Education Funding

 Those of you who have read my materials are not surprised when I  start talking about funding for education with a bit of a leery eye.  All of the talk about money from the various stimulus packages going towards schools and educational projects,  I have continued to be a bit skeptical.

Well, today is going to be more of the same. As you see here in an AP story, there are a lot of people asking the same question, are stiimulus monies being used to help education or to plug state budget holes. I know of a lot of great stimulus ideas that were requested by various school districts that were not funded, all over the country, but you hear of the vast amounts of money coming to the states, where did it go? Well as stated in the article:

But as the bill made its way through Congress, lawmakers decided not to prohibit states from using the stabilization money to replace precious state aid for schools. They required states to maintain spending on K-12 schools and colleges but only at 2006 levels, which allowed most states to make significant cuts to education.

That flexibility "may be leading to a reduction in state support for public education," the inspector general said.

So, as long as states kept up the spending levels from 3 years ago, they could cut from the previous budget levels. This reminds me of the lottery in Florida when it came on line looking to supplement state funding for schools but ended up replacing more funding than supplementing.

Is this one time budget fix worth the actual costs to future generations? Especially when the school issues will still be with us next year?

What do you think?



hmm