Two days a go Secretary Duncan visited Wakefield High School in Arlington, VA. He spoke optimistically about the Stimulus package when he said:
…with the President’s leadership, with a bipartisan Congress that’s really committed to education, with support of great, great students and teachers and parents and principals around the country, we have a once in a lifetime historic opportunity to make things better for our children, to stimulate the economy short-term, and long-term to better educate our way to a stronger economy, which is the only way we can do it.
Last night Senator Reid announced that a deal had been struck. The bottom line, $789 billion total package, was less than either the House or the Senate version. The final version has not yet been released, but we do know that the amount dedicated to education was up from the Senate version but far less than the House version. The Wall Street Journal reported the following regarding the stabilization fund going to states:
Of those funds, [ the $789 billion] $40.6 billion would go to local school districts to avoid teacher layoffs or to build or renovate schools. A further $5 billion would be for bonus grants to schools and districts that meet educational performance measures. And $8 billion would be set aside to avoid cuts in “high-priority needs,” such as police, fire and prisons. The overall stabilization fund is considerably higher than the Senate’s $39 billion total but far less than the House’s $95 billion.
It looks like $11.5 billion for IDEA and $10 billion for Title I are still in the package, although nothing is official until the final language is available. What really matters to classrooms around the nation is what happens in the state house. Whether states see the strategic importance of education in the recovery will be tested by how they approach their budget process. Cynics, who incidentally have history on their side, will say that states will do everything possible to use federal dollars to supplant state dollars. The stimulus money is a one time infusion over two budget years. Local school districts are traditionally more sensitive to these short term infusions and the net result may well be that education will be hurt badly as it was in the early eighties. By this time tomorrow we should have a more detailed picture of the education components in the stimulus bill. Many serious questions will remain unanswered.
It seems certain that both President Obama and his new Secretary of Education have a strategic vision for public education’s role in the recovery. The House delivered on that vision, but a funny thing happened on the way to the forum: three Republican Senators took an opportunity to leverage the process that only Wall Street mavens could appreciate and the President’s vision was severely diminished at least for the moment.
