Governor’s Workshops for Local Leaders

MSDE overview of education stimulus funds - Debbie Greenberg Lichter, Federal liaison

March  4, 2009

Mr. Patoka:  So our first presenter is from the Maryland State Department of Education and that's Debbie Greenberg Lichter.  So, Debbie. 

Ms. Greenberg Lichter:  Thank you, Izzy.  Izzy is absolutely correct.  Maryland stands to gain quite a bit of funding through the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act.  Actually, for education we'll be receiving about $1.1 billion total. 

And that's going to be spread probably over two years.  It's above and beyond the regular budget for all the regular education formula programs.  And I would like to say that we do owe a debt of gratitude to our Congressional Delegation for making sure that education stayed in the package as it moved through the legislative process.  And so if anyone feels so inclined, you may want to write to thank your Congressional Delegation for all their efforts.  They really -- I mean, our Maryland Delegation is second to none.  They really insisted that there was really a place for education in this package, because there were some that were opposed to it. 

I wish I could tell you exactly how much funding each jurisdiction is going to receive, exactly what the associated rules are going to be and when exactly the funding will be available, but a lot of that information has not yet been made available by the United States Department of Education.  We're expecting to receive more information hopefully by the end of this week and, if not, into next week. 

But what I can tell you is how much estimated funding the State as a whole will receive or can expect to receive for the various education programs.  That information is in a two-page hand-out which I did pass out early on.  There are extra copies up here on the table for those of you that came in a little later and may not have received it. 

There's also a chart  that shows the estimated allocations of Title One funding to the local school systems.  But keep in mind that these are preliminary estimates that there are various set-asides that have not been pulled out of the pool.  This is just the total pool and we're, you know, dividing it according to the formulas.  So we are waiting for direction from U.S. Department of Education on exactly what all those set-asides are going to be. 

But what I can do is share with you a feel as to the United States Department of Education's vision as to what they want to see happen with the Recovery Act funds. 

Last week I represented Dr. Grasmick at a meeting where State Superintendents from around the country met with the Vice President and with the new Secretary of Education.  And the Vice President's message was very clear.  What he said is that this is an opportunity that we have never seen before.  We have never seen this kind of extraordinary increase in the Federal investment in education.  And he offered a word of caution and he said , If we don't do this right, the ride is over. 

Education has been asking for increased funding for many, many years.  Those of you that may be following education budgets  know it's been pretty much flat funded for about the past four to five years. 

And so it's really important for us to use the money properly and to be able to account for every penny and to show that it's been spent responsibly. 

So there was a feeling when we left that meeting that while there's tremendous opportunity, each of those State Superintendents also has a tremendous responsibility for this funding.   And so do the schools, the individual schools, as the money will flow down. 

The Vice President also made a point to mention that the reason education was included in the Act is, first, one reason is to save jobs and create jobs.  But the other is because it's so important to the economic future of this country.  And he did use it as an opportunity to talk about the global competitiveness and that America needs to really step up and make sure that our kids are educated and that our kids are able to compete in the 21st Century with some of the other nations that are quickly gaining. 

And one of the lines that he used was, quote, "Any country that out-educates us will be able to out-compete us."  And I think everybody really needs to keep that in mind as they think about how we're going to use these funds.

So as you think about international competitiveness, you're going to hear your local Superintendents and a lot of the educational community start talking about something called international bench-marking.  And what we're saying is, it's not enough anymore for us to compare ourselves to other states across the nation.  We really need to compare ourselves to other countries all across the globe.   And so that's the vision that the U.S. Department of Education really has moving forward with the new administration. 

And they're saying that --  then the Education Secretary spoke and what he said was the Act is meant not only to save and create jobs but to advance education reform.  And their key areas that they want to see in reform are that students are graduating college ready and career ready.  That students are graduating, period.   That there's no drop-out rate that is acceptable and that's something that we really need to fix in this country. 

He also talked about high quality assessments and high standards, the international bench-mark standards.  Talked about the fact that we need robust data systems.  And as much as we can be very proud that Maryland has been ranked number one in several areas recently, when it comes to data systems we really don't do very well.  So we really -- with this stimulus money one of the things that -- one of the pots of money is for State data systems.  And so we're going to be using that to really -- every benefit that we can and try to have a data system that will also be near first in the nation. 

And the last area that he talked about was with teachers and principals, about elevating the teaching profession, making it something that our best and brightest students aspire to be teachers. 

And also rewarding excellence.  And he really talked about this in terms of  reform, that we very much had the status quo for many years, as far as teacher compensation is concerned.   And there has been over the past couple of years some experiments with nontraditional teacher compensation.  Meaning that we'll reward excellence, we'll reward the really good teachers who will take on -- who will be really willing to take on the really tough assignments.  And rather than just compensating teachers for the amount of time they've been a teacher or for the degrees that they hold, that we'll really start to look at ways that we can compensate them for taking on these really tough assignments that take the extra effort and have the teacher required to go that extra mile. 

So that's kind of the vision.  As far as all the pots of money, a lot of it is formula and some of it is formula to State and then competitive to local school systems.  And then there's some competitive funding. 

So the first big pocket of money is Title One.  There's a huge amount of money, it's about $136 million over two years additional for Maryland.  Baltimore City alone will probably see somewhere in the area of more than $50 million in additional Title One money. 

One of the things that the secretary did say is that he doesn't want to see it used the same way that Title One money is always used.  He wants to see new things, innovation.  And what he said was that our -- some of our disadvantaged students really need more time in school.  And that's kind of controversial, but he really wants to look at extended days, maybe even extended weeks, maybe even an extended year.  But if you have children that are starting behind and they need to catch up, they need more time.  So he really wants to see money targeted to these kinds of initiatives.

So I would imagine when the guidance comes out from USDE about how to use the new Title One money that there are going to be some strings attached and some expectations for there to be some plans. 

There will also be a lot of additional money for Title One school improvement grants.  These are for schools that are -- school improvements that haven't been able to make adequate yearly progress. 

There's $200 million in additional funding for IDEA, which is the special education funding.  And there's also additional funding for preschool special education and also infants and toddlers special education. 

There's the money for the State data systems, there's funding for education technology that goes to local school systems, half based on a formula and half is competitive.   And that's to improve the use of technology in the classrooms.

There's some additional funding for homeless children.  We have an obligation to educate children who become homeless, obviously we have an obligation to educate all the children in the State.  And there are some specific rules that apply to homeless children and they're anticipating that there may be more homeless children and, therefore, we need -- that will need some more attention.

And there's also the teacher incentive fund, which is also going to be competitive and this is the fund that's going to be used for these innovative compensation packages. 

And then the big pot of money is the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund that the Governor has already determined how that money is going to be distributed.  And it's to help Governors to fill places where they have a gap, a revenue gap, so that they can continue to fund their education formulas.  And I think our Governor has been very generous that he's going to continue to fund the Thornton formula, he's going to fund GCEI, he's going to use it for the various -- the education formula money that we have in the State.  So that's it on the stabilization. 

There's one other piece of stabilization funding.  There's $5 million that's going to be set aside, it's probably not going to be distributed by the U.S. Department of Education until next year and that is for incentive and innovation grants.  And some of that money, innovation money, will go to schools that have been low performing and have really some up with some state of the art ways of student achievement and to reward them for the progress that they have made. 

And I think that about wraps it up on the education formula money.  I will be around if anybody has questions later on.  Thank you.  (Applause.)

 

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