Ed Money Watch

Much speculation about state eligibility for Race to the Top funds has been circulating in the education arena since the draft guidelines and priorities for the funds were released in late July (final guidelines will be released in the fall with funds going out in early 2010). Race to the Top, a new competitive grant program authorized by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), provides $4.35 billion to states to support advances in standards and assessments, state data systems, teacher distribution, and assistance to struggling schools (the four assurances required in the ARRA). The New Teacher Project, a non-profit that focuses on narrowing the achievement gap by improving teacher quality and is not involved in the distribution of Race to the Top funds, recently released a state scorecard (link updated) which analyzes each state's eligibility for funds based on the draft guidelines. This document provides some important insight into the state of education reform across the country.

The New Teacher Project (TNTP) scorecard judges states' eligibility for the Race to the Top funds based on five criteria:

School districts around the country are engaging in some tricky budget tactics to make ends meet during these tough economic times. Current teacher salary schedules, which provide salary increases in "steps" based on experience and credentials, provide obstacles to simply lowering teacher compensation to prevent layoffs. While some districts have been able to use stimulus funds to rehire previously laid-off teachers, many have not been so lucky.

A recently released study by Marguerite Roza from the Center on Reinventing Public Education outlines several options districts can use to balance their budgets. While these provide alternatives to significant layoffs, they often require approval by local teachers unions - a difficult task. Nevertheless, news sources suggest that districts are successfully engaging in many of these options.

At Ed Money Watch, we discuss and analyze major issues affecting education funding. In our Friday News Roundup, we try to highlight interesting stories that might otherwise get overlooked. These stories emphasize how federal and state policy changes can affect local schools and districts.

Mississippi Early Education Program Could Receive Federal Funding

Missouri Districts Grapple with How to Spend Stimulus Money

Governor Richardson Announces Plan to Turn Around New Mexico Dropout Problem

North Carolina Raises Taxes, Cuts Budget for Schools

Earlier this week, Ed Money Watch compared House and Senate versions of the fiscal year 2010 Labor - HHS - Education appropriations bills and showed that there are significant differences among the President's request and House- and Senate-proposed education funding levels. These funding differences might spell the end of the Even Start program when the 2010 appropriation becomes law later this year.

Even Start is a small education program ($66.5 million in fiscal year 2009) that has been under fire since early in the Bush Administration. It is intended to integrate early education, adult education, and parenting education into "family literacy" programs in order to improve educational opportunities for low-income children and parents.

Evaluations of the program's effectiveness have been mixed, which prompted the Bush Administration to recommend year after year that Congress eliminate the program. The often-cited Third National Even Start Evaluation: Program Impacts and Implications for Improvement of 2003 concluded that Even Start participants did not make significantly greater gains than those in a comparison group not receiving services. However, many Even Start supporters and advocates have argued that this evaluation is now outdated, and it relies on too small a sample to represent the entire Even Start program. They also claim that the program's results cannot be adequately measured through quantitative evaluations.

Funding legislation for most federal education programs has been advancing in both the House and Senate in the past weeks. The fiscal year 2010 Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill has been approved by the full House and has been cleared by the Appropriations Committee in the Senate. It appears that the full Senate will take up the bill when it returns in September from recess. Then, both Chambers will still need to work out any differences among their respective versions before the appropriations bill can be sent to the President for his signature. Fiscal year 2010 begins October 1^st, 2009, although much of the education funding provided in the bill is intended for the 2010-11 school year. 

The table below compares proposed 2010 funding levels for key federal programs in the President's request and the House and Senate versions of the Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill. Note that the Senate has not yet publicly released its version, so only limited information is available for the table below.

At Ed Money Watch, we discuss and analyze major issues affecting education funding. In our Friday News Roundup, we try to highlight interesting stories that might otherwise get overlooked. These stories emphasize how federal and state policy changes can affect local schools and districts.

State Budget Includes Major Cuts to Ohio Grant Program

Pennsylvania Budget Deadlock Prevents Payment to Schools

Faculty Union in California Accepts Furloughs

New GAO Report: State Implementation of Career and Technical Education

The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and Labor last week approved legislation, the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2009, that would eliminate the Federal Family Education Loan  (FFEL) program and use much of the savings to increase funding for other education programs. The full House may vote on the bill soon, but the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee is not likely to release its companion proposal until the fall. Let's take a look at some of the new spending proposed in the bill.

Congress is using the budget reconciliation process to move the bill to final passage, which allows for expedited consideration and filibuster-proof privilege in the Senate. Under the reconciliation instructions adopted by Congress earlier this year, the student aid bill must result in $1 billion in savings over the coming five years. Because the bill's core proposal—administrative savings in student loan programs—reduces spending by $41.8 billion over the 2009-2014 period, the bill's drafters are able to increase funding in other programs and still meet the $1 billion requirement. In fact, the bill includes $30.3 billion in gross new spending over that time period.

Over the past couple of weeks, the Department of Education has approved the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund (SFSF) applications of 14 more states. These states join the 36 states/territories that have already begun to receive funds. As of July 17th, nearly $8.7 billion in SFSF monies have been disbursed to states. (Previous posts analyzing the applications of the first 36 states/territories can be found here, here, here, here, here, and here.)

The full table of all approved states/territories can be accessed here.

At Ed Money Watch, we discuss and analyze major issues affecting education funding. In our Friday News Roundup, we try to highlight interesting stories that might otherwise get overlooked. These stories emphasize how federal and state policy changes can affect local schools and districts.

Separation of Degrees - A Report on Teacher Compensation

Illinois Cuts Millions from Education Budget

Budget Plan Approved in California Senate

Maryland Faces Budget Cuts, Preserves Money for K-12

On Tuesday, the House Education and Labor Committee approved a bill that makes major changes to federal higher education assistance programs. The full House may vote on it as early as next week. At the core of the bill is one of President Obama’s priority education issues: shifting all federal student loans to the Direct Loan program, generating significant administrative savings that are redirected to expand student aid. The House, however, breaks with the President’s proposal on how the savings will be spent, particularly with respect to Pell Grants.

The Pell Grant program is the cornerstone of federal grant aid for low-income college students. In academic year 2008-09, eligible students received Pell Grants worth between $890 and $4,731 each to pay tuition and attendance costs.