Posted on 12/02/2010 4:15:36 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
Federal stimulus money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has not generated the kind of educational reforms the law sought, according to a new study released Wednesday.
Nearly two years after the act provided more than $100 billion in stimulus funding for public education nationwide, its impact on student achievement has largely been muted, the study by the nonprofit Bellwether Education Partners in Washington, D.C., argues.
Although the act has given school districts money to address budget cuts in the short term, study co-author Sara Mead said, it was also intended to spur reforms in four key areas -- standards and assessments, data systems to track students' progress, teacher effectiveness and turning around low-performing schools.
But that reform component of the law for the most part has not happened, Mead said.
Part of the reason is that districts have primarily used the stimulus funds to maintain spending levels in the face of state and local budget cuts, the study found. Another reason is that districts "experienced considerable confusion about the purpose of ARRA funds and how they should be used."
The Bellwether study notes that districts will have to contend with painful budget decisions once all the funds dry up.
Many districts are carrying "structural deficits that even if the economy improves, (the fiscal problems) will still be there," Mead said. "Folks need to look at that, consider what they need to cut and think about investing in programs that work."
(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
It was all a lie just like there are such things as “shovel ready jobs”.
Duh !!
The only “reform” the democrat fascists had in mind was a huge kickback for their supporters. Anyone who believed their BS about it being intended to do anything else is just gullible. As for there being any “confusion” over how to use the funds, the only thing they may have had questions about was whether or not there would be audits that might catch them using the funds to give teachers and administrators more money or more benefits rather than doing any of the things the propagandists said they would do.
Face facts, the democrat cabal in Congress hasn’t done what it said it would do with a single cent ever since they sixties. That’s why the democrat party referred to the LBJ initiatives as “The Great Society”, democrat thugs and their selected nobles from that time onward were going to have a society all to themselves completely isolated from the ups and downs of the nation at large.
Regards
What you subsidize, you encourage. The Gipper told us that years ago.
Federal money to the school district encourages a behemoth federally dependent school district.
Study finds federal stimulus funds not driving school reforms as intended...
In a related story... Water is wet.
I am astonished!
In case the DC pols missed it, teacher unions are dead against any testing, teacher competency or student achievment. So, where was the money going to go? How about into salaries and benefits!
Remember the Clinton much ballyhooed 100,000 new police officers. No problem money appropriated for one year. What happened after the fed money ran out? The locals, who hired up, had to locally sustain their police payrolls. Ever try to cut a public safety(!)position as a pol? You do it when you wish to lose the next election. Same here, wait till the locals are faced not just with the problems they had before the federal handout, they have those same problems now, enhanced by the demon largess! Bend over taxpayers, here it comes.
The bottom feeders of our society vote for fellow bottom feeders to get the freebies that they confiscate from the producers in the economy by force of government. That has always been their mode of operation and was one of the reasons the Founders warned against making the USA a democracy instead of keeping it a republic.
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