Melanie Smollin | 4 months ago | Comments (0)
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.) More
