(From Education Week, January 28, 2010)
By ALYSON KLEIN
Despite a pledge to hold down spending on most domestic programs, President Barack Obama tonight called for greater investment in public schools in his State of the Union address as part of a push to renew the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
The president’s fiscal year 2011 budget, slated to be released Monday, will seek a 6.2 percent increase to the U.S. Department of Education’s budget, including up to $4 billion more for K-12 education. The department’s discretionary budget for fiscal 2010 is roughly $63.7 billion.
A large piece of the increase, $1.35 billion, would be aimed at extending beyond this year the $4 billion in economic-stimulus program Race to the Top grants and opening up the competition–now limited to states–to school districts. The president highlighted the Race to the Top saying it had “broken through the stalemate between left and right,” and pledged to expand the reform priorities of that competition–among them turning around failing schools and increasing the supply of effective teachers–to all 50 states.
“The idea here is simple,” he said. “Instead of rewarding failure, we only reward success. Instead of funding the status quo, we only invest in reform–reform that raises student achievement, inspires students to excel in math and science, and turns around failing schools that steal the future of too many young Americans, from rural communities to inner cities.”
Continue reading “Obama To Seek Up To $4 Billion Boost For Education”…