Cairo Association of Teachers - Newsletter
Cairo Association of Teachers - Newsletter
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CAT Tracks for April 2, 2009
WANT DOLLARS...FESS UP |
Dang...
New U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan "goes off" on South Carolina when the state's governor quibbles over stimulus money.
A preview of coming attractions?
From the New York Times...
Education Secretary Says Aid Hinges on New Data
By SAM DILLON
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan told the nation’s governors on Wednesday that in exchange for billions of dollars in federal education aid provided under the economic stimulus law, he wants new information about the performance of their public schools, much of which could be embarrassing.
In a “Dear Governor” letter to the 50 states, Mr. Duncan said $44 billion in stimulus money was being made available to states immediately. To qualify for a second phase of financing later this year, however, governors will need to provide reams of detailed educational information.
The data is likely to reveal that in many states, tests have been dumbed down so that students score far higher than on tests administered by the federal Department of Education.
It will also probably show that many local teacher-evaluation systems are so perfunctory that they rate 99 of every 100 teachers as excellent and that diplomas often mean so little that millions of high school graduates each year must enroll in remediation classes upon entering college.
Such information, Mr. Duncan’s letter said, “will reveal both strengths and underlying challenges.”
The $787 billion economic stimulus law includes about $100 billion that the Department of Education has started sending on to states for spending over two years for public schools, universities and child care centers.
More than half comes in a $54 billion fiscal stabilization fund for states. To get their share of the money, governors must pledge to improve teacher quality, raise academic standards, intervene in failing schools more effectively and carry out other education initiatives. On Wednesday, Mr. Duncan offered a detailed description of the information states must provide to show they are carrying out those pledges.
The data required includes the following:
Gathering the new information, Mr. Duncan’s aides said, is part of a strategy to shine a spotlight on school systems that are not working well and drive their improvement.
Speaking with reporters in a conference call, Mr. Duncan inadvertently demonstrated how the information collected from states could be used to try to shame educators and public officials into making changes.
Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina, a Republican who advocates issuing taxpayer-financed vouchers that parents can use to send their children to private schools, has told the Obama administration that he would not accept some $577 million in educational stimulus money for South Carolina unless he could use it to pay down state debt.
Mr. Duncan unleashed a barrage of dismal statistics about the South Carolina schools, noting that only 15 percent of the state’s black students are proficient in math and that the state has one of the nation’s worst high school graduation rates.
“Those are heartbreaking results; those are children who will never have a chance to compete,” Mr. Duncan said. “For South Carolina to stand on the sidelines and say that the status quo is O.K., that defies logic.”
Joel Sawyer, a spokesman for Mr. Sanford, said the governor had declined to accept some of the stimulus money because he believed that the spending authorized by the law would eventually force the federal government to increase taxes and devalue the dollar. Mr. Sanford would not quibble with Mr. Duncan’s portrayal of South Carolina schools, Mr. Sawyer said.
“What we quibble with,” he said, “is whether spending an ever-increasing amount on education will fix the problem.”
