Education

Education Monday: Fighting Over Ed Funding



SHOULD OBAMA VETO SCHOOLS FUNDING BILL IF RACE-TO-THE-TOP $$ ARE SNIPPED?

In its Monday editorial, the LA Times says: NO.

But I’m not so sure. I think it’s a mistake to begin nicking away at Race to the Top, which is successfully incentivizing education reform in a way that is desperately needed.

On the other hand, the Times has a point in saying that the cuts are not even close to fatal to Race to the Top so, in essence, don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good, fiscally speaking.

On the other, other hand, Education Secretary Arne Duncan has said that the administration understands the need for cuts, but that these aren’t the right cuts. So he wants Congress to go back to the….you know...chalk board—or whatever it is one goes back to these days.

In any case, we’ll see how this game of legislative chicken plays out as the Congress returns from its 4th of July break.


MEANWHILE, THE OTHER BIG MONEY PLAYER IN EDUCATION FUNDING IS PUSHING FOR SIMILAR REFORMS AND SOME PEOPLE DON’T LIKE IT

Monday’s Washington Post has an article on the influence of the Gates Foundation on education. The Gates folks, writes the WaPo, use their grant giving capabilities as a way to push many of the same education reforms that the Obama administration favors and some critics think that Gates and company have too much power and too little understanding of how education works.

The biggest critic is education historian, Diane Ravitch, who writes in her bestselling, “The Death and Life of the Great American School System,’’ that Gates and people like LA’s Eli Broad, and their “current obsession with making our schools work like a business, threatens to destroy public education.’’

Yes, well, business-as-usual was already doing a pretty good job of it.

Stay tuned.

7 Comments

  • It’s so sad that when times are tough, funding to schools gets cut. Aren’t there less necessary programs to cut federal funding from?

  • To think…from the New Deal till 1980, cutting funding to schools was never even discussed. For whatever problems this country had, every parent in America knew their kid at least had a school to go to. These days people actually get elected by promising to cut funding to schools. This country deserves whatever happens to it.

  • “Aren’t there less necessary programs to cut federal funding from?”

    “To think…from the New Deal till 1980, cutting funding to schools was never even discussed.”

    *******************
    Don’t you guys realize it’s more important to spend billions in Afghanistan than education the U.S.?

  • “Aren’t there less necessary programs to cut federal funding from?”

    “To think…from the New Deal till 1980, cutting funding to schools was never even discussed.”

    *******************
    Don’t you guys realize it’s more important to spend billions in Afghanistan than education in the U.S.?

  • Oh, I forgot. Bush was spending a ton on education, then Obama came along and started wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and had to take it away.

  • Bush WAS spending a ton on education, as well as a lot of other things. That’s why he fell out of favor with right wingers.

    Iraq and Afghanistan are now Obama’s. It’s more of the same from the Obama administration. Even to the point of a surge and BetrayUs being in charge.

    There’s a new head coach now. How long will the apologists give him political cover by exclaiming: ” Bush was worse”.

    His record should speak for itself.

    He didn’t run on the platform: “I’ll suck, but I’ll be better than Bush”.
    He ran on the paltform of “Hope and Change”. What has changed?

  • This article appeared on cato.org on July 31, 2003.

    But the real truth is that national defense is far from being responsible for all of the spending increases. According to the new numbers, defense spending will have risen by about 34 percent since Bush came into office. But, at the same time, non-defense discretionary spending will have skyrocketed by almost 28 percent. Government agencies that Republicans were calling to be abolished less than 10 years ago, such as education and labor, have enjoyed jaw-dropping spending increases under Bush of 70 percent and 65 percent respectively.

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