I'm working on a stimulus project for the great folks at????AEI (stay tuned for more info coming soon), so for the last few weeks I've been burying myself in ARRA-related documents and articles.???? Though I don't want to completely let the cat out of the bag, the recent departmental????guidance????and Mike's post deserve some attention.???? In particular, two things are worth pointing out.
First, the Department really is trying its best to get as much reform out of its $100 billion as possible.???? Just about every time Secretary Duncan talks about the ARRA, he emphasizes that protecting jobs isn't enough.???? He and his colleagues pushed this theme hard during a briefing last Friday, with Duncan even threatening to withhold funding from status quo-defending states.
During a conference call right after the release of the new documents, advisor Jon Schnur, when listing the goals of the education portion of the ARRA, put reform first, a subtle but portentous signal. ????And the Department has even said that it plans to release advice on how states and districts can best use stimulus funding to drive reform and improvement.
Overall, based on the Department's words and activities to date, Duncan's record in Chicago, and the well-earned ed reform street cred of folks like Schnur and Jim Shelton, I'm confident that ED is going to do its best to drive reform via the ARRA.
However????????and I'll have more to say about this later????????the issue isn't what ED wants to do; it's what can actually be????accomplished.???? And there are lots of things (in statutory language, in guidance, in long-standing practices) standing in the way of reform via the ARRA.???? I'll just give one example here to illustrate the point.
Stabilization fund dollars will flow to governors by formula and then directly to districts by formula.???? There's a hope/expectation that governors will have the authority to drive reform-oriented behavior throughout their states.???? But here's a decisive passage from guidance released last week:
III-D-14.???? ????May a Governor or State educational agency (SEA) limit how an LEA uses its Education Stabilization funds?
No.???? Because the amount of Education Stabilization funding that an LEA receives is determined strictly on the basis of formulae and the ARRA gives LEAs considerable flexibility over the use of those funds, neither the Governor nor the SEA may mandate how an LEA will or will not use the funds.
I don't blame the Department for this passage because it flows directly from an honest interpretation of the ARRA statutory language.???? So unlike Mike, I wouldn't necessary give the guidance an ???????ice cold.??????????? It's merely reflecting the law.???? If, however, you're analyzing the ability of the underlying law to generate reform, a parka or at least a thick hoodie might be in order.