Obama: Education data justify jobs plan
Associated Press
August 18, 2012
Tight school budgets have meant fewer teachers, larger classes and shorter school years, according to a White House report that President Obama says shows the need for Congress to pass his proposals to help states reduce teacher layoffs.
The study concluded that 300,000 education jobs have been lost since the official end of the recession in 2009 and that student-to-teacher ratios have increased by 4.6 percent from 2008 to 2010 and are on track to grow more.
"If we want America to lead in the 21st century, nothing is more important than giving everyone the best education possible - from the day they start preschool to the day they start their career," Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday.
For Obama, the report offered a fresh chance to push a nearly year-old jobs plan he proposed that provided money for states to keep teachers, police officers and firefighters on the job. The proposal included payroll tax cuts and jobless insurance provisions that Congress has passed. But other proposals in the plan have run aground amid mostly Republican opposition.
Obama is pressing Congress to act, part of an election-year strategy to portray Republicans as obstructionists. Republicans have proposed their own measures, but they have not advanced in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
While the private sector has continued to create jobs, though at a sluggish pace, the public sector has been posting monthly job losses, contributing to an 8.3 percent unemployment rate.
Obama's plan includes $25 billion in aid to prevent layoffs of teachers and pay for other education jobs. It is part of a broader effort to retain state and local government jobs...
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/nation/article/Obama-Education-data-justify-jobs-plan-3798736.php#ixzz240zuqFFt
Showing posts with label stimulus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stimulus. Show all posts
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Low level of teacher union buy-in dooms Colorado in Race to the Top
An Early Read on the Race to Top Winners
Education Week
August 24, 2010
Posted by guest blogger Sean Cavanagh, with contributions from Sarah D. Sparks and Stephen Sawchuk.
The results are in, and the list of Race to the Top winners in Round Two includes an eclectic mix of 10 states that had put together very different kinds of applications in their funding bids for the $3.4 billion in remaining federal funds.
The winners in this second and final round announced by the U.S. Department of Education today: the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, and Rhode Island. They join first-round winners Delaware and Tennessee.
A few common threads among the 10 victorious Round Two applicants include their promises to take bold approaches to turning around low-performing schools, and in evaluating teachers.
...Rhode Island's bid, for up to $75 million... will not allow districts to assign a student to a teacher deemed ineffective two years in a row.
Several notable finalists were left off the winner's list: California and Colorado, as well as Arizona, which had greatly improved its score from the first go-around. Colorado lawmakers had revamped their state's laws on teacher evaluation since Round One, ensuring that half of an educator's rating will be based on student performance and that ineffective teachers could be dismissed more easily.
But my colleague Stephen Sawchuk notes that Colorado's level of union buy-in dropped significantly from the first round—the reviewers didn't look favorably on that disconnect in Round One.
Education Week
August 24, 2010
Posted by guest blogger Sean Cavanagh, with contributions from Sarah D. Sparks and Stephen Sawchuk.
The results are in, and the list of Race to the Top winners in Round Two includes an eclectic mix of 10 states that had put together very different kinds of applications in their funding bids for the $3.4 billion in remaining federal funds.
The winners in this second and final round announced by the U.S. Department of Education today: the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, and Rhode Island. They join first-round winners Delaware and Tennessee.
A few common threads among the 10 victorious Round Two applicants include their promises to take bold approaches to turning around low-performing schools, and in evaluating teachers.
...Rhode Island's bid, for up to $75 million... will not allow districts to assign a student to a teacher deemed ineffective two years in a row.
Several notable finalists were left off the winner's list: California and Colorado, as well as Arizona, which had greatly improved its score from the first go-around. Colorado lawmakers had revamped their state's laws on teacher evaluation since Round One, ensuring that half of an educator's rating will be based on student performance and that ineffective teachers could be dismissed more easily.
But my colleague Stephen Sawchuk notes that Colorado's level of union buy-in dropped significantly from the first round—the reviewers didn't look favorably on that disconnect in Round One.
Wednesday, October 07, 2009
Schools use stimulus funds as excuse for cutting their own funding
Voice of San Diego:
ProPublica writes about a government watchdog report that finds that many states are using school stimulus money to reduce what they chip in for education -- not to add to it as the feds had intended.
Ed. Dep’t Watchdog: Stimulus Dollars For Schools Miss The Mark
by Christopher Flavelle
ProPublica -
October 6, 2009
Some states are bending the rules that govern the use of the education stimulus dollars, according to a report [1] released last week by the Department of Education’s inspector general. The report, which carried the deceptively bland title “Potential Consequences of the Maintenance of Effort Requirements under the ARRA Fiscal Stabilization Fund,” found that some states are using the program to reduce their own funding for public education...
ProPublica writes about a government watchdog report that finds that many states are using school stimulus money to reduce what they chip in for education -- not to add to it as the feds had intended.
Ed. Dep’t Watchdog: Stimulus Dollars For Schools Miss The Mark
by Christopher Flavelle
ProPublica -
October 6, 2009
Some states are bending the rules that govern the use of the education stimulus dollars, according to a report [1] released last week by the Department of Education’s inspector general. The report, which carried the deceptively bland title “Potential Consequences of the Maintenance of Effort Requirements under the ARRA Fiscal Stabilization Fund,” found that some states are using the program to reduce their own funding for public education...
Saturday, July 25, 2009
California threatened with loss of funds if it doesn't use test scores in evaluating teachers
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has singled out as “ridiculous” California’s law dealing with the use of test scores in the evaluation of teachers.
California threatened with loss of funds if it doesn't use test scores in evaluating teachers
By Jason Felch and Jason Song
Education Week
July 24, 2009
California could lose out on millions of federal education dollars unless legislators change a law that prevents it from using student test scores to measure teachers' performance, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is expected to announce in a speech today.
California has among the worst records of any state in collecting and using data to evaluate teachers and schools.
Moreover, a 2006 law that created a teacher database explicitly prohibited the use of student test scores to hold teachers accountable on a statewide basis, although it did not mention local districts.
Only a few of the state's nearly 1,000 districts evaluate teachers by using their students' scores, though a dozen more are considering such moves, according to state officials. Los Angeles Unified, the state's largest, does not grade teachers based on student performance.
Data-driven school reform is a major focus of the Obama administration's education policies.
Duncan, who has repeatedly chastised states with similar laws, plans to withhold some economic stimulus money from those states, according to an advance text of his speech to be given today at the U.S. Department of Education in Washington.
Money from the administration's Race to the Top fund, about $4.35 billion, is intended to help states boost reform efforts at a time when most are facing severe budget cutbacks...
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Report: States aren't using stimulus funds as intended
Report: States aren't using stimulus funds as intended
July 8, 2009
By Matt Kelley, USA TODAY
Under pressure to spend stimulus money quickly, many states are using the federal funds for short-term projects and to fill budget gaps rather than spending on long-term improvements, according to a report by congressional investigators.
The report, scheduled to be released Tuesday by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) at a House oversight hearing... Some states, for example, are not sending transportation funding to the most economically distressed areas, and they are using education funds to prevent layoffs rather than fund innovative new programs, the report says.
As required by the $787 billion stimulus law, the GAO is monitoring stimulus spending in 16 states and the District of Columbia that will receive two-thirds of the federal funds...
The report says that as of mid-June, states had received about $29 billion of the estimated $49 billion in stimulus funding...
Some Democrats, such as Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, have raised the prospect of a second stimulus package. In an interview with ABC News on Tuesday, President Obama said improving the economy is "something we wrestle with constantly" but did not say whether he would support a second spending package.
The stimulus law requires states to give priority to transportation projects in economically distressed areas...
Nearly half of the $15.9 billion worth of transportation projects underway nationwide are for resurfacing or other pavement improvements, and an additional 17% are for widening existing roads, the report says. That's because paving projects can start quickly and don't usually require time-consuming environmental studies, the report says.
The report says local school officials told the GAO they did not plan to use stimulus funding for educational reform because they have to spend the money quickly and have more pressing needs. Stimulus money has saved teachers' jobs, including nearly 2,000 in the Miami-Dade school system in Florida, the report says. Education officials in Flint, Mich., said they were using stimulus money to preserve current programs although no new school buildings have been built there in more than 30 years.
[This sounds a lot like what banks did when given stimulus money to create more loans.]
July 8, 2009
By Matt Kelley, USA TODAY
Under pressure to spend stimulus money quickly, many states are using the federal funds for short-term projects and to fill budget gaps rather than spending on long-term improvements, according to a report by congressional investigators.
The report, scheduled to be released Tuesday by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) at a House oversight hearing... Some states, for example, are not sending transportation funding to the most economically distressed areas, and they are using education funds to prevent layoffs rather than fund innovative new programs, the report says.
As required by the $787 billion stimulus law, the GAO is monitoring stimulus spending in 16 states and the District of Columbia that will receive two-thirds of the federal funds...
The report says that as of mid-June, states had received about $29 billion of the estimated $49 billion in stimulus funding...
Some Democrats, such as Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, have raised the prospect of a second stimulus package. In an interview with ABC News on Tuesday, President Obama said improving the economy is "something we wrestle with constantly" but did not say whether he would support a second spending package.
The stimulus law requires states to give priority to transportation projects in economically distressed areas...
Nearly half of the $15.9 billion worth of transportation projects underway nationwide are for resurfacing or other pavement improvements, and an additional 17% are for widening existing roads, the report says. That's because paving projects can start quickly and don't usually require time-consuming environmental studies, the report says.
The report says local school officials told the GAO they did not plan to use stimulus funding for educational reform because they have to spend the money quickly and have more pressing needs. Stimulus money has saved teachers' jobs, including nearly 2,000 in the Miami-Dade school system in Florida, the report says. Education officials in Flint, Mich., said they were using stimulus money to preserve current programs although no new school buildings have been built there in more than 30 years.
[This sounds a lot like what banks did when given stimulus money to create more loans.]
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Stimulus is saving jobs at Vista Unified School District
See all posts re Vista Unified.
Stimulus funds help district to bridge gap
Budget cuts had put 200 school jobs at risk
By Bruce Lieberman
San Diego Union-Tribune Staff Writer
June 21, 2009
VISTA — Federal stimulus money saved Vista Unified School District this past week from a late round of punishing budget cuts.
The jobs of about 200 people were on the line at the district, which enrolls about 23,000 students and employs more than 2,000 teachers and other non-teaching workers.
As recently as June 12, administrators were bracing for the worst because of a grim budget update Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced in late May. The governor projected that public school districts statewide would have to cut $3.6 billion between now and the end of 2009-10.
For Vista Unified, that meant cutting $5 million before the end of the current fiscal year, June 30, and another $9.7 million for 2009-10.
This was on top of $11.8 million the district cut from its 2009-10 budget earlier this spring.
While a district committee combed the budget for more dollars and administrators waited for the state to release more federal stimulus money, a plan was developed to lay off about 200 employees.
Then on June 12, the district learned it would have access to nearly $6 million in additional federal stimulus money. At Thursday's board meeting, employees expressed relief that they'd get a reprieve at least for another year.
“You've made a lot of people very happy,” said Bill Faust, head of the district's union for 1,100 employees who do not have teaching credentials.
It's clear, however, that the federal stimulus money will not be around in 2010-11, and the district will face another round of deep cuts if the economy doesn't rebound, said Donna Caperton, Vista Unified's chief business officer...
Stimulus funds help district to bridge gap
Budget cuts had put 200 school jobs at risk
By Bruce Lieberman
San Diego Union-Tribune Staff Writer
June 21, 2009
VISTA — Federal stimulus money saved Vista Unified School District this past week from a late round of punishing budget cuts.
The jobs of about 200 people were on the line at the district, which enrolls about 23,000 students and employs more than 2,000 teachers and other non-teaching workers.
As recently as June 12, administrators were bracing for the worst because of a grim budget update Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced in late May. The governor projected that public school districts statewide would have to cut $3.6 billion between now and the end of 2009-10.
For Vista Unified, that meant cutting $5 million before the end of the current fiscal year, June 30, and another $9.7 million for 2009-10.
This was on top of $11.8 million the district cut from its 2009-10 budget earlier this spring.
While a district committee combed the budget for more dollars and administrators waited for the state to release more federal stimulus money, a plan was developed to lay off about 200 employees.
Then on June 12, the district learned it would have access to nearly $6 million in additional federal stimulus money. At Thursday's board meeting, employees expressed relief that they'd get a reprieve at least for another year.
“You've made a lot of people very happy,” said Bill Faust, head of the district's union for 1,100 employees who do not have teaching credentials.
It's clear, however, that the federal stimulus money will not be around in 2010-11, and the district will face another round of deep cuts if the economy doesn't rebound, said Donna Caperton, Vista Unified's chief business officer...
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