August 2010 Archives

Back before the Race to the Top Round One winners were announced, I wondered whether the Education Department would select winners from states with influential members of Congress, who might be able to help U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan move his agenda.

Of course, the selection process was set up in a way intended to assure that political influence was not a factor in determining who actually won—no state got extra points for being the home of a powerful member of Congress.

But politics could be part of the fallout, including the question of whether the Race to the Top program gets extended for another year and ultimately is authorized under the new version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. (There's money in two spending bills right now for it to continue for another year.)

In Round One, the winning states also happened to be home to two key Republicans in Congress, Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, and Rep. Mike Castle of Delaware.

But in Round Two, things might not have worked quite so well. For instance, one of the winners—the District of Columbia—doesn't even get a vote on the floor of the House of Representatives, much less the Senate.

Still, one of the grantees—New York—does have a huge, and therefore influential, delegation, including Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. who could well end up serving as Majority Leader if Sen. Harry M. Reid loses his reelection bid. Ohio and Florida also represent big voting blocks. (Ohio is also home to Rep. John A. Boehner, a Republican and the House Minority Leader, who could even be the next House Speaker if Republicans retake control of that chamber.)

Possibly the best pick, from a get-stuff-through-Congress standpoint? Hawaii, which is home to Sen. Daniel Inouye, a Democrat who heads up the uber-powerful Appropriations Committee.

Of course, there also some influential—and miffed—losers. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., who sits on the committee that doles out money to the U.S. Department of Education, was pretty upset that her state of Louisiana didn't get tapped for a grant in Round One. And she is just as annoyed this time, according to this statement.

And a few months back, Rep. Rosa DeLauro, a Democrat from Connecticut, who is line to oversee the House subcommittee on education spending was irritated that the Nutmeg State didn't even make the finals. Not sure what that will mean about her willingness to increase and extend funding for the program down the line.

So ... will lawmakers from the winning states help keep the program going? Or is it more likely that the losers (and others) might decide to monkey with the rules for the competition?

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Race to the Top Round 2 may be over, but another high-stakes competition is underway in just about all of the winning states: the 2010 gubernatorial elections.

And in some cases, the results of those contests could flip control of the state house from one party to the other. The question that's tough to answer right now: Just how much ownership will a governor's successor have over a plan his or her predecessor helped to create (or at least endorsed)?

Of the nine states that won Race to the Top grants last week, a whopping eight have elections underway for governor (everywhere but North Carolina). And the District of Columbia has its own very hot mayoral election coming up. Of those elections, five are rated as toss-ups by election-guru Larry Sabato and his Crystal Ball. (The District's mayoral election is also close enough to be a toss-up.)

To be sure, states have already taken steps to ensure that they stay on track with their plans regardless of political turnover. For instance, some of the winning bids (such as Maryland's) involved legislation. And some gubernatorial-wannabes have made it clear that they stand behind their state's plan. For instance, Andrew Cuomo, the Democratic contender in New York, released this cheerleading statement.

And in Hawaii, Rep. Neil Abercrombie, a member of Congress and the Democratic candidate who is considered likely to win the contest, said he'll work with the Obama administration to make sure the plan is faithfully implemented.

But it's not clear all candidates feel the same way. For instance, Nathan Deal, the GOP candidate for governor of Georgia, said less than a month ago that he would turn down Race to the Top money if his state won the contest. Now that up to $400 million is actually forthcoming, he's changed his tune somewhat. But it's tough to say whether he'll shift back to his original thinking.

Just how much ownership will new governors have over their state's Race to the Top plan, particularly when the elation of victory wears off? Stay tuned!

Posted by Alyson Klein at 10:57 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

UPDATE: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has fired State Education Commissioner Bret Schundler over the explanation the state gave for the costly mistake on its Race to the Top application.

The governor had initially defended his state's application in forceful terms, partly based on his understanding that the state's team had been aware of the mistake and had tried to alert federal reviewers to it. (See a fuller explanation below.) But a videotape of the state's interview with federal application reviewers seemed to contradict that.

New Jersey's error cost the state five points on the 500-point application for up to $400 million of the federal grant money, a loss that appeared to prove crucial, since the state was narrowly beaten out by Ohio as the last state to receive funding.

In a statement released today, the governor suggested that he had been misled about what took place in the interview with federal reviewers.

"I was extremely disappointed to learn that the videotape of the Race to the Top presentation was not consistent with the information provided to me by the New Jersey Department of Education and which I then conveyed to the people of New Jersey," he said. "As a result, I ordered an end to Bret Schundler's service as New Jersey's education commissioner and as a member of my administration.

"As I have said before, I never promised the people of New Jersey that this would be a mistake-free administration. However, I did promise that the people serving in my administration would be held accountable for their actions. As I said on Wednesday, I am accountable for what occurs in my administration. I regret this mistake was made and will do all I can to have my administration avoid them in the future."

ORIGINAL POST: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has said that his state took the necessary, reasonable—and timely—steps to fix a goof in the state's Race to the Top application that may have cost the state a $400 million grant.

But documents and video have emerged that appear to call into question that claim. A state teachers' union has pointed to an earlier version of the application that did not include the critical blunder, and to a video of New Jersey's in-person interview with federal reviewers, in which they were asked about to explain the application error and could not.

The New Jersey Star Ledger, which has been leading the coverage of the issue, reports that it obtained paperwork from the New Jersey Education Association showing that the Christie administration had altered the erroneous budget figures in question, after the union had approved an earlier version of the application. The union has been locked in a running feud with the governor, who earlier in the process had rejected a compromise brokered between the state's department of education and the teachers' group on merit pay. After taking that step, Christie's team revised the application before it was submitted for the competition.

The application error, which cost New Jersey five critical points on the 500-point scale—potentially enough to put it in the winner's circle—centered on one page of the state's proposal, in which which it was asked to provide funding totals in fiscal years 2008 and 2009. The state mistakenly described how school funding would increase in fiscal 2011.

Earlier this week, Christie blasted the Obama adminstration for allowing the reviewers to dock the state those points. He also claimed that during New Jersey officials' interview with federal reviewers, the state team "gave them the '08 and '09 numbers," and said "the '08-'09 comparison supports us getting the full number of points under that. This is the stuff, candidly, that drives people crazy about government and crazy about Washington."

But a video clip of that interview shows that it was federal reviewers who asked about the missing information. The U.S. Department of Education released the video in response to the "high level of interest," in the New Jersey's application, a spokesman said. (See the Star Ledger's story, linked above, for the clip.)

During the interview, state officials initially responded that they did not know where the missing numbers were. The reviewers offered to let them look for the figures, and later in the interview, asked state officials again if the correct numbers were in the application.

"No, no," a state official responds, shaking her head.

As I noted in a story this week, New Jersey wasn't the only state to foul up an application. In round one of the competition, Hawaii left out a 25-point section of its application. The state corrected that gaffe in the second round, and is walking away $75 million richer because of it.

New Jersey wasn't so lucky. Whose explanation of the state's foul-up are you buying?

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 11:50 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

As we explain in an online story today, New Jersey's application package for a potential $400 million—more than 1,000 page in total—included a goof on page 261 of the PDF version, where state officials used the wrong years in describing funding levels for schools. That mistake cost the state five points in the competition. It appears to have been a crucial, since New Jersey scored 437.8, just behind Ohio, which earned a score of 440.8 and was the 10th and final state that qualified for funding.

Republican Gov. Chris Christie, whose office submitted the application, said his administration took responsibility for the mistake. But he also blasted the application reviewers—and the Obama administration directly—for not being willing to overlook what he called a "clerical error" and seek the correct information from the state.

"If you are a normal, thinking, breathing human being, you pick up the phone and say, 'Hey, you sent this one wrong paper, can we get the information?' " Gov. Christie said at an news conference. "Does anybody in Washington, D.C., have a lick of common sense? Pick up the phone and ask us for the number."

But New Jersey Assembly Speaker Sheila Y. Oliver, a Democrat, said the governor's administration was to blame, and vowed to hold a hearing to examine why the mistake occurred. And the U.S. Department of Ed doesn't appear to be having any of Christie's argument, judging from a spokesman's pithy response.

"Our application requirements were very clear and a state that wanted to compete had to give us the correct information by the application deadline," ED official Justin Hamilton told Politico. "At some point, you have to say: Time's up, pencils down."

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 11:46 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Posted by guest blogger Sean Cavanagh

Reaction rolls in from across the country on yesterday's announcement that nine states, plus the District of Columbia, won Race to the Top Fund awards. Much of the discussion focuses on why some states that weren't on many prognosticators' radar—such as Hawaii—made the final cut, while other states thought to be favorites, like Colorado and Louisiana, were left out.

Over at the Fordham Institute, Mike Petrilli is particularly tough on the administration's choices, calling it a "disastrous outcome." He rips the choices of Hawaii and Maryland and the denial of grants to Colorado and Louisiana. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan could have waded in and selected those two losing states, even if they weren't chosen during the review process, he says. Of course, as Petrilli acknowledges, that sort of maneuver likely would have brought serious political blowback.

Neal McCluskey, of the Cato Institute, also didn't like the picks, saying too many of the winning states have taken the wrong steps in education in recent years. He observes that Hawaii won, despite drawing widespread criticism for its school furloughs (Duncan was one of the critics.) Maryland's charter school laws are too restrictive to justify its selection, McCluskey says, and he's no fan of Massachusetts signing on to the Common Core State Standards Initiative.

As for the states, New Jersey officials are coping with questions about whether the state may have doomed its chances to take up to $400 million by botching an application question, the Star-Ledger reports.

In Pennsylvania, Gov. Ed Rendell was disappointed and speculates that his state could have improved its chances by having a better alternative certification option for teachers and stronger backing from teachers' unions. In one near-miss states, Arizona, a leading Republican lawmaker argues that it wasn't a total loss: legislators crafted some important changes in teacher policy as they moved to strengthen their proposal, he tells the Arizona Republic.

And for an altogether different, and creative take on the results, check out the Hechinger Report's analysis of the "top buzzwords" in the winning applications. The winning words included included "rigor," "standards," "assessment," "accountability," "online," and "e-learning," among others.

UPDATE: More drama from New Jersey on the state's apparent application goof. Republican Gov. Chris Christie blasts the Obama administration, which he says could easily have asked the state to fix its proposal: ""Does anybody in Washington, D.C., have a lick of common sense?" he asks. But the state's assembly speaker, a Democrat, blames Christie and says she'll arrange hearings on what went awry.

Posted by Alyson Klein at 11:10 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Posted by guest blogger Sean Cavanagh.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan offered plenty of praise for the winners in the Race to the Top competition today. But he also directed some of his biggest compliments for those who fell short.

Only the top 10 finishers were awarded a share of $3.4 billion left in Round Two of the federal grant competition. Some prognosticators were surprised—and disappointed—that states that have drawn credit for overhauling their education policies, such as Colorado and Louisiana, didn't make the cut.

In a conference call with reporters, Duncan sounded disappointed, too. He called Colorado, which ranked 17th, a "national leader" in adopting innovative ed policy. "I was very, very sorry, quite frankly, we weren't able to fund them," he said.

Of Louisiana, the secretary said he "would have loved to have funded" the state, a near-miss at 13th. And California, which came in 16th? The secretary noted that he was "sad and disappointed" to not be able to give that state funding.

But, ultimately, Duncan said, there wasn't enough money to fund all the proposals the reviewers deemed meritorious. (Though the administration has asked Congress to devote another $1.35 billion to Race to the Top through the federal budget process.) The secretary also said that he left the process of setting the final rankings to the application reviewers, noting that he did not "override anybody," or change the rankings set by reviewers.

Some observers have tried to divine political motives behind the Race to the Top rankings, but Duncan said the Democratic or Republican political leanings of states had no influence the process. He also geography was not a consideration, despite most of the awardees being East Coast states.

Overall, the competition has had the desired effect, the secretary argued: It has compelled states across the country (the winners and losers) to rethink policies on academic standards, teacher-effectiveness, school turnarounds, and other topics. The U.S. Department of Education will hold the winning states to the promises in their applications, he added.

"This may be the end of phase two, but it's not the end of Race to the Top," Duncan said. He noted the jumps in many applicants' scores between rounds, saying their efforts amounted to a "breathtaking amount of reform."

Posted by Alyson Klein at 4:00 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Posted by guest blogger Sean Cavanagh, with contributions from Sarah D. Sparks and Stephen Sawchuk.

The results are in, and the list of Race to the Top winners in Round Two includes an eclectic mix of 10 states that had put together very different kinds of applications in their funding bids for the $3.4 billion in remaining federal funds.

The winners in this second and final round announced by the U.S. Department of Education today: the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, and Rhode Island. They join first-round winners Delaware and Tennessee.

A few common threads among the 10 victorious Round Two applicants include their promises to take bold approaches to turning around low-performing schools, and in evaluating teachers.

One winner, Florida, which will receive up to $700 million, has pledged to expand its system of differentiated accountability to set new, more rigorous deadlines and expectations for the restructuring of struggling schools. Schools that fail to make progress under their initial turnaround options are required to switch to a different turnaround option, a process that continues until schools either succeed or close.

New York, another populous state among the winners and also recipient of up to $700 million, plans to expand its "partnership zones" for turnaround schools; these zones will include clusters of restructured and charter schools which will use the central district office for services, but have separate scheduling, curriculum and staffing controls in exchange for agreeing to make dramatic improvements within two years.

Other winners are notable for having taken steps to revamp how teachers are evaluated. The District of Columbia, which will receive up to $75 million, submitted a plan that includes the use of its much-scrutinized IMPACT evaluation system, which evaluates teachers on student academic progress and other factors. Rhode Island's bid, for up to $75 million, was substantially the same as its proposal in Round One: It includes measures of student achievement in teacher evaluations; and it will not allow districts to assign a student to a teacher deemed ineffective two years in a row.

Several notable finalists were left off the winner's list: California and Colorado, as well as Arizona, which had greatly improved its score from the first go-around. Colorado lawmakers had revamped their state's laws on teacher evaluation since Round One, ensuring that half of an educator's rating will be based on student performance and that ineffective teachers could be dismissed more easily.

But my colleague Stephen Sawchuk notes that Colorado's level of union buy-in dropped significantly from the first round—the reviewers didn't look favorably on that disconnect in Round One.

[UPDATE: U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, in a conference call with reporters this afternoon, praised Colorado as a "national leader" in adopting innovative education policy.

"I was very, very sorry, quite frankly, we weren't able to fund them," he said. He had similar sympathy for California, but said there just wasn't enough money this year to fund all the worthy proposals.

The administration has asked Congress to devote an additional $1.35 billion to continue Race to the Top next year.]

As many readers know, the Race to the Top competition was created by Congress in 2009 as part of the $787 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, better known as the federal economic-stimulus program. The Obama administration established a competition among states to secure a piece of the $4 billion in funding intended to spark innovation and changes in everything from how teachers and principals are evaluated to how schools are organized and how they use data.

The Education Department judged states applications on more than 30 criteria. States could secure points by adopting common standards; revamping their data systems; improving teacher and principal effectiveness based on measuring student growth and other factors; turning around low-performing schools; supporting charter schools; and focusing on math and science strategies, among other criteria. States were also encouraged to seek broad support from a diverse set of stakeholders, such as teachers' unions.

Sixteen states were named as finalists in the first round of the Race to the Top competition earlier this year, a number that many observers considered surprisingly high, given that Duncan had pledged to set a "high bar" for the competition. Yet when the winners were announced in March, just Delaware and Tennessee, emerged victorious.

What similarities do you spot among the 10 winners? Of the states that were left off the list, which ones surprised you the most? Judging from Round One, one thing seems certain: The states that fell short will be providing their own, critical analyses of this round of scores sometime soon.

Posted by Alyson Klein at 1:20 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Posted by guest blogger Sean Cavanagh

UPDATE: Here's the final, confirmed list of winners. The department has also released the dollar amount each state is slated to receive, and their point score:

• District of Columbia: $75 million. Score: 450.0
• Florida: $700 million. Score: 452.4
• Georgia: $400 million. Score: 446.4
• Hawaii: $75 million. Score: 462.4
• Maryland: $250 million. Score: 450.0
• Massachusetts: $250 million. Score: 471.0
• New York: $700 million. Score: 464.8
• North Carolina: $400 million. Score: 441.6
• Ohio: $400 million. Score: 440.8
• Rhode Island: $75 million. Score: 451.2

Eighteen states, plus the District of Columbia, had been finalists for the remaining $3.4 billion in federal funds in the Race to the Top program—money that the administration hopes will transform education across the country.

The 10 awards are expected to each be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Just two states, Delaware and Tennessee, won money in the first round of the competition earlier this year.

We'll have more on the winners—and on the states the didn't make the cut—shortly at Politics K-12.

Posted by Alyson Klein at 8:53 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Posted by guest blogger Sean Cavanagh.

The much-anticipated second round of Race to the Top winners is scheduled to be released tomorrow, Politics K-12 has confirmed.

Earlier this summer U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan named 19 finalists—18 states plus the District of Columbia—in the competition for $3.4 billion of remaining funding, created through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the federal law better known as the stimulus.

The finalists were Arizona, California, Colorado, D.C., Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and South Carolina. All of them notched at least 400 points on the competition's 500-point grading scale. Several states boosted their scores considerably from Round 1 to Round 2 even before the in-person presentations to judging panels in Washington earlier this month. The secretary described that improvement as "inspiring" when he named the finalists back on July 27. Delaware and Tennessee were selected as winners in Round 1.

So put the final touches on your RTT office pools, and let the final round of speculation begin.

Posted by Alyson Klein at 2:26 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Memo to Congress and the U.S. Department of Education: Stay out of the Common Core State Standards Initiative.

At least that was the message at an Education Commission of the States forum session Friday from three state policymakers whose states have either won the Race to the Top competition (Gov. Phil Bredesen, a Democrat from Tennessee) or are finalists (Dwight Jones, the state schools chief in Colorado, and Mitchell Chester, the state schools chief in Massachusetts.)

If the feds decide to take ownership of Common Core, they could inject an unwelcome note of partisanship, Bredesen said.

"The problem with Congress is they take any issue and it turns into a liberal-conservative" thing, he said.

The Obama administration has pledged to stay out of states' way on Common Core, which was developed by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. But President Obama has also introduced a proposal to tie Title I money to states' adoption of college- and-career ready standards (either through Common Core standards, or standards states create with colleges of education).

That's drawn a mixed response, particularly from Republicans on Capitol Hill.

And although lots of folks have made a big deal about Massachusetts' adoption of the Common Core, it was Chester who congratulated Bredesen on embracing them.

"I think the lift for Tennessee on Common Core is harder than for Massachusetts. For Massachusetts, I don't think the Common Core sets a different bar. I really respect [Gov. Bredesen] for taking on Common Core and biting the bullet on that," he said.

Meanwhile, Jones said that he has mixed feelings about the administration's penchant for competitive grants. The applications for Race to the Top were very labor intensive, and not every state education agency has the capacity to apply, he said.

"You gotta be careful that you don't create haves and have nots," he said.

Chester and Jones parted ways when it came to whether the No Child Left Behind Act is good policy.

"I'm someone who is somewhat of a fan of NCLB," Chester said. He's glad to see that the Obama administration is pressing on with some of the policies began in the landmark 2002 law. They are "on steroids [when it comes] to accountability and teacher policy and so forth," he said.

And he's glad to see that Race to the Top has given states a chance to push folks, including teachers' unions, "out of their comfort zone in ways that I think have promise."

But he's not so big on Adequate Yearly Progress—the main mechanism for gauging student outcomes under NCLB. "There's some deep flaws in NCLB," he said. "And AYP is one of them, no question about it."

Jones, on the other hand, said, "I have not really been a fan of NCLB." He said the law may have helped states create data systems, but said there hasn't been enough emphasis on actually helping to improve teacher quality and finding ways to intervene in low-performing schools.

Posted by Alyson Klein at 10:27 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

States are more dependent on the federal government for help in funding education than they have been in decades, education finance guru Michael Griffith told a crowd that mostly consisted of state policymakers at a forum at the Education Commission of the States conference in Portland, Ore. Federal spending on K-12 used to be around 8 or 9 percent, he said. Now it's about 19 percent.

"When you're talking about driving policy, it's the golden rule, he who has the gold makes the rules," Griffith said.

And even a tiny bit of federal funding can make a big difference. For instance, the Investing in Innovation Fund and Race to the Top funding make up less than 3 percent of spending on education. But that funding, part of the federal economic-stimulus program, has driven a whole lot of policy changes, he said.

Griffith said that the $10 billion edujobs measure, just passed this month, likely saved about 150,000 educator jobs. Without those funds, states might have lost 7 to 10 percent of their teacher workforce.

But it's tough to say whether the feds will come through with big new money for education again any time soon. It certainly doesn't look likely. The spending climate has shifted, and increased investment may not be politically sustainable. Case in point: Lawmakers went through far more drama trying to pass the $10 billion education jobs law than they did in passing the $100 billion in education money under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

"The idea behind the federal stimulus spending is that the economy is supposed to come back," said Larry Picus, a professor at the University of Southern California, who also presented at ECS.

But the folks at the ECS forum had some suggestions for states and districts looking to stretch their dollars. For instance, Picus said he helped the Beaverton, Ore., school district implement school improvement measures without significantly increasing costs, in part by moving more staff members who had had other responsibilities back into the classroom, and offering fewer, but more intensive, courses at the high school level.

And Griffith suggested that states and districts consider other steps to get more bang for their buck, such as combining special education services and pooling purchasing power.

Some states already encourage districts to make joint procurement decisions on a voluntary basis, but that doesn't always work, Griffith said. He joked that one school official will prefer a different brand of toilet paper than another "and the whole thing falls apart."

Some state lawmakers had a possible solution, though: "I think I'm going to start mandating" joint purchasing decisions, said state Sen. Florence Shapiro, who chairs the senate education committee in Texas.

Posted by Alyson Klein at 4:16 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

From guest blogger Dakarai I. Aarons:

Questions have been raised about some of the companies chasing the $3.5 billion in Title I School Improvement Grants to target the bottom 5 percent of America's schools, and now Congress is jumping in the act.

As The New York Times pointed out in a recent story, some of the companies certified by states as school turnaround partners have no experience actually improving the fortunes of low-performing schools—or any school, for that matter.

Rep. George Miller, the California Democrat who chairs the House Education and Labor Committee, announced today that he will hold hearings to look into who's in line to get this money and if they are qualified for the job.

"...with increased focus on school reform under this administration, it seems some companies with little or no expertise in education are purporting to be experts in school turnaround to try and take advantage of available federal money," Miller said in a news release. "Companies who are hired to help turn around schools as partners should have the best expertise and the best qualifications. I plan to hold a hearing and use the committee's oversight authority to investigate the process of hiring providers to help turn around schools."

Posted by Dakarai Aarons at 12:57 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan wasn't kidding when he promised school districts and states that the applications for the new Education Jobs Fund (created under the $10 billion edujobs bill) would be very quick and "streamlined."

Less than a week after President Obama signed the edujobs bill, the application has been posted, and it is super straightforward. There is basically only one question: States have to specify whether they plan to distribute the funds through Title I or through their state education funding formula. (Except for Texas, which is special, and gets no choice in the matter. Texas has to distribute the funds via Title I. And, it has stricter maintenance-of-effort provisions.)

The money can be used for restoring cuts in salaries and benefits and boosting teacher pay in the 2010-2011 school year. Districts can also eliminate furlough days that had been scheduled for the 2010-2011 school year.

But they can't use the funds to pay salaries and benefits for outside contractors, except in cases where districts contract with other districts for specific services. And the money can't be used for central office staff.

Districts can use the funds to pay the salaries of teachers and other employees, including principals, assistant principals, academic coaches, in-service teacher trainers, classroom aides, counselors, librarians, secretaries, social workers, psychologists, interpreters, physical therapists, speech therapists, occupational therapists, information technology personnel, nurses, athletic coaches, security officers, custodians, maintenance workers, bus drivers, and cafeteria workers.

Posted by Alyson Klein at 2:35 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Want to know whether the House Appropriations subcommittee that deals with K-12 spending decided to zero-out funding for your education program?

Or whether it wants to extend Race to the Top to school districts, not just states? Or whether there are changes to the Teacher Incentive Fund program? Or just how much money the School Improvement Grants are slated to get under a fiscal year 2011 spending bill that was approved by the subcommittee more than seven weeks ago?

Well, don't expect to get an answer any time soon.

Back on July 15, when the subcommittee approved the bill, its staff released a summary table and gave reporters highlights of the bill. But the subcommittee didn't supply spending information on all programs (or even most of them). And it largely refused to answer reporters' (or advocates') questions about key details of the measure.

That's in sharp contrast to the Senate Appropriations Committee. After a subcommittee markup, aides made themselves available, with tables and charts, and took questions about the spending measure (but didn't actually release summaries, which I wish they would). Still, just two days later, after the full committee passed the legislation, all the information was distributed to the public.

And now that measure is online for anyone with access to the Internet to pore over and scrutinize.

So why can't the House do the same? I asked the committee, but couldn't get an on-the-record response.

Some esoteric inside baseball: The transparent, available Senate bill has been through both a full committee and subcommittee markup, while the top-secret-for-no-clear-reason House bill has only been through the subcommittee step. So that may be the thinking. But the full House committee won't consider the bill until mid-September at the earliest, and possibly not even until December.

Also, do educators trying to plan their program budgets for next year really care about what step in the process a bill is in? If it's been voted on, it should be public, they say.

As one advocate put it to me:

"I think it's a complete slight to Democracy that members voted on a piece of legislation and it's not public weeks after the markup. I don't understand what's to be gained politically, especially since the Senate moved on theirs. It's puzzling and disturbing."

Posted by Alyson Klein at 11:46 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., the former Denver schools chief and one of the Obama administration's go-to guys in Congress on education policy, beat back a primary challenge last night from Andrew Romanoff, the former speaker of the Colorado General Assembly.

Bennet is considered an education-redesign-oriented Democrat in a similar mold to these guys. He also introduced a bill on helping to train principals to do school turnaround and is said to be working on key teacher legislation.

He will face off against Ken Buck, who was backed by some local tea-party activists. On his campaign website, Buck called the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, aka the stimulus, "porkulus." Buck beat Jane Norton, the state's former lieutenant governor, who was originally expected to sail to victory.

This should be a fun race to watch in November.

Posted by Alyson Klein at 9:40 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan told reporters today that he plans to implement a "streamlined" application process for states and districts to snag their share of the $10 billion education jobs fund.

Duncan said he hoped to get the money out to districts and states "in a matter of weeks."

"We feel a huge sense of urgency to get this money out the door," Duncan said. But he said the money would not necessarily alleviate state and district financial woes.

"There's still unmet need out there," Duncan acknowledged. For "the vast majority of districts around this country, this is a major step in the right direction ... [but] many folks will still have to make decisions."

For an estimate of how much your state could get from the bill, take a look at the House Education and Labor Committee's estimates here.

Posted by Alyson Klein at 4:50 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Congress today finally gave its approval to the education jobs package, which provides $10 billion to help states stave off layoffs and rehire teachers. The measure passed on a vote of 247-161. The next stop is for President Obama to sign the bill, which he has championed.

Read more about the debate, and how the money will be used, here.

The bill includes a nearly $12 billion cut to food stamps, a $50 million cut to Striving Readers, an adolescent literacy program, a $10.7 million cut to Ready to Teach, a telecommunications program for teachers, and an $82 million cut to student financial aid administration. The measure also includes $16 billion in Medicaid funding to states.

On the floor, Republicans, including Rep. John Kline of Minnesota, the top Republican on the House Education and Labor Committee, asked how long Congress could continue to prop up states and K-12 schools. (He even gave the bill a grade of F.) And some Democratic lawmakers expressed angst about the food stamp cut, which won't go into effect until 2014.

School districts and states are already preparing to use the funds. For instance, the Broward County school district in Florida plans to rehire some of the teachers it laid off.

But in South Carolina, education department spokesman Jim Foster told me that the money is likely to prevent future layoffs, not necessarily bring back those who were already let go.

Posted by Alyson Klein at 3:26 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Sometime in the next three weeks or so, the Michele half of this Politics K-12 duo will be taking a hiatus from blogging, and from Education Week.

I'm expecting my first child at the end of August, and the real question is which will come first: baby, or Race to the Top Round 2 winners?

This is really up in the air because last time, in Round 1, the winners were announced two weeks after the finalists made their in-person presentations to the judges. In this round, those presentations start this week, which would put an announcement of winners as early as Aug. 23.

If anyone from the Education Department is reading this, I would strongly prefer you to announce the winners as soon as possible because I enjoy having closure in my life, and getting to write about the Race to the Top Round 2 winners would allow me to start my next adventure with a sense of peace.

Regardless, you'll be in good hands with Alyson, who will probably be flying solo on the blog until I return. So send her lots of good tips and suggestions.

Posted by Michele McNeil at 10:51 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

After announcing the 49 winning applicants for the $650 Investing in Innovation competition, the U.S. Department of Education has now put online the scores, judges' comments, and more details about each project.

Trying to make sense of the numerical scores for the validation and development award winners is, at least for this blogger, an exercise in futility. And it's all because of a statistical process called "standardization."

For me, the quest to understand the i3 scoring system began with this question: Did Saint Vrain School District really have the best application of them all?

Because of the large number of applicants and judges in the validation and development categories, the department used standardization to make sure the scoring was done as fairly as possible. (For more about this, read the department's explanation on page 2 of this FAQ document.) It's important to note that for the 19 scale-up applicants, standardization was not used, and their scores are their raw scores. Also, for Race to the Top, raw scores were used and no adjustments were made for scoring anomalies, which did spark some questions.

As a case study in standardization—and in how meaningless the i3 judges' actual raw scores really are—let's look at Saint Vrain School District's score sheet. This caught my attention because not only did this Colorado school district win a development grant, it had the highest score of all applicants, at 116.95. (That's on a grading scale of 105; more on that later.)

This application and other winning ones had five judges: three subject-matter experts who zeroed in on the proposal and two research experts who evaluated the evidence presented. All attended mandatory department training sessions.

In looking at the judges' scores, you'd have no idea this was a winning application, much less the highest-rated of them all. And the two who judged the evidence components seemed to raise legitimate questions about the research behind the district's proposal, and how the district planned to evaluate its new program to help English-language learners by focusing on STEM, or science, technology, engineering, and math, subjects. (To be clear, this is not a critique of Saint Vrain, but more an exploration of the i3 score standardization process.)

One subject-matter judge gave Saint Vrain just 42 out of 80 points possible. Another one gave it 50 out of 80. And one judge gave it 75 out of 80. On the evidence side, the district got 10 of 25 points from one judge and 13 out of 25 points from another.

Other winning applications got higher, more consistent scores. And my guess is if you looked at the raw scores for applications that didn't win, there would be some that were better than Saint Vrain's.

So I asked the department last night: How in the world, with not-so-great raw scores like that, did Saint Vrain win and get the highest score?

Department officials told me it all boils down to standardization, which seeks to balance out hard graders and easy graders across applications so that an applicant isn't penalized for getting assigned hard graders. For example, the two subject-matter judges who gave Saint Vrain those low scores must have been very, very hard graders, as evidence by the grades they gave on other applications as well. The same thing must have been true for the research-expert judges, who must also have been very tough graders.

But as one Politics K-12 reader who was also questioning Saint Vrain's standardized score pointed out, how likely is it that a truly strong proposal would be marked that low by anyone, let alone two subject-matter judges and two research judges?

So, at least from my point of view, this makes the scores you see on the score sheets relatively meaningless. And even the comments may not be as meaningful as they could be because some of the tough graders were judged, as least by some statistical program, to be too tough, while other graders were judged to be too easy.

Moreover, it's also confusing that the final scores listed by the department go above 105, which is the maximum amount of points available on the competition's grading scale. Again, blame standardization.

I am by no means a statistical expert, so please weigh in on this issue in the comments section below. I'm especially interested in other noteworthy things you've spotted on the i3 score sheets.

Posted by Michele McNeil at 11:45 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

In its biggest effort yet to influence education reform, the San Francisco-based NewSchools Venture Fund is launching its fourth fund, a $100 million investment to spur innovation in teacher preparation, school turnarounds, and charter-school management.

The new fund is meant to help advance a new, federal agenda that's focused on innovation. In fact, just yesterday we learned about the 49 applicants who won $650 million in Investing in Innovation, or i3, grants. The i3 program is a new competition created by the economic-stimulus package and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

Ted Mitchell, the CEO of NewSchools, told me in an interview earlier this week that the Obama administration's emphasis on innovation, from the i3 competition to the president's Social Innovation Fund, has provided a good opportunity to further push a national innovation agenda.

"That idea that innovative practice and innovative structures can change the life chances of kids, that has gotten into the public dialogue in a really powerful way. It has become a public policy priority," he said. "There is a moment in time for us to capitalize on the innovations that have proven successful and to catapult the next wave of innovation. Our innovation fund, we hope, will be that catapult."

NewSchools, which has been an especially big player in establishing nonprofit charter-management organizations, will focus its Innovation Fund on four specific areas:

• Teachers and education leaders—Specifically, NewSchools wants to shake up the field of teacher preparation by investing in programs that hold themselves accountable for the performance of their graduates. (Think Capital Teaching Residency in Washington.)


• School Turnarounds—This area of reform, which targets the most-struggling schools, will continue to be a focus for NewSchools. (Think Mastery Charter Schools.)


• Tools—New products and platforms that enhance teacher productivity and help customize instruction will be a focus here. (Think New York City's School of One.)


• Charter management organizations—NewSchools wants to grow high-performing traditional charters, but also focus on "second-generation CMOs" or hybrid charters that mix in-the-classroom learning with online content. (Think of something like Rocketship Education, which was founded in 2006 to create a national network of urban college preparatory elementary charter schools.)

And, NewSchools has a fifth, wild-card category that will fund other innovative ideas that hold promise.

These are all education-reform areas that NewSchools has worked in during its previous three funds. Its first fund, of $20 million, begun in 1998, supported nine organizations focused on standards, accountability, and choice. Its second, $50 million fund, begun in 2002, zeroed in more closely on charter schools and the management organizations that run them. And the third, $75 million fund, begun in 2006, focused on entrepreneurial solutions to the challenges facing at-risk populations in New York City; Chicago; Los Angeles; Washington, D.C.; Oakland, Calif.; and New Orleans.

The difference this time, Mitchell said, is that NewSchools is looking for solutions in these areas that are even more cutting-edge.

"The work itself will look quite different, because in each of these areas we've kind of climbed up to a plateau and we can see farther now," he said. For example, "We're looking for charters 2.0, that are using technology and people in innovative ways. We're looking for new turnaround strategies to build on what we've learned."

The new fund's life cycle is four years, and NewSchools already has made its first investment. Earlier this year, NewSchools invested $345,000 in the Denver School of Science and Technology (a public school for middle and high school students), which opened its second school site this fall. This investment, NewSchools says, is an example of a new model of charter schooling, where technology is used as a learning tool, as an assessment platform, and as a platform for monitoring student progress and instructional practice.

Posted by Michele McNeil at 8:12 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

The U.S. Senate today approved a long-stalled measure that would provide $10 billion to prevent what supporters say would be hundreds of thousands of teacher layoffs nationwide. The legislation also includes some $16 billion in Medicaid aid to states, which would indirectly help K-12 education since, without the Medicaid funds, states would have had to make cuts to other programs, likely including schools.

Leaders of the U.S. House of Representative, meanwhile, are taking the unusual step of calling for lawmakers to return from their August recess next week to pass the final version of the bill. The House already approved a different version last month.

The Senate bill makes some cuts to education programs to help pay for the job aid, including $50 million from Striving Readers, an adolescent literacy program, $82 million from student financial aid administration, and $10.7 million from Ready to Teach, a telecommunications program for educators.

Posted by Alyson Klein at 1:09 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

The U.S. Department of Education—a day earlier than it had intended—today mistakenly unveiled on its website the 49 winning applicants for the Investing in Innovation, or i3, fund. These ranked the highest of 1,698 entries in a mad dash for $650 million in grants.

Four groups won scale-up awards worth up to $50 million, 15 won validation awards of up to $30 million, and 30 won development grants of up to $5 million. But there's a big caveat before these groups can cash in: They must secure their 20 percent private-sector match, unless they've gotten a waiver from the department, by Sept. 8 or they risk losing the grant. Waiver decisions are still pending. In addition, the department has to confirm that all winners met eligibility requirements: that they are who they said they are, that their official partners are in line, etc. Once all those ducks are in a row, then we'll know exactly how much each applicant won.

The Education Department had planned on releasing the winners tomorrow, but the winning applicants' score sheets were mistakenly published this afternoon on the department's own web site.

The four scale-up winners are: Teach for America, Ohio State University, KIPP Foundation, and the Success for All Foundation. For a snapshot of these proposals, and who they beat, check this out.

The validation winners are: Children's Literacy Initiative; The Curators of the University of Missouri - eMINTS National Center, Academic Affairs; George Mason University; ASSET (Achieving Student Success through Excellence in Teaching); Smithsonian Institution - National Science Resources Center, LASER; New Schools for New Orleans; The New Teacher Project; School District No. 1 of the City and County of Denver; Parents as Teachers National Center; President and Fellows of Harvard College Graduate School of Education; WestEd Teacher Professional Development Program; Johns Hopkins University - Center for Social Organization of Schools; Utah State University - Center for Persons with Disabilities; Council for Opportunity in Education; Niswonger Foundation.

The development winners are: Advancement Through Opportunity and Knowledge; Bellevue School District; AppleTree Institute for Education Innovation; Alliance for College-Ready Public Schools; American Federation of Teachers Educational Foundation; Bay State Reading Institute; Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Milwaukee; Beaverton School District 48J; Board of Education of the City of New York Office of School of One; Boston Plan for Excellence in the Public Schools Foundation; Plymouth Public Schools; Los Angeles Unified School District; The Studio in a School Association, Inc.; Take Stock in Children; Saint Vrain Valley School District Priority Schools; The Achievement Network; Montgomery County (Md.) Public Schools; Search Institute; National Forum to Accelerate Middle-Grades Reform; School Board of Miami-Dade County, Fla.; Iredell-Statesville-Schools; California Education Round Table Intersegmental Coordinating Committee; New York City Department of Education; and the Jefferson County Board of Education. (UPDATE: Also, Forsyth County Schools in Georgia made the list. Thanks to the Politics K-12 reader who pointed out my omission!)

You can check out their scores, their project title, and whether they've secured their private-sector match on this document provided by the department.

The Education Department's innovation guru Jim Shelton told me just now that the number of winners in each category were arrived at using natural breaks in points. He also said that the winning applicants represent a broad section of the country, urban and rural, and represent many different parts of the curriculum, from the arts to STEM subjects. In addition, he said some of the winning applicants also focus on English-language learners and students with disabilities.

"The big story is we got great applicants from the field, and a great set of winners that cut across the country," he said.

The department says that winning applicants represent 23 states with more than half intending to serve students with disabilities and limited English proficient students and 37 percent intending to serve rural school districts.

To read more about their proposals, use the search function on the Education Department's user-friendly i3 web portal.

And of course, stay tuned here and at edweek.org for more about this breaking story.

Posted by Michele McNeil at 5:22 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., today said she will call the U.S. House of Representatives back next week to pass the Senate's version of the edujobs measure, which would provide $10 billion to help stave off teacher layoffs. The measure also includes $16 billion in additional Medicaid aid to states.

The sooner Congress passes the legislation, the sooner the cash can begin makes its way to state and district coffers. The House was originally slated to return in mid-September, meaning the school year would already be underway before districts could be assured of the funding.

The upshot: This almost certainly means that, after much drama, the edujobs bill is likely to become law.

Posted by Alyson Klein at 4:18 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

During a call with reporters in conjunction with the announcement of the Race to the Top Round 2 finalists, Education Secretary Arne Duncan touted the 26-point increase in average scores since the first round.

Between the two rounds of competition, he said, "The movement we saw in terms of reform was extraordinary."

Just how extraordinary was it?

Well, to figure that out, we need to first figure out how the Education Department calculated this 26-point average increase. Officials there clarified for me that the 26-point average Duncan referred to was arrived at by comparing the average score of all Round 1 applicants with the average score of all of the Round 2 applicants. So the two groups aren't the same, because some states applied in Round 1 but not Round 2 (e.g. Minnesota) or vice versa (e.g. Maryland.)

On a grading scale of 500 points, a 26-point increase average amounts to a 5 percent average jump. Is that a dramatic increase, especially given that we should expect applications to get better between Rounds 1 and 2, since applicants had the benefit of reading the judges comments? (I'm not sure, which is why I'm asking.)

It's also important to note that averages can be greatly influenced by outliers, or those states that showed dramatic swings in their scores. Which brings me to Arizona, the comeback state that made it into the Round 2 finals after placing next-to-last in Round 1.

We know that Arizona scored 240 points in Round 1. We know that for Round 2, all finalists scored above 400. So that means Arizona, at a minimum, saw a whopping 160-point increase in scores.

Now that's bound to have an effect on the average increase. But how much? Using some intermediate math skills, and assuming that Arizona got a score of 400 points in Round 2, we figured out that Arizona's dramatic uptick drove up the average by about 3 1/2 points.

In addition, the Education Department told me that slightly more than half of the Round 2 finalists saw double-digit increases in their scores. Of course, that means half didn't.

We'll be able to scrutinize the scores much more deeply once they're released alongside the winners later this month or in early September. In the meantime, it seems like there was "extraordinary" movement concentrated in some states, but certainly not all.

Posted by Michele McNeil at 2:21 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

The Senate's version of a $10 billion education jobs package, which looked like it was on life support just a few days ago, has now cleared an important procedural hurdle, smoothing the way for final passage in that chamber.

Senators today voted 61-38 to cut off debate on the measure, meaning that it can receive final consideration. The bill, which would provide aid to states to prevent what supporters warn would be thousands of teacher layoffs, includes some offsets to education programs, albeit not to key administration priorities, such as Race to the Top.

The bill would trim $82 million from student aid administration, $50 million from the Striving Readers program, which finances adolescent literacy programs, and $10.7 million from Ready to Teach, which helps provide telecommunications programs for educators.

Once the Senate officially passes the bill, the House of Representatives, which passed a different version of the bill earlier this summer, would still need to approve the Senate measure before it could become law. But the House is scheduled to be on recess until the middle of September, so it may be a while (and at least several weeks into the school year) before cash could begin trickling down to financially-squeezed districts.

Posted by Alyson Klein at 12:17 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Remember we told you the Senate was slated to finally, finally vote on a $10 billion edujobs package tonight? Well, that didn't end up happening.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., the Majority Leader, pulled the legislation, which also included $16 billion in Medicaid aid for states, after a cost estimate found that the bill was not completely offset (meaning paid for) by cuts to other programs. The $26 billion piece of legislation would still have added about $5 billion in the deficit, according to an estimate by the Congressional Budget Office, a non-partisan agency that analyzes legislation.

Moderate Democrats and some Republicans said they would not support the bill if the cost wasn't covered. So the bill's champions, including the White House, will need to find another tack.

What does this mean for cash-strapped school districts seeking funds to prevent what supporters of the legislation say would be more than 100,000 projected layoffs? They may have to wait even longer for the funds, if they materialize at all.

UPDATE: Reid has put together a new package for edujobs and hopes to hold a preliminary vote on it tomorrow. The new legislation includes the same offsets ($50 million from Striving Readers, $10.7 million from Ready to Teach, and $82 million from financial aid administration) that were already in the Senate bill.

UPDATE 2: The measure just cleared an important procedural hurdle. Senators voted to 61 to 38 to cut off debate, clearing the way for final passage.

Posted by Alyson Klein at 11:39 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

U.S. Secretary Arne Duncan, who is trying to tear down those silos that dot the federal bureaucracy landscape, announced today a new interagency board on early education.

This partnership between the Education Department and Health and Human Services is supposed to, according to the press release: improve the quality of early learning programs and outcomes for young children; increase the coordination of research, technical assistance and data systems; and advance the effectiveness of the early learning workforce among the major federally funded early learning programs across the two departments.

Duncan has talked about such partnerships before, particularly when it comes to school nutrition (which is mostly under the jurisdiction of Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack).

It's also worth noting that Duncan isn't the first education secretary to try to deal with bureaucratic barriers that stem from education-related programs not always being housed in the Department of Education (think Head Start, which is under HHS). Former Education Secretary Margaret Spellings was also a fan of interagency cooperation, including when it came to school safety.

Posted by Michele McNeil at 11:42 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

As she has just reported over at her own blog, my colleague and fellow blogger Lesli Maxwell is bidding adieu to Education Week. Today is her last day.

Her work has intersected often with federal policy and politics. She has doggedly tracked the $4 billion being spent to turn around the nation's worst-performing schools, a priority for EdSec Arne Duncan. We teamed up to predict winners in Rounds 1 and 2 of Race to the Top. And, I think her question about charter schools was the one that most riled up Duncan when he did an hour-long interview with EdWeek awhile back.

Her next adventure will take her to Maryland's Montgomery County Public Schools (which has, incidentally, not signed on to the state's Race to the Top application), where she'll be a senior communications specialist. Or, in other words, she'll be the spokesperson for the district.

Bye, Lesli, and good luck!

Posted by Michele McNeil at 4:10 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

In advance of tonight's vote, the White House has thrown its unequivocal weight behind the edujobs measure.

The administration released this statement, urging Congress to pass the bill.

The Administration strongly supports Senate passage of [the measure], which would provide much-needed relief to teachers and critical assistance to hard-pressed States. Since teachers are essential to the quality of education that the Nation affords its children and to America's long-term strength and security, the Administration strongly supports the $10 billion Education Jobs Fund to avert the layoff of hundreds of thousands of public school teachers as students return to school in the coming months.

In any case, it's a far cry from the veto threat the administration issued in advance of the House vote. (Which, if you'll remember, took issue with the offsets the House picked to help pay for the jobs bil. Those included cuts to administration priorities, like Race to the Top, teacher performance pay, and charters.) This version doesn't contain those offsets.

Will this be enough to gain support? Let us know what you think.

Posted by Alyson Klein at 3:57 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Applicants who scored the highest in the $650 million Investing in Innovation grant competition will be announced Thursday by the Education Department, so stay tuned to this space for details on who won, who lost, and what it all means.

But first, an important caveat. These applicants are not quite winners until they've secured their 20 percent private-sector match, a requirement for winning (unless they've gotten a waiver). They must do so by Sept. 8 or risk not getting their grant.

While you're waiting to see who wins, read up on who wants this money, the role of philanthropies in all of this, and what the rules of the competition are. Also, the Education Department has a good summary of the peer-review process here.

Posted by Michele McNeil at 2:02 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Just when you thought the education jobs bill was dead and buried, it gets a pulse.

The Senate is scheduled to vote tonight on a measure that would provide $10 billion to stave off education layoffs. And, as an added bonus, the bill would include $16 billion to help states with Medicaid funding. That money is almost as important for education as the jobs package, some advocates say, because a number of states were counting on the federal help and would need to go back and trim their budgets if it doesn't come. That would surely mean less money for K-12 education.

The Senate bill is fully offset, and it doesn't include those cuts to the administration's education reform priorities included in a similar House bill. (That was $500 million for Race to the Top, $100 million for charters, and $200 million for performance pay programs.) But it would cut some education programs. It includes a $50 million cut to the Striving Readers program, which helps finance adolescent literacy. And it would cut about $10 million from Ready to Teach, which finances telecommunications programs for teachers. It also includes an $82 million cut to student financial aid administration.

While not everyone is thrilled with those offsets, lobbyists tell me, they don't appear likely to hinder the bill's passage. More controversial is a change to the food stamp program, which wouldn't go into effect for several years. (So theoretically, Congress could pass the change, then restore the funding in another bill.) Advocates are optimistic that most Democrats will support the bill, but passage is far from a sure thing.

The problem: Even if the bill passes in the Senate tonight, the House of Representatives will still need to vote on it, and the House won't be back in session until the middle of September. By then, the school year will have already started. And, even if the House passes the bill quickly, the U.S. Department of Education will still need to require states to apply for the funds, and states will then have to distribute the money to districts.

The upshot? In some places, laid off teachers may find themselves rehired until a month or more into the school year. That's probably better than not having a job at all, but it seems far from ideal for the teachers, or arguably, the kids.

Posted by Alyson Klein at 10:10 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend