New Jobs Bill Would Include Money for Facilities, Edujobs
Don't call it a second stimulus, but House Democratic leaders introduced a bill yesterday that's meant to help jump-start the still-sluggish economy, but includes some new money for K-12 education (although nothing on the scale of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, passed last winter).
The bill includes a $23 billion state "education jobs fund," which looks fairly similar to the nearly $50 billion State Fiscal Stabilization Fund that was created under the ARRA, in that states must restore cuts, proportionally, to K-12 and higher education, then the rest of the money goes for other education purposes.
Most notably: It appears that those four education redesign assurances you've heard so much about would not apply to these new funds. That means states wouldn't have to report on how they plan to make progress on turning around low-performing schools, improve teacher quality and distribution, bolster standards and assessments, and step up data collection.
