Education+and+Obama+01-23-09

01-23-09 =Education Funding According to President Obama and Secretary of Education Duncan =  Welcome back everyone. I know the K-12 teachers have been in the classroom since the first week of January, and the high school teachers are in the midst of midterm exams now. Here at UConn we had our first classes on the day of President Obama’s inauguration. I watched the inauguration on the computer in my office while I did some last minute preparations for my first class of the semester. It’s exciting to have a new president and to have been witness to history as we inaugurated our first African-American president. It’s also exciting to hope that the new administration will be more friendly to education than most of us considered the Bush administration to be. Having said that, I thought to discuss the education proposals of President Obama and new Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

It might surprise many of us that education spending under President Bush actually increased since 2001, although once you calculate for inflation that increase flattens out. Under Bush, funding for the NWP increased, though, ultimately, he just signed the bill into law. Currently, the NWP’s bipartisan supported budget is around $23 million, with mature sites like ours receiving a core grant of $46,000. Regardless, state rescissions ordered by Governor Rell trickled down to us in the form of a $12,000 cut in our operating budget, with more cuts potentially on the way. So, when President Obama’s $825 billion economic stimulus plan was unveiled last week, we were excited to learn that it calls for almost $142 billion—yes, billion—to be spent on education //in the next two years//. It’s a staggering figure. This is more than the funding for health care, infrastructure, or energy. Everyone hopes that this money will fill in the gaps in our programs. However, excitement notwithstanding, we should pay close attention to what President Obama and Secretary Duncan have called for in this plan and in their public statements. I say this because there are many controversial ideas.

Here are some of the proposals I expect most educators to support unequivocally: reworking of and increased funding for NCLB, anywhere from $2-$4 billion, bringing the total close to $30 billion; up to $25 billion for school repairs, significantly short of what is needed (about ten times that amount according to the AFT), but still a significant investment; $2,500 tax credits for low income earners to pay for college, not a staggering amount but certainly capable of going a long way at most community colleges; significantly increased investment in student aid, such as $15 billion for Pell grants alone; and an additional $10 billion for early childhood programs such as Head Start.

But to get this money, teachers are going to have to give ground a little—and maybe a lot. For one thing, Obama wants to see matching funds from state governments, which may be difficult to come up with and get votes for. He’s also in favor of block grants to states, an old GOP favorite. Of course the difference here is that the GOP under Presidents Reagan and Bush wanted to offer block grants to states and eliminate the Department of Education. President Obama has suggested no such thing, but block grants do set a precedent for education funding that has been opposed by the NEA and AFT for more than two decades. Testing and data collection are also central to President Obama’s plan. He wants to improve the tests our students take and use longitudinal data to track student and school progress. On the one hand, who can argue with better tests and longitudinal data? Remember, NCLB doesn’t use longitudinal data when it tracks adequate yearly progress. Under current law, progress is measured by comparing the standardized test scores of this year’s sophomores to those of last year’s sophomores. Longitudinal testing would compare the scores of this year’s juniors to their own scores from last year. Infinitely more sensible, but nonetheless we’d see a vast increase in testing and data collection. President Obama has also called for better recruitment and retention of quality teachers. Reading between the lines, this means merit pay. When he says better recruitment, he means being able to offer a hiring bonus to a stellar candidate, and when he says retention he means being able to pay a bonus to a teacher who has raised his or her students’ test scores. There’s a reason Arne Duncan called himself the CEO of the Chicago Public School system during his appointment hearing. Now, at UConn, we get merit pay. Mostly it is based on publication, since UConn is considered a research institution. But this is controversial because there are a lot of great teachers and administrators on the faculty who may not be publishing much, and not everyone agrees on how to award them merit, or even //if// they should be awarded merit. In K-12 education, we all know great teachers who would be deserving of merit pay, but if merit pay becomes a requirement for federal funding, the devil will be in the details. President Obama and Secretary Duncan also support expansion of the charter school system, but I won’t go into detail about this, since in Connecticut we are familiar with the pros and cons of charter and magnet schools.

Lastly, I’ll call your attention to a couple of things Secretary Duncan mentioned in his hearing. One is national board certification of teachers. Not a bad thing, but huge if it becomes a requirement. And finally, Secretary Duncan went on record saying that our school day, our school week, and our school year are too short. He would like to see evening classes offered in all secondary schools. And for all levels of education he advocates Saturday classes and a school year that runs a month longer than the current 180 days. No one mentioned if the stimulus package would include funding for air conditioning to accommodate all those additional classes in August.

[|Click here for a link to President Obama's plans for education in his economic stimulus package.] This posting on the newly revamped White House website does not include monetary figures. I culled those from a variety of news reports--primarily CNN, //The Washington Post//, and //The New York Times//.

[|Click here for a link to the transcript of Arne Duncan's confirmation hearing.]

To respond to this post, click the **Discussion** tab above.