Ruth Marcus has a column in today's Washington Post about President Obama's quiet success on schools. She writes:
Cutting out this "unwarranted subsidy," as Obama put it in a speech Monday, would free up almost $90 billion over 10 years. The House would use the largest chunk of that money to raise Pell Grant amounts for low-income college students; the grant amounts have lagged far behind increases in tuition costs.The Education and Labor Committee has been a strong partner with the White House in passing the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act as well as ensuring funding for the Race to the Top.
The money is also directed in other, innovative ways. About $10 billion would go to community colleges -- the biggest infusion of federal cash ever to these institutions.
Colleges would get $2.5 billion to figure out how to keep track of how many students manage to graduate, as opposed to piling up debt and then dropping out. In the House, private colleges were able to wiggle out of this requirement; the Senate ought to hold them to it.
Another $8 billion would go to early childhood education programs, which vary widely in quality, with the goal of establishing some standards and accountability for preschool programs.
Meanwhile, the administration has seized on education funding in the stimulus bill to push its reform agenda. The stimulus included $4.35 billion for competitive grants to states to improve elementary and secondary education -- the largest-ever amount of discretionary federal funding for school reform. The administration's proposed regulations on these Race to the Top funds require that any state wishing to compete for the money must lift restrictions on the number of charter schools and get rid of laws or rules that prohibit linking teacher pay to student performance.
Seven states -- Tennessee, Rhode Island, Indiana, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Colorado and Illinois -- have revoked their limits on charter schools. The California legislature set aside a 2006 law that prohibited using student performance data to evaluate teachers.
Finally, the appropriations bills moving through Congress would further the reform push. Most important, they would dramatically boost funding -- from $97 million in 2009 to as much as $446 million in 2010 -- to offer higher pay to teachers and principals who improve performance in high-poverty schools.
