The Four-Flushers in the Governor's Office: Caught Again
By Peter SchragThe Schwarzenegger Administration hit the Trifecta this month, three loud raspberries from the feds for its shabby funding of California schools and the inadequate resources it provides, particularly for the education of poor and minority children. As usual, the real losers are the kids.
The first embarrassment, by now old news, was the state’s failure to make even the first cut in the initial round of competition for federal Race to the Top (RTTT) funding.
The second was a letter from the Department of Education questioning what, at bottom, is an administration shell game purporting to show that despite its sharp cuts in school funding, it was conforming to federal “maintenance of effort” requirements. Those requirements were imposed to make certain that states, in their attempts to get additional federal stimulus money, weren’t just using it to replace their own funds.
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