As President Barack Obama might have said, I screwed up on Friday afternoon when I reported that Senate moderates had agree to strip "most" education funding from the bill. There are cuts, to be sure, but??the majority??of the money remains. Education Week (which employs real journalists!) reports that the major reductions are for school construction, which was zeroed out (though bonds for construction remain) and the state bailout fund, which was reduced from $79 billion to $39 billion. But the big bucks for special education and Title I mostly got spared. Importantly, a little bit of Arne Duncan's "incentive grant" fund stayed in (to the tune of $2.5 billion versus the House's $15 billion). Even if they split the middle, that's??a whole lot of discretion for the Secretary and could provide some needed leverage to push states toward reform.
All in all, not a terrible outcome; as I wrote last week, less money plus more reform equals a better deal. Now let's see what happens during this week's conference committee. If the President pushes hard to keep the best features of the House bill (with its dollars for charter schools, merit pay,?? and data systems) and the Senate bill (with its somewhat more modest spending), and walks away with at least some "incentive" dollars in place, this thing could do at least a little bit of good.
