The Committee for Education Funding (CEF), a coalition of over 85 national education associations and institutions from preschool to postgraduate education, applauds President Obama's Fiscal Year 2012 budget for recognizing the importance of investing in education to our nation's economic growth and competitiveness. Within a constrained fiscal environment and a five-year freeze on discretionary spending, the budget proposes a $7.5 billion, 10.7 percent increase in overall discretionary spending for programs in the Department of Education ($2 billion [+4.3 percent] excluding Pell grants). It maintains the $5,550 Pell grant maximum award and Supplemental Education Opportunity Grants; invests in early childhood education programs through a $866 million increase for Head Start and $350 million for the Early Challenge Learning Fund; increases funding for Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) programs by 6.9 percent; and provides additional resources for Title I, school improvement grants, IDEA, Race to the Top, Investing in Innovation, Promise Neighborhoods, magnet schools, after school, teacher preparation, TRIO, college completion, and education research. While CEF is pleased with the proposed education increases it has concerns with some specific proposals in the budget. The Administration's budget proposes to consolidate 38 ESEA programs into 11 new flexible funding streams. While such consolidations will be the subject of the ESEA reauthorization, from a budgetary perspective CEF believes that any program consolidations should not result in the elimination of essential education functions such as improving teacher preparation at institutions of higher education or providing K-12 students with sufficient specialized instructional support personnel. This report contains the following sections: (1) Charts and Graphs (Joel Packer, Ed.; and Tom Zembar, Ed.); (2) The Foundation for Success--Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education (Earl Hadley, Ed.; Amanda Lowe, Ed.; and Elizabeth Rorick, Ed.); (3) Education, Careers, and Lifelong Learning (Jamie Baxter, Ed.); (4) The Gateway to Opportunity--Higher Education (Stephanie Giesecke, Ed.; and Carolyn Henrich, Ed.); (5) Forging Success--Educational Research, Statistics, and Improvement (Gerald Sroufe, Ed.); and (6) Education-Related Programs--Meeting the Human Needs of America's Children (Roberto Viramontes, Ed.).