Some education experts say the $77.4 billion in proposed federal spending on education, a 20 percent increase from 2010 spending levels, will do little to help states like Ohio that are facing huge budget shortfalls and are dependent on the state and local property taxes for the majority of their funding.

“It is a parallel universe,” said Terry Ryan, Ohio vice president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an advocate for education reform and charter schools. “A lot of schools are trying to figure out how to survive without decimating critical aspects of their management. ”

But for local school officials, there were bright spots in the 2012 plan submitted to Congress on Monday. The popular Race to the Top reform contest that netted Ohio schools $400 million last year will continue under President Barack Obama’s proposed budget. This time the focus is on early childhood learning, district-level education reforms and improving college access and graduation.

The inclusion of pre-kindergarten programs in the next round of Race to the Top funding was praised by local leaders.

“It is bringing attention to the matter and, no matter the outcome, that is good news,” said Dick Ferguson, executive director of the University of Dayton Fitz Center. “We focus so much on schools. The issue is clearly bigger than schools.”

The budget proposal also includes $26.8 billion in reform-oriented initiatives aimed at turning around struggling districts, helping at-risk students, improving teacher training, growing science and math-based education and investing in college readiness.

Obama has made it a goal to create the best educated workforce in the world. To maintain the rapidly growing Pell Grant program for low-income students at the maximum award of $5,550 the White House is recommending cutting new year-round grants for summer classes and eliminating the subsidy for graduate student loan interest. Pell grants helped nine million low-income students attend college last year, nearly double what it did five years ago.

Experts caution that federal changes, coupled with a proposal to eliminate state grants, could mean Ohio college students may soon face a significantly altered financial aid landscape.

“We are talking about major changes in financial aid,” said Jennifer Penick, Wright State University’s director of financial aid who described it as sudden enough “that families don’t have the opportunity to plan.”

Christian Biggers, of Riverside, will attend Sinclair Community College this summer with help from the Pell program in her quest to become an elementary school teacher. She’s disappointed grants for summer sessions may go away, but is thankful for her Pell money.

“It is very beneficial for people who don’t have enough to pay for school,” Biggers said. “A lot of people who work need to attend summer classes.”

But cutting money for summer classes won’t hurt college students as badly as eliminating the subsidy for student loan interest, said Penick . “They depend on it,” she said.

Dante Jenkins, a education graduate student from Cincinnati, said he would have thought twice about attending graduate school if he knew the interest subsidy would be eliminated. “It would have been a deciding factor,” he said.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2342 or cmagan@DaytonDailyNews.com.