Education Stimulus

The Department of Education (ED) released long awaited guidance documents for the major programs funded in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act on April 1st. Each document specifies how funds for each program will be distributed, how each governor must disperse the funds, and how states and local education agencies (LEAs) will be able to use them.  Because each document is 40 pages or longer, we will summarize the guidance in three separate posts.  Yesterday we discussed the guidance for the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund.

Today, we take you through the details of the guidance for the Title I, Part A funds provided in the stimulus.

Unfortunately, this round of guidance does not provide specifics on programs and services states and LEAs can support with the new Title I funds.  But it does provide extensive details on how states must distribute the money among LEAs and what requirements LEAs must follow while using the money.

The Department of Education released long awaited guidance documents for the major programs funded in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act today. Each document specifies how funds for each program will be distributed, how each governor must disperse the funds, and how states and local education agencies (LEAs) or institutions of higher education (IHEs) may use them.  Because each document is 40 pages or longer, we will summarize the guidance in three separate posts.  Below, we take you through the details of the guidance for the Education Stabilization Fund section of the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund (SFSF).

The guidance divides the SFSF into two parts - the Education Stabilization Fund (81.8 percent which must be used for pre-K through higher ed purposes), and the Government Services Fund (18.2 percent which can be used for government services, education purposes, or school modernization, renovation, or repair). Within the Education Stabilization Fund section, the guidance provides separate instructions for the use of funds by LEAs (including charter schools) and the use of funds by IHEs. 

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) provided new or additional funds for several federal education programs. Title I and IDEA, programs that received more than $10 billion each in the stimulus legislation, have gotten significant coverage in the media.  But several smaller programs have been mostly overlooked. Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems (SLDS), an Institute of Education Sciences (IES) competitive grant programs that was allocated $250 million in the stimulus, could play a major role in improving state data capabilities and meeting reform goals in the future.

SLDS was authorized by the Educational Technical Assistance Act of 2002 to aid states as they create and implement longitudinal data systems.  Longitudinal data systems typically track individual student records, including demographics, achievement on state tests, and sometimes transcripts, over time and across schools and school districts. Strong systems can link students to teachers or include data on district finances such as per pupil spending on specific programs.

These data systems can improve a state's ability to organize and analyze student-level education data including achievement outcomes. Similarly, strong systems can help districts, schools, and teachers improve student learning using up-to-date information on student progress.

By Kevin Hartnett

When No Child Left Behind (NCLB) became law in 2001, it mandated that all classrooms be staffed by a "highly qualified" teacher, re-igniting the debate around how teachers are trained and recruited. 

At the center of the debate are Alternative Certification (AC) programs. These programs fast-track teacher candidates with prior "real-world" experience into classrooms by requiring them to take fewer courses than are required in Traditional Certification (TC) programs (like an undergraduate degree in education). Proponents of AC programs argue that traditional training courses add little to a teacher's ability, while critics charge that AC programs yield fundamentally unprepared educators. In 2008 AC teachers accounted for one-third of all new teaching hires. While several academic studies have attempted to assess the efficacy of AC programs over TC programs, few have been able to produce clear evidence one way or the other. 

A new report from the Department of Education (ED) sheds light on the AC debate.  The study compared 87 TC teachers and 87 AC teachers in 63 different schools, across seven states, over a two-year period. AC and TC teachers within the same school were paired and each randomly assigned a class of students. After controlling for background characteristics like teaching experience and prior academic achievement, the study found that type of teacher preparation had no significant effect on student achievement.

Making sense of the federal education budget and the appropriations process can be a frustrating task for education advocates, state and local policymakers, the media, and the public. The now concluded fiscal year 2009 appropriations process is no exception due to numerous stopgap funding measures and emergency economic stimulus legislation.

Congress completed the fiscal year 2009 appropriations process on March 10^th, 2009, finalizing annual funding for nearly all federal education programs through September 2009 at $62.6 billion, up $3.4 billion from the prior year. The President signed the bill into law the same day.

The New America Foundation's Federal Education Budget Project has released a guide to the appropriations process and recently enacted 2009 education funding, including economic stimulus funding signed into law earlier this year through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Earlier this week the Department of Education released its first set of Stimulus guidelines for states and local education agencies.  The four documents provide general information about the stimulus and details on the application process for State Fiscal Stabilization Funds, Title I Stimulus funds, and IDEA Stimulus funds.  Below, we summarize some of those details.

Overarching Goals

Each document introduces the Stimulus guidelines in the context of four main goals for the use and impact of stimulus dollars. The first goal, "spend funds quickly to save and create jobs," encourages states and LEAs to rapidly plan out spending that will have the greatest impact on the economy.  The second states that dollars should be used to improve student achievement by setting college- and career-ready standards, creating Pre-K through college data systems, improving teacher effectiveness and distribution, and supporting schools identified as in need of improvement. The third goal requires "transparency, reporting, and accountability" in the distribution and use of stimulus funds.  The final goal asks that states and LEAs use new funding in "thoughtful" ways that do not create large decreases in funding or "cliffs" when the stimulus runs out.

The main introductory document provides a timeline for the distribution of funds under each program in the stimulus. The timeline is as follows:

It's on its way.

Over the weekend, the Department of Education released guidelines for the implementation of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA, or the "stimulus bill"), which includes nearly $100 billion in funding for PK-16 education.

Department of Education funding for early education will come through three programs: the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund, Title I funding, and IDEA. Note: we are still waiting for more information from the Department of Education, which plans to issue further guidelines in the coming weeks on how states can use ARRA funds for early childhood. The Department of Health and Human Services also has yet to release new information on ARRA funding for early education programs under its remit (including $2.1 billion for Head Start and Early Head Start and $2 billion for the Child Care Development Block Grant.)

Since the President signed the stimulus bill (also known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) on February 17^th, school districts across the country have anxiously awaited the arrival of their Title I and IDEA funds.  The House Education and Labor committee published data on how much money each district is estimated to receive.  But few have taken a closer look at how those dollars relate to poverty and district size.

To get a better sense of how stimulus allocations will be affecting students in school districts across the country, we examined both the total stimulus funding per student and the Title I stimulus funding per poor student.  As we've discussed previously, it's estimated that districts will receive widely varying amounts of stimulus money based on these two measures. Some districts will receive as little as $1 per student or as much as $17,893 per student in total stimulus funds.  At the extremes, the district receiving the most Title I stimulus per poor student will get an estimated $36,889, while the district receiving the least will get $123 per poor student. 

Our Findings

This Guest Post was written by Phillip Lovell from First Focus and  Barbara Duffield from the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth.

Barely a day goes by without a front page story covering some aspect of the recession. Much of what we read hits on the economic nature of the crisis; much less attention has been paid to the impact of the economic downturn on children.

Policymakers are finally noticing the recession's impact on children. Last summer, Congress passed major legislation-The Housing and Economic Recovery Act-that dedicated two (out of 261) pages to addressing the needs of children who have become homeless due to the foreclosure crisis.  More recently, the economic stimulus package, otherwise known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, includes millions in funding for school districts to help keep children and youth in school even if they lose their homes. These funds are provided through The McKinney-Vento Act's Education for Homeless Children and Youth (EHCY) program.

States, legislators and the public have engaged in endless speculation about the impact of the federal stimulus bill recently enacted, particularly as it concerns the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund. But the more people speculate, the more it becomes clear that many are misinformed about the purpose of the Stabilization Fund and the mechanics by which it will be distributed.  Today we're going to walk you through the mechanics of the Stabilization Fund to help you understand what it really means for states and school districts.

As we've written before, the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund consists of three major parts to be administered by the Department of Education. The first is the State Incentive Grant program - $4.35 billion to be distributed via competitive grants to governors for education purposes. To qualify, each governor must submit their plans to improve the equitable distribution of teachers, the collection and use of data, the quality of standards and assessments, and the support provided for schools identified as in need of improvement under No Child Left Behind.

State Incentive Grants are expected to encourage states to improve their performance in these important academic indicators through extra, targeted boosts in funding. Governors must direct at least 50 percent of the Incentive Grants funds they receive directly to local education agencies (LEAs).