Happy Birthday Stimulus! Now, What's Next?
Today is the one-year anniversary of the economic stimulus package, which infused an unprecedented $100 billion in new federal aid into education. To me, the biggest effect so far has been how it saved states from making scary-deep, Draconian cuts to K-12 budgets. It remains to be seen how much impact the stimulus will have on Race to the Top-style reforms.
Rather than looking back, or celebrating the birthday, as countless others are doing in statement after statement, I want to look ahead and examine the biggest question marks out there as we go into the stimulus package's second and final year. Here's what makes my list:
- Who will win Race to the Top?
- How gutsy will the Department be in holding winning states accountablefor their Race to the Top promises, especially as states face increasing budget pressure and become desperate for more money to plug budget holes?
- When you're talking about $100 billion in education aid, including some high-profile competitions (e.g. Race to the Top), there's bound to be a scandal. What will it be? And how good will the Department of Education, which has been fairly deft at managing communications crises, handle said scandal?
- As Secretary Duncan, via the stimulus package, tries to force states and school districts to embrace merit pay--and knowing that changing how we evaluate teachers is very difficult work--will