House Dems' $100 bn. Edu-Stimulus Plan: Take Action for Hope
Published January 17, 2009 @ 01:17PM PT
House Democrats proposed an $825 billion economic stimulus package last week that made me rub my eyes in disbelief when I read this part: $100 billion of the total is earmarked for education spending.
Highlights:
- That's almost twice the $59.2 billion budget for the federal Department of Education in 2008.
- $79 billion of the $825 bn. total is for preventing cuts in state services, and most of that prevention is aimed at education.
- $20 billion goes to school construction.
- Title I program budgets will be doubled to $13 billion to help socio-economically disadvantaged students.
- States would receive another $13 billion in additional funding to support the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).
- $1 billion will go to educational technology, computer and science labs, and teacher technology training.
- $250 million in grants will be offered to states to develop longitudinal data management systems to measure individual student learning progress over the long-term.
- Another $15 billion is earmarked for "incentive grants" to encourage states to develop longitudinal data systems, better student assessments (oh yes, yes) for English language learners and special needs students (but what about all the other students?!), and the equitable assignment of teachers across school districts.
- $200 million will be spent on grants for the Teacher Incentive Fund, which encourages states to develop pay-for-performance plans (but I want to hear more on how they plan to keep this from devolving into increased pay for teaching to dumbed-down high-stakes tests).
Republicans "disappointed" with the bill
Ohio Rep. John Boehner - the same guy who begrudged the auto bailout for not cutting union benefits enough - says he's "disappointed" in the plan, and we can only hope the Democrat-controlled Congress can muster the votes to keep his free market ideology from doing to schools what it did to the markets. (I encourage him to keep obstructing, though, to enhance his chances for being voted out of office next time he's up for election.)
Please sign the petition to Congress and Obama to support the bill! Call your congresspeople, and invite others to do the same. The House Appropriations Committee will discuss the bill on January 21st, and a final funding vote is expected soon.
Image by Franco Folini
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Comments (4)
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Author
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Clay is an American high school Humanities teacher, technology coach, and Apple Distinguished Educator who has taught for the last eight years in Asian international schools. According to law, he's married to his wife. According to his wife, he's married to his Mac.
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This sounds wonderful. I'm am an educator in WV. This year our supply money seems to have disappeared. Will any of the money trickle to the teachers to be spent on supplies?
Posted by Lynn Morris on 01/18/2009 @ 02:51PM PT
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That's an extremely large amount of money to be spent on "data management." It occurs to me that those who benefit from this will be the same huge corporations who are already fattening their wallets from the testing/tutoring/training/privatization scheme known as NCLB.
More technology? The grant money is out there, the technology is in the schools, and the training is being done. Until the money goes directly into the schools having the money to hire these trained teachers, and for the students to have time to learn through technology, we'll have to be able to really teach-- not just do test-taking training.
And merit pay? Excuse me, I mean "incentive pay"-- after 30 years, I certainly do need an incentive to go to a job that harms children. The young children, who used to go to school and love to learn, now have emotional problems from being forced to base their future on one test grade. I don't know how much longer I'll be able to be part of this. Come on, folks, let's get with it. This money is OURS--the taxpayers'-- stand up for the right way to spend your dollars.
Posted by Suz McClory on 01/18/2009 @ 03:12PM PT
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There is no better investment in our future than education. Simply throwing money at the problems in education will not solve the problems. We do need to be sure the money is spent on the right programs.
Posted by Kenneth Bauer II on 01/18/2009 @ 05:59PM PT
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it's wasted on data management and more testing. i'd rather see it go to eye and dental care in low income schools...and Butler High School, where i occasionally do volunteer work, could use an upgrade...perhaps getting the black stuff that's dripping out of the airconditioners taken care of...
Posted by P K on 01/19/2009 @ 10:24AM PT
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