Following Education's Piece of the Stimulus Pie: Part VII

Ever since President Obama announced that $100 billion of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds would be given to Education, I’ve been following the money trail, month after month, and writing about where it leads.

To that end, I just finished reading a report released jointly by the White House and the Department of Education entitled “Educational Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.”

The 20-page document is a preview of the first official quarterly report, to be posted by the Recovery, Accountability, and Transparency Board on October 30, which will be a detailed account of all expenditures to date.

According to preliminary estimates, 250,000 education jobs were retained or created across the country thanks to ARRA funding. These jobs include teachers, principals, and support staff in elementary and secondary schools, as well as educational, administrative, and support personnel in colleges and universities. (The document mentions that since states are still finalizing their ARRA reports, this initial number is an estimate subject to revision. In fact, according to the New York Post,  the number of teaching jobs saved in New York City is actually 14,000, which is considerably higher than the 4,000 listed.)

A few more details: Out of the total $97.4 billion to be appropriated, $67.6 billion has already been obligated as of September 30. What remains to be given out includes: $13.2 billion State Fiscal Stabilization Fund, $7.8 billion Student Financial Assistance (for Pell Grant and Federal Work-Study programs), $0.1 billion Title I funding, $3.1 billion Additional Formula Grants, and $5.7 billion Discretionary Grants (comprised mostly of Arne Duncan’s Race to the Top fund.)

While saving a quarter of a million jobs is no small feat, and ARRA funds clearly helped cash-strapped states fill holes in their budgets, many school districts still had to resort to cutting both programs and people. And schools are not out of the water just yet. Not even close. According to the Washington Post,  the National Conference of State Legislatures is forecasting state budget shortfalls for fiscal year 2011 totaling at least $61 billion across 27 states with five additional states also predicting shortages.

So much for school reform. If ARRA funds are barely even enough for schools to keep existing personnel and programs, as states experience future budget gaps, how will there be enough money to fund new reform efforts?

Former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of education Andy Smarick points out that the $4.35 billion “Race to the Top fund,” which hasn’t been paid out yet, may be our last hope for a reform catalyst since U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan will only direct funds to states that commit to following certain federal reform guidelines. But Smarick also notes several possible scenarios in which states can commit on paper to adopting certain reforms, and once they are rewarded with funding, turn around and use those funds in other ways. This likelihood increases when you consider that most states will be desperate to fill existing budget gaps, and embarking on new reform ventures may seem like a luxury they cannot afford.

As I concluded in a previous post, while the billions of ARRA dollars originally had the potential to fund major educational reform efforts across the country, a deepening recession forced states to use the majority of funds as a life raft instead of as a springboard for change. Going forward, individual districts and schools will have to figure out how to continue to stretch their budgets, as best as they can, while they weather out the rest of the economic storm.  The question is, once the storm finally clears, how much damage will have been done?

Photo courtesy of borman818’s photostream/ Creative Commons