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by Grace Stopani

2012-2013 federal education budget

December 22, 2011 in Next Generation Learning, Professional and Clinical Topics

Congress has finalized the federal education budget for the 2012-13 school year.  With all the rhetoric about cutting federal spending, I expected deep cuts across the board.  But education actually came out fairly well.

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Programs receiving increases:

  • Title I  +$60M increase
  • IDEA  +$100M increase
  • Head Start +$424M increase

New programs

  • New comprehensive literacy program for birth-grade 12 at $160M.  Still to be determined if this funding will fund continuation funds for the 2011 Striving Reader awardees or if this will be a new grant program with new requirements.

Level funding

  • School Improvement Grants
  • Title III
  • Investing in Innovation
  • High School Graduation Initiative
  • 21st Century Community Learning Centers

Programs with cuts:

  • Race to the Top – cut from $700M to $550M.  The new round of funding will be open to state and districts, with a “robust early education component”
  • Teacher Incentive Fund for performance pay – cut from $400M to $300M

Programs cut entirely:

  • Teaching American History
  • Foreign Language Assistance Program
  • Voluntary Public School Choice

After all the funding was determined, there was a 0.189% across-the-board rescission to all programs in the Labor-HHS-Education Section of the budget.  But school districts aren’t likely to feel that cut too greatly since it was so small.

Here’s a helpful chart from the Committee for Education Funding that outlines all the federal education funding categories.  If you have funding questions, please email grantexperts@pearson.com.

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by Grace Stopani

Funding drama ahead

November 11, 2011 in Professional and Clinical Topics

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Back in August, the issue of raising the debt ceiling was all over the headlines.  But public interest has been diverted to new scandals, government upheavals across the globe, and juicy celebrity gossip.

In two weeks, you will see this issue come back to the forefront.  When Congress raised the debt ceiling in August, they agreed to form a new joint Congressional committee.  By November 23, they must recommendations for reducing the deficit by $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years.  By December 23, Congress must approve those recommendations or else automatic across-the-board cuts go into place, including the defense budget.  The Department of Education would also not be immune. The Committee for Education Funding estimates that $1.5 trillion would equate to a 6.7% cut in most agencies which would be about $3 billion from the Dept. of Education.

Will Republicans and Democrats on the super committee be able to find agreement?  What budgets will be cut and by how much?  Will taxes be increased?  Everyone agrees the United States needs to be more prudent in debt management, but I’ll be curious to see if Congress can make the necessary hard choices when so much is at stake.

 

 

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by Grace Stopani

6 States awarded Striving Readers grants

September 7, 2011 in Professional and Clinical Topics

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The Department of Education has awarded six states the Striving Readers Comprehensive Literacy grant:

  • Georgia, $25,650,000
  • Louisiana, $28,500,000
  • Montana, $7,600,000
  • Nevada, $14,250,000
  • Pennsylvania, $38,000,000
  • Texas, $66,500,000

Each awarded state will hold a grant competition among school districts and early childhood providers.  Fifteen percent of the funds will serve children from birth through age 5, 40 percent will support students in grades K-5, and 40 percent will target middle and high schools. The remaining five percent will be used by states to administer the grant. Funds will support programs that advance literacy skills through professional development, screening and assessment, targeted interventions for students reading below grade level and other research-based methods of improving classroom instruction and practice.

The Pearson’s Grants Team has been tracking this grant closely and is offering a free webinar to help school districts learn about this one-time influx of federal literacy funding.  Webinar participants will learn about the funding timeline, how money will be distributed through the state to individual districts, and what can be purchased with the funds.

Webinar: Top 5 Things You Need to Know about the Striving Readers Grant

Date: Thursday, September 29, 2011

Time: 12pm Eastern

Click here to register.

More information about Striving Reading requirements can be found at www.pearsonschool.com/strivingreaders.

 

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by Grace Stopani

Striving Readers

June 21, 2011 in Next Generation Learning, Professional and Clinical Topics

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Have you heard about the Striving Readers grant?  This grant has not received as much attention as Race to the Top or Investing in Innovation, but it’s worth a second look. Here’s what you need to know:

First, this is different funding than the 2006 Striving Readers grant focused on adolescent literacy under the Bush administration.  This grant’s official name is Striving Readers Comprehensive Literacy (SRCL).  The aim is to improve literacy for children from birth through 12th grade.

SRCL funding was cut from the FY 2011 budget, however the 2010 money had not been distributed yet.  So the $178 million that will be distributed in 2011-12 school year is actually from the 2010 federal budget.

Eligibility: All states were eligible to submit an application by May 9, but only a handful of states will receive funding.  Depending on the size of the states awarded, we expect to see between 3-18 states will receive funding.  See the table below for the maximum budget allowed by each state:

 

Maximum Budget States
up to $70 million California, Texas
up to $50 million Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico
up to $30 million Alabama, Arizona, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Washington
up to $15 million Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Utah
up to $8 million Alaska, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, Maine, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, Wyoming

Targeted students: As with most federal funds, the focus is on high-need students including students with disabilities and limited English-proficient students.

Funding: States must subgrant at least 95% of the award to Local Education Agencies and early childhood providers.

  • at least 15% of funds must serve birth to age 5
  • at least 40% must serve K-5
  • at least 40% must serve middle and high school students

Timeline: Awarded states will be announced in August.  It is likely that the awarded states will hold grant competitions this fall to subgrant the funding.

What will be funded: Grantees will use SRCL funds for professional development, screening and assessment, targeted interventions for students reading below grade level and other research-based methods of improving classroom instruction and practice.  States participating in the Common Core Standards initiative are expected to use this funding to implement materials that align to the new standards.

To learn more, visit the Pearson Grant Team’s Striving Readers page.

 

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by Grace Stopani

40+ funding sources to be cut? Should I be worried?

June 2, 2011 in Next Generation Learning

You may have heard recently that the House Education Committee is working on a bill to eliminate forty-three K-12 federal education programs.  Although this sounds alarming, don’t panic just yet.

Here are the characteristics of most of the program cuts:

  • Already defunded. At least 17 of the programs listed have already been defunded; some haven’t been funded since 2004!  So this move would take the out-dated programs completely off the ESEA legislation.
  • Small. Most are small grant programs under $50M, so these grants are extremely competitive.  Most have fewer than 100 awards nationally…which means fewer constituents would be upset if this funding disappeared.

All that said, here’s what I don’t like about this bill:

  • This is different than just budget cuts.  This bill removes the legal authorization to ever put funding in these programs in the future.
  • It would eliminate the only federal funding source dedicated to technology (Enhancing Education Through Technology) and the only federal funding source dedicated to literacy (Striving Readers).  Even though these funding sources were already cut from the 2011-12 school year, this would remove any hope of reviving these programs in the future.
  • During this economic crisis, I hate to see any federal education funding cut.  Even the obscure grants that few people know about.  For the staff positions funded by these grants and for the students who receive these services above-and-beyond what the district can fund, these grants would be sorely missed.

Future of the bill? Here’s another reason why it’s still not time to panic: some of these programs will be eliminated, but it’s unlikely that the full list of 43 will be cut.  For example, the chairman of the Senate education committee has spoken against the elimination of Striving Readers.  So stay tuned to see how the budget drama will unfold.

 

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by Grace Stopani

So long, EETT

April 25, 2011 in Data and Technology

Congress has trimmed $1 billion off the federal education budget for the 2011-12 school year, including all funding for the Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT) program.  Many school districts relied on this funding to purchase up-to-date hardware, software, and technology-related professional development.  Each state customized their grant program for local technology needs, so some states focused on specific grade levels or certain types of technology like 1:1 laptop initiatives.  Results from the annual SETDA report show the program was helping teachers become more effective by creating 21st century classrooms.

But now, the funding is gone and it certainly isn’t because all our classrooms are already outfitted for the 21st century. When asked why the only federal fund bucket dedicated to technology was cut, the Obama administration says in this day and age when technology is ever-present, school districts should be incorporating technology into every federal program.

 

Technology is important, but we’re not going to dedicate funding for it?  That’s a mixed message.  EETT was important enough to dedicate an additional $650 million from the stimulus, but just two years later, it’s not worthy of a single dollar?  That’s a mixed message.

 

From medicine to business, technology always improves efficiency.  So at a time when schools must find a way to improve teacher quality and turn around low-performing schools on a shoestring budget, 2011 seems like a bad time to cut funding for the one tool that always creates efficiency.

 

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