President Barack Obama's proposed $49.7 billion budget for the U.S. Department of Education is more than just a spending blueprint: Department officials portray it as a fundamental reimagining of the agency's structure and management. Under the fiscal 2011 proposal unveiled last week, a roster of 38 relatively small, targeted grant programs would be regrouped into broader, more flexible funding streams--many of them competitive--aimed at furthering the administration's education redesign goals. The 11 new funding streams would be centered around such themes as increasing teacher and leader effectiveness, improving curriculum standards, and bolstering readiness for college. But it's unclear whether federal lawmakers will go along with a plan calling for programs to be consolidated--or, some fear, eliminated--within a new funding stream. What's more, major formula programs--Title I grants to districts and funding for students in special education are prominent examples--would remain stagnant or receive only small increases under the proposal, while there would be a $3 billion boost in competitive funding across the budget. Such a shift is in keeping with an approach Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has pushed consistently in his first year as secretary, and which is expected to be embodied in the Obama administration's reauthorization proposal for the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. But even advocates for programs that would get a boost, such as charter schools, are wary of the consolidation plan, since it would make funding tougher to predict. Programs aimed at furthering the four education redesign objectives spelled out in the recovery act--improving teacher quality, bolstering state data systems, revamping standards and assessment, and turning around low-performing schools--would get most of the increased funding.