I've commented before that Secretary Duncan was very strongly in favor of the federal government staying out of local decisions...right up until that federal government became, well, him.
The trend continues.
Leonie Haimson writes on Huffington Post this week that the Obama administration is pushing to take money from Title II--"Highly Qualified" teacher funds--to fund programs like Teach for America. She notes that in many cases, Title II funds are used to lower class size by hiring additional teachers, one of the things we know actually works when improving student achievement. And we also have ten years of data on what TFA does for student achievement.
But you know, when we've got a long-standing program that's been shown to work up against a new program that sure looks swell and has big money support...in an election year...
You can find how much money your state may lose here. For Massachusetts, it's a bit over $11 million, a loss of about 25% for FY14.
Worcester is budgeting for a loss of 15% for FY13 (see p. 181), though in our case, Title II has not been used for class size; it's used for instructional coaches.
*Yes, I'm sure I'm dating myself here.
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