Education

What in the stimulus package relates to the field of education? - Information added by Karlee Hanneman
 * Definition per the Congressional Budget Office: "Fiscal stimulus aims to boost economic activity during periods of economic weakness by increasing short-term aggregate demand." In theory, this means if more goods and services are being bought, there is less chance that falling demand will lead companies to lay off workers, resulting in greater falls in demand and a deeper downturn. President Obama found little disagreement over the need for a large fiscal stimulus, however, the Democrats and Republicans were split on what approach to take more spending or more tax cuts.
 * The Education Stimulus' affect on the public: A family that makes less than two hundred thousand dollars will get an income tax cut. This will help more students go to college. The education piece of the plan is currently worth $115 billion split up among twelve different categories. Those include state aid for schools/critical needs, pell grants, higher education tax credit, title I, special education, head start, Child-care development, technology, vocational rehabilitation, teacher quality, education of homeless students, impact aid, work-study, and 'other.'
 * This will hopefully decrease teacher layoffs and increase class size.
 * Click [|here] for the Education Week homepage (reliable source)
 * Click [|here] for the Department of Education homepage (very reliable source)

About $115 billion of the stimulus package will be spent on education. This money will be spent on areas such as Title 1 (a federal program for disadvantaged students), early childhood programs, school stabilization, teacher incentives, college affordability (boost money in the Pell Grant programs and tuition tax credit), and school modernization. One of the biggest goals is to avoid cutting teacher's positions in school districts across the country. Arne Duncan, head of the U.S. Department of Education, is convinced that this money will save hundreds of thousands of jobs. This, of course, is very important. Also, some of the money given to schools will be used for renovations and reconstruction, which will create more construction jobs. In order to distribute the money, Congress will use existing formulas. However, to do this correctly, new formulas should be created to fit the situation. Yet this is not possible because of the rapid speed with which the stimulus package was passed. This may cause more problems, as big districts will get more money than small districts who have less money to start with. This leaves the small, rural districts with hardly any money to undergo projects or save teacher's jobs. This same idea is also seen in the fact that the formula doesn't take into consideration the economic well-being of each state, so even wealthy states will receive money that they don't need. Overall, the formula won't effectively place the money in school districts that need it the most, which could generate wasteful spending. $115 billion is a lot of money that will be spent over the next two years, and if it works like it's supposed to, many jobs will be saved and many school districts will get an extra boost in these hard economic times. When this money is consumed on things, such as school renovations or teacher's spend money from their salary, GDP will be increased, which is exactly what is needed to pull us out of this crisis.

Sources: www.educationweek.org, www.nytimes.com, www.ed.gov, www.nea.org (all of these websites are reliable, as they are taken from government websites, a well-respected newspaper, and educational experts and organizations) -Information added by Abby Funk

The stimulus package will lay the groudwork for reform of the education system. About $115 billion will be targeted for the education portion of the stimulus package. This money will be spent over the next 2 years. Most of this money ($53.6 billion) will go toward the "state stabilization fund". This state funding will help improve public safety, renovate aging school buildings, restore teacher cut programs, and fund after school programs. It also include $5 billion in bonus grants for meeting high education perfomance measures. $25 billion will be used to fund special education programs and the No Child Left Behind law. $17 billion of the stimulus plan will be used to increase Pell Grants by $500. The Pell Grants help fund college education for students who can't afford it otherwise. The rest of the funding (about $20 billion) will be spent on many different areas such as Early Head Start and Head Start, Title I, IDEA, The Teachers Incentive Fund, and The American Opportunity Tax Credit. ([|www.ed.gov])

Critics: Supporters: If the funds are distributed efficiently and the stimulus plan works as planned, it should improve school buildings, save teacher jobs, give many students the chance to go to college, increase funding for struggling schools, fund special education programs and teacher-performace pay, and offer a partially refundable tax credit to low income students..
 * The Stimulus Plan got no Republican support in the House because most republicans believe corporate/general tax cuts would make a better stimulus package rather than government spending ([|www.edutopia.org])
 * Professor Michael Porter (Harvard Business School) believes the stimulus plan will make our economic situation worse. He said, "We're falling into the trap of taking an enormous amount of money that we really don't have right now, and not necessarily spending it well." ([|www.cnn.com])
 * All Democrats supported the stimulus plan in the Senate
 * Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-Colorado) of congress supports the stimulus plan completely. He said, "We know this bill alone will not solve all of our economic woes overnight. We know that the road back to economic stability and prosperity will require hard work over time, but this bill is the right size and scope necessary to truly help us turn things around." ([|www.cnn.com])
 * Education Secretary, Arne Duncan is very positive about the stimulus plan. He said, "This is an extraordinary opportunity and if we want to become a strong economy again, the best thing we can do is have an educated work force." ([|www.cnn.com])

Sources: [|www.ed.gov] (very reliable source), [|www.cnn.com] (very reliable source), [|www.edutopia.org] (reliable source) -Information added by Lindsey Nicolette

The stimulus package wants to focus on making education stronger and more benefical for students. $150 billion is going to be targeted on education which includes postsecondary schooling and preschool. This will double the federal Department of Education's current budget. 25 states have made plans to make cuts on education funding.

"It's essential that the federal government step in and try to make sure that we do not have a collapse of our elementary and secondary education system," says U.S. representative George Miller (D-California), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee.

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Barack Obama and Joe Biden's Plan for Lifelong Success through Education will:
 * Reform No Child Left Behind.
 * Ensure access to high-quality early childhood education programs and child care opportunites so children enter kindergarten ready to learn.
 * Work to recruit well-qualified teachers to every classroom in America, especially those in high-poverty, high-minority areas.
 * Reward expert, accomplished teachers for taking on the challenging assignments and helping children succeed.
 * Support highly-competent principals and school leaders.
 * Make science and math education a national priority.
 * Reduce the high school dropout rate by focusing on proven methods to improve student achievement and enhance graduation and higher education opportunities.
 * Close the achievement gap ad invest in what works.
 * Empower parents to raise healthy and successful children by taking a greater role in their child's education at home and at school.

Barack Obama and Joe Biden believe that students should not be forced to spend their school year preparing to fill in bubbles on standardized tests. They are going to try and work to make assessment models that provide educators and students on how to improve student learning. This will help measure stundets readiness for college as well as success in a workplace. This will then indicate whether or not individual students are making progress toward reaching high standards.

[|www.Barackobama.com] -Information posted by: Leighan Zimmermann

Designated amounts of stimulus plan- In the Education department. $39 billion to State Fiscal Stabilization fund for school districts & colleges. 12billion to close acheivement gap, and help disadvantaged students reach their potential 13 billion for Special Education 13.9 billion to increase Pell Grant maximum award 3.4 billion for job training ( including state formula grants for adults, disolocated worker, and youth programs). 1.2 billion to National Science Foundation Research (1 billion to help America compete globally, 150 million for scientific infrastructure, 50 million for competitive grants in science related feilds 2 billion providing quality child care services for children in low income families. 1.05 billion to allow 66,000 more children to participate in the Head Start, and Early Head Start programs. 500million to IDEA: Early childhood education: grants to help serve disabled chilren ages 2 and under.

Source: hhttp://www.conergemag.com/story.php?catid=231&storyid=108457

Affecting state tuitions Supposed to pducation and rovide 100 billion dollars of emergency education money for two years, to public schools, child care, and universities. State institutions received only 54 billion, towards lowering tuition costs. Initially, the bill provided 150 billion dollars toward education. In th house it was changed to 79 billion. Senate cut the bill down to 40 billion.

High tuitions costs on young students were a main argument brought up by Democrats, and the bill would help ease the financial dent it made in their wallet, but some contested it was too much "wasteful spending".

I feel confident about the information I received from this source, because after researching further, the amounts provided matched up with other sources. Information added by Brynn Moody

-expected to improve educational technology, and thus modernizing schools across America with new computers, new technology, and WiFi -part of the money will go towards financially supporting states, districts, and schools to help students who are not successfully preparing for the the modern-day workplace -Each state is required to submit a plan to show how their money will be used for education -In higher education, more Pell Grants, which are for students who come from lower income families, will be given. -Pell Grants will also be easier to obtain -During 2009-2010, a student smay be eligible for no more than $4,860 from a Pell Grant -The Act addressing education in the Stimulus Plan, states that funds will be used to evaluate the affects of teacher compensation based on performance in the classroom. -Information added by Amie Johnson Sources: [|www.degree.com] __www.thejournal.com [|www.edutopia.]____org__