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                                                                                                                       EDUCATION NEWS (continued)                                                                                                      
2009 YEAR IN REVIEW
The Department of Education (ED) and the Obama Administration kicked off 2009 with a goal to get America on track and to return to being number one in the world in high school and college graduation rates, school readiness and overall academic achievement.  The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and the profound impact of the President’s commitment and personal example were the bookends for this unparalleled effort to significantly improve our country’s education system.   The year 2009 will likely be remembered as a breakthrough year for education reform and a guidepost for what is to come.

THE American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

The Recovery Act included $98.2 billion in appropriations for the Department of Education, which is more than one and a half times the Department’s entire appropriation for the previous year.  In less than a year, the Department already has awarded $69.1 billion, 70% of its total ARRA appropriation, while providing guidance and oversight to ensure that the funds are spent effectively and efficiently.  The Department expedited the release of nearly $15 billion of these funds to provide emergency relief to states facing severe budget shortfalls. To date, ARRA funding has saved or created more than 300,000 education jobs, keeping teachers in classrooms and stabilizing the public education system in a time of crisis.

 

The first Recovery Act funds released were supplements to ED’s large existing formula grant programs.  These supplements include Title I, Special Education, and Vocational Rehabilitation and were released in two installments -- 50 percent on April 1, 2009 and 50 percent on September 1, 2009.  This bifurcated release assured that states and districts could meet immediate needs, while giving the Department time to complete guidance on the new reporting requirements related to these funds.  In total, these programs made available approximately $23.5 billion in supplemental support to the states in 2009.

 

ARRA also provided supplemental funding for Pell Grants and the Federal Work Study program.  During the spring of 2009, $8.5 billion in additional Pell funding and $200 million in Federal Work Study funds were awarded, helping families struggling to finance a college education during challenging economic times.
 

The largest category of funding was awarded through the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund (SFSF), which was also made available in two installments.  The Department worked closely with OMB to devise a Phase One application that provided important parameters, such as Maintenance of Effort (MOE), while minimizing the burden on states.  The Phase One award, typically representative of 2/3 of the total SFSF funding a state is eligible for, was made on April 18th.  Most of the Phase One funding was obligated in May, June, and July. By the end of the year, all states, plus Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, received SFSF Phase One funding totaling $36.8 billion.

 

Over the course of the summer, it became clear that States’ financial situations were even more severe than originally understood, and a number of steps were taken to accelerate the awarding of ED ARRA funding. First, the Department decided to increase the Phase One Government Services award from 67% to 100%, allowing States maximum access to this flexible funding source.  The Department also advanced the timing of the second 50% of Title I, IDEA, and Vocational Rehabilitation awards from September 30th to September 1st, given schools full use of these funding sources for the entire school year.
 

Whereas Phase One SFSF funding focused on distributing funds as quickly and effectively as possible to help states avoid local budgetary catastrophes, Phase Two applications will focus on creating unprecedented levels of transparency on where states stand with regard to reforms. The Department published Phase Two applications on November 9th, and states filed their applications on January 11th, 2010. On the applications, the states provided a significant level of data on four key areas of school reform: (1) implementing rigorous college- and career-ready standards and assessments; (2) improving the collection and use of data; (3) improving teacher effectiveness; and (4) supporting struggling schools.  For example, the application requires states to provide data on how teachers and principals are evaluated and how this information is used to support, retain, promote, or remove staff.  It will also ask for the number and identity of the schools that are Title I schools in improvement, corrective action, or restructuring that are identified as persistently lowest-achieving schools.  This data, once collected by the Department, will be made available to the public and provide an unprecedented level of transparency regarding where our nation’s schools stand in critical areas of reform.

 

Communication, Outreach, and Technical Assistance

In addition to getting ARRA funds out the door quickly, the Department has also worked hard to ensure that states, districts, and other recipients use the funds as efficiently and effectively as possible. The Department published detailed guidance to ensure that recipients were aware of these various requirements. ED also conducted significant outreach with state and local government and education and community organizationsto ensure that recipients and other stakeholders had the information they needed.  This outreach included:

 

  • Briefings with Governors, Mayors, Chief State School Officers, the Council of the Great City Schools, plus an address to the U.S. Conference of Mayors Forum on Education;
  • Two conference calls with state political and education leadership and two conference calls with mayors and local school leadership, reaching a total of 721 participants;
  • Three major Recovery Act e-mail bulletins directed to the Department’s targeted listserv community of 2,290 stakeholders; and
  • An interactive briefing session for education and community groups at ED headquarters, with a webcast of the event available to the public.

 

The Department supplemented its guidance with technical assistance, developing a series of bi-weekly webinars for grantees to address issues of consistent concern.  Topics have included Fraud Prevention, Cash Management Requirements, Maintenance of Effort Requirements, Recipient Reporting, Strategic Planning across Funds, and Direct/Indirect Cost Allocation.  The Department also gave individualized assistance to states when needed.  For example, we provided customized  technical assistance for six states, based on factors including total financial exposure and historical audit findings.  In these states, our fiscal and program experts worked together to provide assistance that addressed the specific implementation issues facing each state.  (Read more at Ed. Gov)