Education Law Center: States Are Using Fed Grants To Cut Education Spending
Pity Tom Corbett. He became one of the few Pennsylvania one term governors, and he lost in no small part because he was accused of cutting education spending by a billion dollars. And he sort of did, but he was also sort of set up by the previous governor, Ed Rendell, who collected some Great Recession relief and used it to replace state tax money rather than adding to it. When that short term federal grant ended, there was suddenly a big hole in PA education spending (which Corbett tried to hide by deciding to start counting pension costs as "educational spending"). Here's the graph:
You may recall that as the Great Recession ended, many states found themselves spending less for education than they had pre-2008. There were many reason for that, but using federal funds to replace state funds and then doing nothing as the federal money ended was in many cases a contributing factor.
And now ELC says some states are doing it again.
ELC cites New York, Texas and Michigan as three states that are following "a playbook from the 2009 Great Recession by cutting over $1 billion in states aid."New York calls this a "pandemic adjustment."
That 209 playbook looks like this:
In the Great Recession, states responded to revenue declines by making significant, recurring cuts in state school aid. Then they offset those cuts with non-recurring federal stimulus relief. This CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Education Law Center: States Are Using Fed Grants To Cut Education Spending