Recently in Federal Stimulus Category

Barack Obama will stop in Wisconsin tomorrow--one year and one day after being elected to the presidency--in advance of a key vote expected Thursday in the state legislature that could put Wisconsin in a better position to compete for the Race to the Top Fund.

Obama will cheer on the legislature as it considers a proposal to lift the ban on using student test scores for teacher evaluations, which would lift the so-called "data firewall" that stands between any state and being eligible for a slice of $4 billion in Race to the Top grants.

In a conference call today, White House Domestic Policy Council Director Melody Barnes said the Obama Administration is taking direct credit for spurring education-reform moves in several states--including similar data firewall actions in California and Indiana, and efforts to improve the charter school climates in Illinois, Louisiana, Tennessee, Connecticut, Delaware, Indiana, Ohio and Rhode Island.

Obama is expected to praise states for taking these steps, and encourage Wisconsin to follow along. Barnes did not mention anything about legislation in the Wisconsin legislature to allow the mayor of Milwaukee to take over the city's schools. That's something Obama's Education Secretary, Arne Duncan, champions.

If you'll remember from the draft regulations on Race to the Top, while not having a data firewall is a must for Race to the Top, a state's charter school environment is just part of the larger overall criteria by which states will be judged.

However, any of this could change as the U.S. Department of Education continues to make changes after receiving a slew of comments.

Barnes wouldn't even give us a hint as to what changes are coming for Race to the Top. And as to when we might see final regulations, applications, and how the criteria will be weighted, she said the administration isn't at a "final, final" place yet.

So stay tuned here for final, final regulations.

Posted by Michele McNeil at 5:39 PM | Permalink | No Comments | TrackBacks (0)

From guest blogger Catherine Gewertz:

About a month ago, the U.S. Department of Education's inspector general's office issued a memorandum that used Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Massachusetts as examples of how states may be violating the spirit—if not the letter—of the law on using State Fiscal Stabilization Fund money. The states cried foul, noting that their plans for spending the money had been duly approved by the department, and that they had done nothing wrong. (See our story.)

Massachusetts Secretary of Education Paul Reville wrote to the Ed Department, expressing concern that the memo seemed to suggest that his state had violated the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act's maintenance-of-effort provision. He also said he was concerned that it could harm the state's chances of getting money from the stimulus program's Race to the Top Fund.

Deputy Secretary Anthony W. Miller wrote back to Reville this week, saying that the department knows of no evidence, and "does not claim," that Massachusetts violated the ARRA. He also said that while federal officials "might consider" a state's reduction in education funding when considering its Race to the Top application, its chances of getting that money wouldn't necessarily be affected. Besides, he said, it doesn't seem that Massachusetts reduced the proportion of total state revenue it spends on education from one year to the next.

"Although we have taken steps to discourage States from reducing education funding, we fully recognize that SFSF funds are intended to help stabilize State and local budgets in order to minimize and avoid reductions in education and other essential services and that, under the current economic climate, States are forced to make difficult budgetary decisions and choices on the extent of State support for education and other vital public services," Miller wrote.

(Hey, that sounds a lot like what the three states said when they were named in the IG's memo.)

Posted by Michele McNeil at 2:54 PM | Permalink | No Comments | TrackBacks (0)

UPDATE: The wait for the first stimulus reports is over. Recovery.gov now has an updated interactive map, plenty of statistics and charts, and spreadsheets available for download. You could spend hours clicking on the dots on the interactive maps, trying to make sense of it all--and if you do see anything noteworthy, please leave a comment. I'll be digging through this data for a story next week, so check back here for updates. In the meantime, catch up on what VP Joe Biden had to say about the stimulus package in my earlier post below.

************************************************
While we're waiting for the first quarterly stimulus spending reports to be posted online later today, we'll have to take Vice President Joe Biden's word for how successful the program's been.

In a press conference today, Biden said 640,239 jobs have been created or saved as a direct result of the economic-stimulus package. Of those, 325,000 were jobs in education. The spending reports, which are supposed to be online sometime between 2 p.m. and 3 p.m., will detail not just information about jobs saved, but also how states spent the first dollars of the stimulus package.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican who appeared with Biden, said California has used the $7.1 billion in education stimulus funds it's received so far to save 62,000 education-related jobs. That's more than half of the 100,000 jobs in all sectors that the stimulus package has saved in California, according to the governor. (In total, the state has gotten $12.5 billion of its $50 billion in stimulus money so far.)

"Those teachers would have been gone if it hadn't been for the stimulus money," the Republican governor said.

Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley's numbers weren't nearly as impressive (given how small Maryland is compared to California.) The Democratic governor, who also appeared with Biden, said the stimulus has saved 14,000 jobs so far in that state. He didn't spell out how many of those were education jobs.

UPDATE: Also worth noting is that union leaders--including the AFT's Randi Weingarten and the NEA's Dennis Van Roekel--were in attendance. In fact, NEA member Richard Bigelow, a teacher at Stonewall Jackson Middle School in Orlando, Fla., got a starring role in the video the White House showed before the press conference began. You can watch the video, which is, predictably, a rah-rah stimulus montage:

Posted by Michele McNeil at 5:59 PM | Permalink | No Comments | TrackBacks (0)

Tomorrow, the public will get its first look at how states, school districts, and other recipients of federal stimulus funding have spent the first dollars from the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act . The first quarterly spending reports will be posted on Recovery.gov sometime in the morning.

As you peruse the reports, would you email me or leave a comment if you see anything noteworthy? We'll be combing through them trying to figure out what it all means.

Already, news reports are calling into question just how accurate the reporting will be, particularly when it comes to estimating the number of jobs saved or created because of the stimulus package. This is particularly important for education, because the data already shows that teaching jobs are some of the biggest beneficiaries.

The White House tried to get out in front of the news, declaring earlier this month, before the reports were made public, that the stimulus saved 250,000 education jobs so far. But local media reports, including one in The Indianapolis Star, described how misleading those numbers could be. Yesterday, the Associated Press did an in-depth examination of the jobs reported in the first data that was released, from contractors who received federal stimulus money—and declared that the number of jobs saved was overstated by thousands. The White House, which clearly has a dog in this hunt, quickly fired back and slammed the story, providing a fact-check of its own.

Given how politically charged these jobs numbers are, the reports out tomorrow will be heavily scrutinized by all sides. Although the feds tried to give hard-and-fast rules on how to count the number of jobs saved or created, people in different states and agencies had to use their own interpretation in applying the rules. And so there's plenty of room for error.

Posted by Michele McNeil at 3:17 PM | Permalink | No Comments | TrackBacks (0)

Way back in the spring, my colleague Christina Samuels wrote this story about how the U.S. Department of Education is taking a hard line with districts that aren't meeting the requirements of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

Apparently, districts that aren't in compliance with the IDEA have to make sure they target special education dollars made available under the stimulus package to improving their programs for students with disabilities. They can't reduce their own contributions, as they normally would be able to under the law, now that the federal share has increased.

It's a very complex, technical issue, but one that has major implications for both school districts' spending and services to students in special education. And it doesn't seem to be going away. The Education Department just put out this letter spelling out its position on the issue. According to Christina's story, advocates for districts say this interpretation wasn't Congress' intent. But the department is clearly not backing down.

Posted by Alyson Klein at 11:38 AM | Permalink | No Comments | TrackBacks (0)

$16.5 billion.

That's the amount of money that 36 states combined will need to find, somewhere, to get back to their 2008 K-12 funding levels after stimulus money runs out. That amounts to about 10 percent of these 36 states' combined budgets, according to my own calculations of figures presented in a White House report out yesterday on the impact of the stimulus package on education jobs.

This is the funding cliff that states and school districts have been warned about.

States will need to replace this money at a time when the national economy only now is showing glimmers of a recovery, and state tax collections are still tanking by record amounts. Of course, when it comes time for states to write their budgets for fiscal 2011 and beyond, they have the ability to move money around, or rob other programs to help fill in K-12 budget gaps. But will there be enough money to go around? Looking at the size of these gaps, probably not.

Some states have a bigger cliff than others. California wows with its sheer dollar amount. Its fiscal 2010 K-12 state spending is $32.9 billion, or 14 percent less than it was two years ago. ($5 billion in stimulus money filled in that gap.) But proportionately, other states are in just as bad, or worse, shape.

Oregon reduced state funding by half-a-billion dollars in fiscal 2010, or 16 percent below fiscal 2008 levels. Illinois reduced its state contribution to education this fiscal year by nearly $600 million, or 14 percent. Utah reduced its contribution by $300 million, or 13 percent, below 2008 levels. All of those holes were filled, or will be filled, with money from the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund, the largest single chunk of stimulus money available to states for education.

As state policymakers face frightening budget gaps, folks are getting desperate. In Kentucky, state legislators are considering raiding the "rainy day" funds of individual school districts, which includes money raised from local property taxes. That's unprecedented in the state--and maybe in the country.

A recent report by the Education Department's inspector general called attention to this problem, maintaining that the real effect of the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund was to reduce a state's own funding contribution to schools, rather than prod states to invest more in K-12 education. Even the IG, however, acknowledged this was allowable under the law.

In a White House press briefing yesterday, Domestic Policy Council Director Melody Barnes acknowledged the funding cliff. But she had no solution for those states that are quickly approaching a steep funding drop-off. Here's the relevant Q-and-A.

Q ... When this money, the federal dollars from the Reinvestment and Recovery Act, run out, will it then be up to the states to come up with the revenue to keep these jobs in operation?

MS. BARNES: That's something that we were quite cognizant of when we were putting the [stimulus law] together. We wanted to make sure that we were stimulating the economy, and at the same time, that we would be able to sustain the increases that were on track. I mean, all of this, remember, is to be put in the context of the economy starting to come back, for states to be able to support these jobs and to support the increases that have been put on the table. So the idea was to provide that shot, as I also mentioned, to start to provide and to incentivize the kinds of reforms that we wanted to see moving forward, but not to fall off a cliff when the two-year period was over.

Posted by Michele McNeil at 3:07 PM | Permalink | 3 Comments | TrackBacks (0)

A new report out from the White House Domestic Policy Council estimates that the stimulus package has saved or created 250,000 education jobs so far—most of them probably teachers. (UPDATE: And a good chunk of them are from California. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger reported today that 62,204 of these education jobs, or nearly 25 percent of the estimated total, were saved or created in his state.)

The White House has the distinct advantage of being able to look at the first quarterly stimulus reports that states and other recipients of stimulus funds filed with the federal government before anyone else. The rest of us get to look at the reports when they're made public on Recovery.gov Oct. 30.

Even so, much of the 23-page report rehashes data from the already public applications states submitted to gain access to their stabilization funds—data that shows most states said they would use the money to backfill cuts they made, or were going to make, to K-12 education. The White House also drew on anecdotal reports from the media to highlight jobs that were saved in specific school districts. In a press release, the White House says that the stimulus package has enabled states to restore nearly all of their projected education budget shortfalls for fiscal 2009 and 2010. Of course, things are still projected to get much worse for states, based on latest tax collections data.

In the press release, Education Secretary Arne Duncan says: "Early feedback from states also tells us that many districts are using stimulus dollars in ways that will move us beyond the status quo."

Given that most of the money has so far been used to get state K-12 funding levels up to the status quo, it will be most interesting to see what states and school districts report spending their money on. (UPDATE 2: Read Andy Smarick's take on this issue, too.)

Posted by Michele McNeil at 10:43 AM | Permalink | 1 Comment | TrackBacks (0)

Buried deep within the latest GAO report on states' use of economic-stimulus funds is some interesting insight into how the U.S. Department of Education is trying to minimize the potential for fraud and misuse of money.

The first step, apparently, is to identify "high risk" states and give them intensive technical assistance to help them implement good practices in using stimulus funds. According to the report (advance to page 61 of the PDF document), states were selected because of things "such as the number of monitoring or audit findings in the state and the level of turnover in education leadership within the state."

The four states that got the stimulus equivalent of their names written on the chalkboard are: California, Illinois, Michigan, and Texas. The District of Columbia and Puerto Rico also made the list.

The department will provide these states and territories with both financial and programmatic expertise, which could include on-site visits, according to the report by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress.

These six potential troublemakers have been identified as posing risks to a variety of programs, meaning the Education Department is concerned about their use of all stimulus aid, from State Fiscal Stabilization Fund money to smaller grant programs.

The department has also identified an additional 12 states as "high risk" when it comes to use of Title I funds—based on previous monitoring findings, state coordinator turnover, and size of the Title I allocation. They are: Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, and Oklahoma.

It's apparently a good thing that the Education Department is closely monitoring Illinois and California, because GAO already found cash-management problems with those two states. (Fast forward to page 65 of the PDF document.) Illinois, for example, is apparently sending State Fiscal Stabilization Fund money to local school districts before they're prepared to spend the funds, which is a red flag for auditors.

And some school districts in California have large pots of stimulus funds just sitting around after the state drew down 80 percent of its Title I funds and immediately sent the money to districts, apparently before they were ready to spend it. (The Education Department's inspector general raised red flags about this general issue in California in March.) This time, GAO auditors surveyed 10 districts in California that had received the largest amounts of Title I funds and found that seven had not spent any of these funds and that all 10 reported large cash balances--ranging from $4.5 million to about $135 million.

Posted by Michele McNeil at 1:07 PM | Permalink | 3 Comments | TrackBacks (0)

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which handpicked 15 states for $250,000 each in funding to help them prepare their Race to the Top Fund applications, is going to offer assistance to the remaining 35 states—if they meet eight education reform criteria.

That's according to a memo Vicki Phillips, the foundation's director of education, college ready, sent yesterday to the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers.

But before states can get an unspecified amount of money, they must meet eight criteria (outlined in Phillips' memo) that mirror the criteria by which the U.S. Department of Education has proposed judging applications for $4 billion in aid under the education-reform competition.

The Gates Foundation criteria includes whether states have signed onto the NGA-CCSSO common standards effort, whether they have alternative routes to teacher certification, and whether they have no firewall barring the use of student achievement data in teacher evaluations.

Chris Williams, a spokesman for the foundation, said he couldn't say how much money states might receive, either individually or collectively. He also wouldn't elaborate on why the Gates Foundation decided to open up its resources to the rest of the country.

However, Phillips' email gives a clue, indicating that whatever the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers said to foundation officials in response to the Chosen 15 was effective. In her email, Phillips indicates the change was the result of "much discussion and careful consideration of your feedback."

UPDATE: Dane Linn, the education division director of the NGA's Center for Best Practices, said that there was concern—especially in this economic downturn—that some states would have an advantage over others. "We are really pleased that Gates will make investments that will put everyone on equal footing," he said this morning. "We've got to create national momentum. We can't have reform in just [a few] states."

The foundation's initial Chosen 15 were: Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Texas.

After these states were chosen, there was a lot of discussion in the ed policy world that these 15 had an early edge in Race to the Top.

It's clear these states are still foundation favorites. Phillips' email says: "These states...are poised to successfully scale reform efforts that can dramatically improve student achievement. Accordingly, these states will be targets for further foundation investment provided they continue to follow through on these commitments."

UPDATE: I should point out that Gates is going to use the Arabella Legacy Fund to serve as the middleman for this grant. This is a grant management group that Gates has used before for some of its global health initiatives. Arabella staff will be the ones to run what seems to be the official warm-up to the Race to the Top—they will, on behalf of Gates, review the grant proposals from the states, answer questions, make the awards, and execute contracts.

Posted by Michele McNeil at 9:36 AM | Permalink | 4 Comments | TrackBacks (0)

Remember the compromise Congress came up with on school facilities in order to pass the economic-stimulus package? Proponents decided to ditch the billions in school construction grants to win support from moderate lawmakers for the overall stimulus. Instead, school districts were allowed to use a portion of their State Fiscal Stabilization Fund money (whatever was leftover after backfilling cuts) for school modernization, along with a whole bunch of other options.

Have any of them actually been able to take advantage of that? As we've written before, most of the $39 billion in state stabilization funding went to make up for cuts states had made to K-12 and higher education.

So far, it appears that just three states - Arkansas, Oklahoma, and West Virginia - have been able to use a portion of the governor's share of state stabilization money for school modernization and repair, according to a preliminary analysis by the very knowledgeable folks at the 21st Century School Fund, which advocates for school facilities funding, particularly for districts that serve low-income students.

Of course, not all the state stabilization money has flowed just yet, so there could be more school modernization spending down the road. But my guess is that it will be in states that are in comparatively good financial shape, since others will need the money just to make up for what they've lost.

That leaves the school construction bonding authority in the stimulus. States are just beginning to spend one large piece of that, the $22 billion in school construction bonds. Some advocates are worried that needy school districts won't be able to take advantage of the bonds because they can't even put up the principle.

But Bob Canavan, of Rebuild America's Schools, a coalition that advocates for school facilities, tells me that the bonds are very popular. In fact, out in California, school districts submitted proposals for over $3 billion worth of projects, even though the state has an allocation of just $700 million for the bonds. The Golden State is holding a lottery to decide who gets the funding, which may be more efficient, but doesn't take need into account, some advocates say.

Right now, Congress is trying to get some grant money for school facilities, both in the Senate version of next year's education spending bill and in the "bombshell" student loan bill.

But many GOP lawmakers and some moderate Democrats contend the feds have other school responsibilities to take care of first, such as special education. And they're worried that if Congress starts putting up funding for facilities, school districts and states may stop doing it themselves.

I'm exploring how much the stimulus has helped schools with construction, and I'm looking for some local examples. If you're a superintendent or administrator who has been helped (or wish you had) by the school construction money in the stimulus, please email me or, better yet, post in the comments section. And if you're skeptical of the federal role in school construction, I want to hear from you, too.

UPDATE: The original version of this blog post listed two different states, Wyoming and North Dakota, as having used the governor's share of the state stabilization money for school facilities. But an Education Week analysis and the 21st Century Schools Fund found that it was actually West Virginia and Oklahoma.

Posted by Alyson Klein at 1:02 PM | Permalink | No Comments | TrackBacks (0)