Obama wants $1.35b more in school grants

[Forkboy]

WASHINGTON - President Obama said yesterday he is seeking more money for education in his budget to improve test scores and help students succeed in an increasingly competitive global economy.

“Offering our children an outstanding education is one of our most fundamental - perhaps our most fundamental - obligation as a country,’’ the president said at an elementary school in the Washington suburb of Falls Church, Va. “It will shape our future as a nation.’’

Obama said he’s proposing putting $1.35 billion in his fiscal 2011 budget for the Race to the Top program, in which states compete for grants. The plan rewards states that make the most progress in raising academic standards, boosting teacher quality, tracking student gains, and improving failing schools. Obama also plans to open the competition to individual districts.

The money augments the $4.35 billion in grants to states competing to embrace Obama’s education agenda that was part of the $787 billion stimulus passed last year. Yesterday was the deadline for states to apply for the first round of grants, with winners to be announced in April. More than 30 states, including Massachusetts, were expected to apply.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2010/01/20/obama_wants_135b_more_in_school_grants/

[Hello_Kitty]

1. So cash-strapped states have to spend money writing grant applications

In the hopes of winning one of them.

Plus, by rewarding the better performing districts, doesn't that leave kids in the others behind?

[FrenchieCat]

2. isn't grant writing a job?

Isn't that a good thing to have someone getting paid to write grant application?
Just asking?

[donco6]

7. Not when the option is just Sending States the Money.

There's a concept.

[Hello_Kitty]

9. Is it good to pay people to write applications for money you have to COMPETE for

And so might not get, while teachers are being pinkslipped because the state is broke? Kinda ironic, that, huh?

[MadHound]

3. And the march toward privatization continues apace.

Get the state over the barrel with a recession, then off them money to privatize their schools, give more tests, and to incorporate merit based pay (based on test scores).

This administration is turning out to be as bad, if not worse, when it comes to education policy.

[Dinger]

4. RTTT= Push To Privatize and Corporatize Public Schools

Fuck that noise. I rec'd this for exposure.

[Clio the Leo]

8. I feel SO sorry for the low income kids I went to school with....

... for the good teachers they were provided, the first quality supplies and equipment they had access to, the opportunities they were given all because we went to a school that received money from the evil Coca Cola overlords.

The only schools that would accept them were the likes of Vanderbilt and Harvard. They earned advanced degrees there that have no doubt proven to be a millstone around their necks.

;)

[LWolf]

5. Of course, RTTT

is designed to escalate the privatization and union-busting of public education by withholding $$ from those states who don't institute Obama/Duncan style "reforms."

This is not good news to this educator.

[donco6]

6. All for starting new corporate charter schools.

Thanks, but no thanks.