President Obama presented his budget request to Congress on Monday, and the proposals lines up with what his administration has focused on so far:
the Race to the Top franchise, launched under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, would get $850 million, a big jump from the current year’s level of $550 million... a $100 million increase to the nearly $300 million Teacher Incentive Fund, which provides grants to districts to create pay-for-performance programs...Promise Neighborhoods, which was drastically underfunded for such an extensive program, is up for $100 million.
Worryingly, some bread-and-butter programs that districts really depend on are slated for level-funding:
...Title I grants to help districts educate disadvantaged children would get $14.5 billion, and special education state grants would get $11.6 billion...And note that these, unlike RTTT, are programs with a long track record of making a substantial difference in kids' lives and educations.
And if you haven't had enough of competitive grant programs, here's a new one:
Combined that with the proposed changes to Title II:...the $5 billion proposal for a new, competitive grant program that would help states take what the administration is billing as big, “bold” steps to overhaul teacher quality. For example, states could use the funds to revamp colleges of education and make them more selective, make sure teachers’ salaries are tied to student achievement, improve professional development and offer teachers more planning time, and craft new evaluation systems.
Mr. Obama also wants to direct a big portion of the nearly $2.5 billion in funding that states now use for class-size reduction and professional development to a competitive grant program. The proposal would siphon off a quarter of the funding—$about 620 million—for competitive grants that focus on a host of teacher-quality issues, including expanding the number of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics teachers, and bolstering teacher preparationand you've got a) local budgetary messes and b) even more business for the grant-writing department. As this administration has a lousy record when it comes to tying these grants to actual research on what helps kids...not a great direction.
However, there is a request for $30 billion to work on school facilities!
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