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Spring 2009
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that was approved in February, commonly known as the economic stimulus package, creates a once-in-a-lifetime infusion of cash to schools. An eye-popping $100 billion dollars will be targeted to education, nearly twice the U.S. Department of Education’s entire annual budget.
The $3 billion set aside for school improvement grants could bring meaningful changes to an estimated minimum of 6,000 schools. Under the No Child Left Behind Act, through which these funds will be distributed, there is a statutory limitation of $500,000 maximum and $50,000 minimum award to schools, though these limitations could be temporarily waived to allow support for massive urban school reforms. These funds are on schedule to be distributed by the beginning of the 2009-2010 school year. The funds need not be spent immediately, but must have an allocated use by the beginning of the 2011-2012 school year. Unlike “shovel-ready” construction and infrastructure projects outside of the education realm, schools have some time for planning on how to use these funds, but not much.
This infusion of cash is coupled with a mandate for concrete results. The U.S. Department of Education has stretched out the timeline as much as it could so that the need for quick spending would not overshadow the mandate for smart spending that produces results.
The eternal question lingers…Will schools choose programs proven to work, or programs with proven marketing strategies? This has always been a concern, but today, the stakes are higher than ever. With this unique one-time opportunity for large-scale reform spending, all eyes are on schools to make dramatic improvements over a short period of time. Wise choices by schools will involve adoption of interventions that have shown significant gains in student achievement over and over again — because there is no time for gambling on unreplicable solutions.
“We must do dramatically better. We must continue to innovate. We must build upon what works, and we must stop doing what doesn’t work.”
–U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, 2009 |
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Schools have three options:
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Continue to build their patchwork of ideas and hope for the best
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Choose programs and curricula that are well-marketed, but unproven
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Adopt reform models that are proven to yield sustainable results
The U.S. Department of Education is furiously working to provide guidance to states and schools on how to use this funding to produce meaningful reform and maximum results. Reform is consistently the centerpiece of all conversations surrounding this new funding.
The Department is publicly insisting that stimulus funds will be used to spur innovation, and not be used for unsustainable changes, such as increases in teacher pay. Departmental guidance thus far is focused on using this one-time financial support to invest in resources and training that will stabilize innovations after the “funding cliff” that will inevitably occur after funding returns to normal levels. Schools need to think large scale and long term, as they should not expect these funding levels to last and need to plan accordingly.
Schools can do this by building their human capital and capacity. For example, schools could invest in “super-training” teachers and school leaders, who might later serve as trainers or coaches for other teachers in the school. Schools could invest in promising learning technologies such as interactive whiteboards or electronic response devices and couple this investment with a multi-year professional development contract to ensure that these technologies yield meaningful results for students. Schools could also invest in proven comprehensive school reform and turnaround models and work with vendors to negotiate pre-payment on contracts for continued professional development and implementation support for future years.
“[Stimulus funds are to be used] to implement evidence-based strategies that will help build sustainable capacity for improving teaching and learning in Title I schools, recognizing that the amount of funds available will support interventions at a level of intensity not always possible in the past.”
–U.S. Department of Education guidance, 2009 |
The key factor in these ideas is that each can be obtained with a one-time investment that will pay multi-year dividends on student achievement. Proven programs and models are available, but schools need to be urged to make this kind of forward-thinking investment using the best available research, rather than just piling on to the current patchwork of unproven reforms.
Schools are scrambling to figure out how to apply this financial infusion. The Department is quietly urging the school improvement industry to help to get the word out about how to use this money for a maximum impact.
The school improvement industry has already begun heavily marketing different interventions to schools, and is only expected to intensify as schools develop their plans. Unfortunately, the school improvement industry is not populated exclusively by those dedicated to evidence-based reform. Those in the education research community devoted to high standards, and education practitioners dedicated to the use of proven programs, must join the call for sustainable reforms.
Only 3% of the education stimulus funds are targeted to school improvement. Yet the actions taken now will chart the course for the role of evidence in education reform in the future. How schools will use this money will be determined in the next six months, but the results of these decisions will impact education policy and spending for the next decade.
With this enormous one-time infusion of cash to school, the expectations on performance will be higher than ever. The Department’s guidance for extraordinary transparency will not allow implementation mismanagement to be swept under the rug. If schools fail to hit the ground running with proven, sustainable strategies for reform, they will face unprecedented scrutiny. An expensive crash-and-burn for school improvement will seriously undermine the future funding of school-based interventions. How this funding is used will also have a considerable impact on the issues of substance addressed during the upcoming reauthorization of No Child Left Behind.
Money has never been, and never will be, a magic bullet for education reform. At the same time, financing on this scale has the potential to be transformational. We have a once-in-a-lifetime funding opportunity for schools to afford to adopt proven reform models. This opportunity should serve as a launch pad for evidence-based reform that will put thousands of underperforming schools on a trajectory for success.
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