NOT A RESCUE, BUT SCHOOLS CATCH A FINANCIAL LIFE RAFT

Themes in the News for the week of Aug. 2-6, 2010 By UCLA IDEA staff

08-06-2010 --  There has been a lot of education-funding activity in Washington, D.C. this week. Some of the funding will give breathing space for some schools in some states.  Education supporters, up against great obstacles, have managed to keep many schools from sinking out of sight.

After barely meeting the deadline to sign on to the Common Core Standards (Los Angeles Times),  California was one of 18 states selected for the second round of the competitive Race to the Top grant program.  There is $3.4 billion in the program, but it hasn’t been determined yet how it will be distributed.

The Department of Education also announced winners of 49 grants  (out of 1,669 applications submitted) from the Investing in Innovation Fund, known as i3 (Education Week | http://bit.ly/axDHWq). Recipients were schools, districts, and nonprofits, and they will share $650 million.

Los Angeles Unified School District will benefit from up to $5 million in i3 funds. The money was brought in through the efforts of the L.A. Compact, a collaborative of 18 Los Angeles institutions working to enhance the district’s school choice program, support implementation and improve accountability measures to turnaround its lowest performing schools. UNITE-LA, United Way, the University of Southern California, the city, the chamber of commerce, and the teachers union are among the partners.

Lastly, the U.S. Senate approved a $10 billion bill that would save 140,000 kindergarten-through-12th grade teachers from being laid off (Christian Science Monitor [http://bit.ly/b4cwsM], Huffington Post [http://huff.to/dzUMpi]).   Though the House still needs to vote on it, preliminary estimates by the Department of Education suggest California would receive about $1.2 billion to save about 13,500 positions. “While this latest round of funding isn’t enough to avert all layoffs, it is a critical investment in our children and in our future,” said Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., chair of the House committee overseeing education (Christian Science Monitor).

The new funds coming into the state are considerable and welcomed, but they are mainly directed toward desperately low-performing schools in the midst of a continuing funding crisis.  Still absent is a rational and adequate structure that allows schools to plan and reform.  The overall financial condition of California’s schools remains precarious, complex, and confusing to California residents as well as to education leaders.

In April, the Public Policy Institute of California surveyed [http://bit.ly/bthb3Q] residents’ attitudes on education.  Fifty-two percent of public school parents said they thought California schools received as much or more money than schools across the nation.  In fact, California is near the bottom in per-pupil spending. On the other hand, 72 percent of those surveyed recognized that their local public school does not receive enough funding.  It is not clear how the public will interpret this week’s headlines.  Californians might mistakenly think that their schools’ hard times are nearly over.