Governor Schwarzenegger visited Washington DC yesterday as part of the National Governor’s Association (NGA), but he was the only Governor to get a private meeting with the President afterward. Clearly, federal funding/jobs and health care were likely the central issues in the conversation. Schwarzenegger, a moderate Republican is supporting both the Presidents jobs package and [...]
All Posts Tagged: 'Stimulus Funding'
Obama’s Ed Budget – When does an Increase Feel Like a Cut?
Today the Washington Post and Ed Week provided us all insight on the President’s 2011 education budget proposals. The highlights include a $4 billion (6.2% increase):
• $1.35 billion in Race to the Top II
• $1 billion reserved for ESEA reauthorization
• $1.65 billion for other priorities as part of a program consolidation proposal.
This sounds like good [...]
Finn: Saving Teacher Jobs = Stalinism
Checker Finn describes my critique of his neo-Hooverite views on education policy and the stimulus bill as a “particularly dated defense of Keynesianism,” and asserts that borrowing money to prevent pro-cyclical mass layoffs and deep cuts in state and local education spending amounts to “Stalin-style job creation.”
This is a case of conventional wisdom failing to [...]
Conservatives Denounce Obama for Saving Jobs, Economy
At the National Review, Rick Hess and Checker Finn denounce the Obama administration for using stimulus funding to save the jobs of 400,000 teachers and college professors on the grounds that…this was a bad idea. Really:
It’s a fact that employment was an explicit purpose of stimulus funding — Congress said as much — and with [...]
Act Now to Comment on the National Broadband Plan for Education
Open educational resources, online learning, technology-enhanced assessments, better data to inform instruction, online professional teaching communities, and a whole host of promising initiatives rest on the assumption of adequate and fully accessible Internet connections. Getting education right in the National Broadband Plan, now under development by the FCC, is essential.
There are a whole host of [...]
How much is too much to pay for saved jobs?
Earlier this week the White House released a report that said that the stimulus package has saved or created 250,000 education jobs so far. Fortunately the roundness of the number suggests its level of accuracy. But, lets assume for a minute that the number is right. The question to ask, is what did schools do [...]
Assessing the Common Core
I’m at the Council of Chief State School Officers’ (CCSSO) assessment conference, so naturally there was a big plenary session focused on the common core standards work (led in part by CCSSO). But, even though the session was held before hundreds of assessment experts—and despite Secretary of Education Duncan’s commitment of $350 million in stimulus [...]
Stimulating Stimulus Discussion
The Department of Education is in the process or has distributed the first $44 billion of K-12 stimulus funding. Most of this funding will flow to school districts based on established formulas. Clearly this funding provides a great opportunity for local education leaders to do the right thing with the funds and make investments that [...]
Backfilling Cuts? Not at the State Level
In California, the state took action last month to address an over $40 billion budget gap through a combination of program cuts, new taxes and a whole lot of other manipulations. The voters will decide what they think about the package in a special election on May 19th. While the actions taken were historic, they [...]
The Rich Get Richer
Per Sam Dillon’s New York Times article about how education stimulus funds are being distributed through funding formulas that advantage rich states over poor states, it’s all true, there’s no excuse for it (note the lack of anyone offering a policy justification), for a more detailed (but not boring!) explanation see this from Marguerite Roza [...]
Comparing Treatments
The recently-passed stimulus bill provides money for comparative analysis of medical treatments for various ailments. It’s the first such authorization, and it will allow us to answer whether ailment X is best treated with pills, therapy, or surgery. These types of comparisons have long been absent in discussions of educational pedagogy, but yesterday’s IES/ Mathematica [...]
A Little Knowledge
Ezra Klein links to the video of lunatic CNBC business reporter Rick Santelli going on what appears to be an entirely sincere rant about the stimulus package and the Obama administration’s plans to help distressed homeowners. As Ezra notes, “Santelli sells himself as a sort of financial sector Howard Beale: He’s mad as hell, and [...]
Reassurance Needed
In addition to fully funding NCLB, the stimulus bill includes a gargantuan $54 billion fiscal stabilization fund for education. In many ways this money is best understood as not education-related at all, but simply a politically palatable way for the federal government to prevent pro-cyclical state and local budget cuts that would accelerate the current [...]
That’s Settled
The recently-enacted stimulus bill includes $13 billion in extra funding for Title I of the No Child Left Behind Act. Since Title I currently receives a little over $12 billion per year and the maximum amount authorized under the law is $25 billion, by my count NCLB is now “fully funded” and I assume those [...]
Duncan Puts Up a Three-Pointer
There’s a clear message emerging from Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s early public pronouncements: He’s going to push for higher standards than most states have adopted under NCLB, and that may include national standards (and tests). In pushing the Obama administration’s stimulus priorities in a speech yesterday at the annual meeting of the American Council [...]
Pork and Bears
It’s frustrating watching the stimulus bill be held up and criticized because of allegations of pork contained within, as if we know anything about what the pork actually aims to accomplish. It’s easy to look at the provision’s title and label it wasteful, but more difficult to actually determine its merits. It reminds me of [...]
Invest in the Future
This morning’s New York Times has a good read analyzing what we can learn from Japan’s Lost Decade, a period where they suffered a real estate bubble, pumped government spending as a stimulus, but could not raise economic growth. Here’s the takeaway:
Japan’s experience also seems to argue for spending heavily to promote social development. A [...]
Big Edu-cuts Proposed for Stimulus Package, Maybe
The latest tin can to come flying out of the maelstrom over the Congressional stimulus package is a document purporting to be recommendations for education cuts by the staff of centrist senators Ben Nelson, a Nebraska Democrat, and Republican Susan Collins of Maine, increasingly key players in the stimulus debate.
Passed along by folks with a [...]
Never Let A Serious Crisis Go To Waste
If all goes as planned, the Department of Education’s budget could double between now and President’s Day. Double. In. Less. Than. Three. Weeks. As I read reports and reactions in the edusphere, I’m amazed at the nonchalance from the left and the lack of imagination from the right.
Let’s start with the left. With post titles [...]
Stimulus Package – Restricted Funds Grow While Unrestricted Funds Shrink
States will be glad to see the in large infusion of federal funds into K-12 education. But will they help districts balance their budgets without major teacher layoffs? Most of the reductions in state and local resources are unrestricted funds resulting from reductions in local property tax revenues or state general support for schools. All [...]
Lowering Student Loan Default Rates: What One Consortium of Historically Black Institutions Did to Succeed 
College and Career-Ready: Using Outcomes Data to Hold High Schools Accountable for Student Success
03/19/10 | Ben Miller is quoted on college graduation rates and the NCAA Tournament in the Detroit Free Press.
03/19/10 | Linda Perlstein links to Education Sector's "College- and Career-Ready" event.
03/17/10 | Ben Miller's column on graduation rates and NCAA Tournament eligibility is mentioned on The Wall Street Journal's The Daily Fix.
03/17/10 | Kevin Carey's critique of Diane Ravitch's latest book is quoted in Doublethink's Conventional Folly blog.
03/15/10 | Ben Miller pens an op-ed for US News & World Report on using graduation rates to determine NCAA Tournament eligibility.