommendations to House and Senate appropriations leaders. Drawing on the perspectives of the 100+ members of the America Forward Coalition, our recommendations emphasize approaches that foster innovation, reward results, and catalyze cross-sector partnerships to expand opportunity for all.

Alongside a full table of program funding levels, America Forward urges congressional leaders to adopt these specific priorities, with an emphasis on approaches with strong bipartisan support:

• Apprenticeships and Pay-for-Performance. We encourage Congress to build on its strong bipartisan support for expanding apprenticeships through a pay-for-performance model, including a bipartisan spring 2024 appropriations requirement that DOL assess the feasibility of a pay-for-success initiative in registered apprenticeships and a recent transformational DOL investment in pay-for-performance approaches.
• Workforce Development Innovation. We call on Congress to invest in an Advanced Workforce Development Innovation Demonstration Project to accelerate practitioner-led development, rigorous evaluation, and scaling of evidence-based workforce strategies, along with complementary research infrastructure such as a secure data enclave. We also urge Congress to direct DOL to revise its guidance on WIOA pay-for-performance contracting to ensure workforce boards and providers can leverage it, building on DOL’s recent invitation to request a waiver on pay-for-performance caps.
• Education. We strongly support maintaining and deepening investment in proven educational approaches. We urge Congress to rebuild the Institute of Education Sciences, including restoring IES staffing and prioritizing timely research on AI-related strategies, high-impact tutoring, evidence-based literacy, and postsecondary success. We emphasize increasing funding for the Competitive Grants for State Assessments (CGSA) program to support innovative assessments incorporating higher-order thinking skills and learning dispositions. We also urge Congress to continue support for the Postsecondary Student Success Grants program and to ensure that nonprofits are directly eligible as lead grantees.
• SNAP Employment & Training. As states and communities implement new work requirements under SNAP and Medicaid, we urge Congress to leverage the underutilized but powerful SNAP E&T program by expanding support for high-quality technical assistance under the National Partnership Grants and investing in SNAP E&T data systems to strengthen performance management and evaluation.
• Substance Abuse, Mental Health, and Housing. We support continued funding for mental health and substance use disorder programs under SAMHSA and efforts to avoid disruption in the Continuum of Care program. Moving forward, we support prioritizing outcomes-based, evidence-driven strategies across these programs, with design elements that recognize the interrelated nature of these issues and funding streams.
• Program Implementation. We support continued appropriations language ensuring the timely announcement and awarding of funding opportunities. We also support efforts to improve the efficiency and impact of the U.S. Department of Education and ensure dependable disbursement of funds, and believe that efforts to restructure the Department should be conducted in collaboration with Congress.

America Forward looks forward to continuing to engage with congressional leaders as the FY2027 appropriations process moves forward.