I feel kind of like a die-hard Red Sox fan after the 2004 World Series–excited that my team won, but thrown off by the reversal of my “underdog” status.
If you were ordering me as a drink in a bar, you’d ask for confused straight up with a twist of happiness.
These are metaphors, of course.
“Winning the World Series” = $150 BILLION in education spending in Obama’s new stimulus plan
“Dire Hard Pre-2004 Red Sox Fan” = grad student specializing in issues of educational equity
“Confused Straight Up w/a Twist of Happiness” = my state of mind
Just as the recession was threatening to limit spending on education–especially on financial aid for college students–the Obama administration goes ahead and announces that it will MORE THAN DOUBLE THE CURRENT DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION BUDGET.
Schools, from pre-K through college, are getting everything but the kitchen sink!
Here are some details of the proposed stimulus according to the NYT:
*The federal government will increase education spending from $60 billion in 2008 to $135 billion in 2009 to $146 billion in 2010
*Not only that, but other federal agencies will administer about $20 billion in additional spending on related projects
*Some of this money will go to Pell Grants (grants for low-income college students, which experts have been citing as chronically under-funded for at least 3 decades). Pell Grants are getting a huge boost from $19 billion to $27 billion annually
*$20 billion for school renovation
*massive increases in per-pupil student expenditures (the amounts vary depending on where you live). According to calculations by the New America Foundation, students in D.C. stand to gain a whopping $1,289 each (in expenditures, not handouts) and each kid in NY will get an additional $760 worth of spending on their education.
The American Council of Education also notes proposed increases in government-funded university research, like $3 billion to the National Science Foundation, $1.9 billion to the Department of Energy (for research), and $2 billion to the National Institutes of Health.
So what’s the problem?
Well, for one thing, this money is proposed as a short-term stimulus. What happens in two years when it runs out?
Like other institutions, schools get very used to spending money when they have it. I’m not suggesting that principles are going to start million-dollar office renovations or order new 12-person corporate jets like those creeps at Citibank and Meryl Lynch. However, educators will open new research labs, hire new teachers, buy computers, cut class size etc.
So what happens when the money runs out? Do we raise class size, shut down research centers, make kids share books?
I know this money is part of a “stimulus package”–and in cases with one-time expenditures like school construction, it will definitely work as such. In other cases, however, it might not be such a good idea to throw money at schools or research and then take it away.
Another important question:
Where’s the oversight? How do we ensure that the funds will actually increase student achievement?
As Terry Hartle said to the New York Times, “A lot of things will go through, and only later will we know exactly what happened.”
To return to my earlier metaphor, I guess that’s why, if I were a drink, I’d be confused straight up with a twist of happiness.
Spending money on education is a good–no great!–idea. But without checks and balances, how can we make sure that this is what we’re spending it on?
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Kidz Today is a column about youth and education by Joie Jager-Hyman.
While you are correct that this large infusion of money should be handed out with oversight – it is still a great thing. Hopefully the entire stimulus package will turn the economy around, add jobs, the employees will pay taxes, the taxes will fuel continued spending and the government will get results from research and educational investment. If that happens than the additional funds could continue. We know what programs that are under funded create – frustrated teachers and poorly educated students – maybe now we can see how our educational institutions would work if they were properly funded. But remember these are just proposals and we already lost funding for birth control for disadvantaged families – BUT wouldn’t it indeed be nice if there was finally an administration that was willing to err on the side of overspending on our most important natural resource – the minds of our children. At the risk of being cliché – they are the future and the best investment we can make.
Oh Joie,
You had me at “die-hard Red Sox fan”!!
The proposed stimulus package as it is presented has made me into a drink that would probably be called something along the lines of ‘pessimistic axxhole.’
I don’t want to be the jerk who talks about the need to invest into education and then when it actually happens, be the one who poops on the parade. But I suppose that is who I am. Throwing money (and everything but the kitchen sink) at anything doesn’t always make things better (and how would we measure better? When? In two years? Ten years? When do we see the fruition of investment in education?) – though it can certainly increase opportunities to make things better. and I hope it will. Of course I’d love to be a drink called “awesomeness!” instead.
The hatchet and the scalpel thing can go both ways (across the board spending freeze v. throwing everything but the kitchen sink). Oversight, accountability, recognizing what works and WHAT DOES NOT, along with expertise from people who know what they are talking about (e.g. Joie Jager-Hyman) could truly maximize this investment in our future.
(Maybe I should be a drink called “I believe in Joie”.)
What a great article! Colleges, especially private colleges, are pretty used to getting not-too-much from the federal government or the state. One of the problems is that tuition is the largest source of revenue for many institutions. It is no secret that full-paying tuitions help offset many costs (esp. financing financial aid.) The cost of tuition has far outstripped inflation and we are going to be up a creek without a paddle as tuition continues to rise and less families can afford to pay the full price. Interestingly, my institution has not been hit as hard by the recent financial crisis because our endowment was not funding a large majority of our budget.
On a side note, I was traveling with 2 colleageaus last week and one of them mentioned that she had read a great book over the holiday break. Guess what book? Yup- Fat Envelope Frenzy. She wants your email bc she was so enthused by it and wants to share her thoughts with you. She reads everything so she is a good judge. Can I give out your email?
Thanks so much for these comments, everyone! Wende, I’m definitely pro education spending, don’t get me wrong. I just want to make sure it goes to the kids and offsets things like rapidly rising inflation (as Meg points out). But if I had to choose, too much money is better than too little.
Nahoko, you are not a pessimistic axxhole! I feel like part of being in this field is being trained to analyze cost/benefits–because grad students like us came up under the impression that educators would always be working in a world of highly fixed, if not strained, resources. It’s our job to evaluate the effectiveness of a policy or practice before throwing money at it. That’s exactly the same instinct that has me confused but happy! I’m happy cause schools are getting so much funding but confused because a) I never thought I’d see the day; and b) I have no idea how we’re going to spend it effectively if we can’t take the time to figure out where it should go and be clear about the outcomes we’re looking for.
Meg, OF COURSE you can give out my email address to any of your colleagues–especially an FEF fan! Also, thanks for commenting!!! it’s great to have another higher ed voice on Crucial Minutiae.
I understand your point of view, but education budgets are and always have been in flux. Principals can never count on consistent funding from year to year and constantly have to adjust due to fluctuations in enrollment (over which principals have varying degrees of control) and funding sources. As a result, this situation is not new.
Also, I think it is incorrect to characterize this as winning the lottery – if anything, the stimulus will keep school budgets consistent with what they have been in the past few years, not make schools suddenly richer. Without the stimulus, NYC public schools were bracing for 10-15% budget cuts in the coming year. I have a hard time believing that this stimulus will go much beyond replacing what was already slated to be cut. Even if the stimulus made up for the proposed cuts AND added some gravy on top, why would added oversight be necessary? We do not have the same discretion with funds as CEOs or CFOs of major corporations. As a principal, my money is already carefully monitored by many folks above me and most budget alterations, no matter how minute, are subject to approval. There is plenty my school could do with a huge influx of cash, even if only for one year: renovations, new computers, textbooks, and the list goes on and on.
Further, the increases you cite in D.C., the “whopping $1289 per student,” still do not make up for the current disparity between suburban per pupil spending and urban per pupil spending.
Mr Michael,
You make an EXCELLENT point when you say that the net result of all this money might not actually change district budgets that much because the federal stimulus is compensating for the predicted city- and statewide budget shortfalls resulting from the recession.
As a federal policy person, I’m not used to seeing these types of numbers! But you definitely got me thinking in a different way about the implications for school district budgets overall. So THANK YOU!
To clarify my point about “oversight”:
I’m not worried about individual administrators needing more oversight for discretionary spending (my citibank/meryl lynch comparison was actually intended as a CONTRAST to how I think educators will react to extra money). But I do wonder about the “big picture”–as in oversight for state, school districts or university spending priorities–like how do we know that the money will go into useful, effective programs instead of programs that haven’t really been tested? What kinds of outcomes are we trying to measure? How can we maximize the impact of these resources on student achievement and/or college affordability?
I’m not trying to say that this extra money will have NEGATIVE results. It’s just that the federal government is making an unprecedented and unanticipated massive investment, which will change the way we fund schools, at least temporarily. The urgency is what it is, and there might not be time to take a step back and answer questions about cost/benefits.
I think that quote by Terry Hartle kind of sums up my modest reservations:
“A lot of things will go through, and only later will we know exactly what happened.”
I’ve been so curious what you thought about this. Thanks for sharing.
Luckily, Obama is prez for at least four, so I think the money will keep flowing into education.
[...] few weeks ago, I outed myself as being confused about the stimulus bill put forth by the Obama administration. As someone invested in educational equity, I was really [...]