Friday News Roundup: Week of September 6-10

At Ed Money Watch, we discuss and analyze major issues affecting education funding. In our Friday News Roundup, we try to highlight interesting stories that might otherwise get overlooked. These stories emphasize how federal and state policy changes can affect local schools and districts.

Texas Loses Out on Edujobs Funds

Missouri School Districts Left Waiting for Edujobs Money

Oklahoma Higher Education Costs Set to Rise

Texas Loses Out on Edujobs Funds
The U.S. Department of Education this week denied Texas’s application for $830 million for the recently passed federal Education Jobs Fund because Governor Rick Perry could not guarantee that the state would not cut funding for education in the next three years. Texas Congressman Lloyd Doggett inserted a provision in the Education Jobs Fund legislation specifically requiring Texas to make the three-year education funding guarantee. No other governor or state was required to make such a promise. Congressman Doggett says he wrote the provision to prevent the state from using the federal Education Jobs Fund money to replace state funds for education and fill in budget gaps in other areas of the state budget, as it did with federal stimulus funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Governor Perry contends that making such a guarantee would violate the Texas constitution. More here…

Missouri School Districts Left Waiting for Edujobs Money
Missouri is set to receive $189.7 million in emergency federal education funds through the Education Jobs Fund, but school districts in the state won’t see that money in time to save teacher jobs in the 2010-11 school year. The money, which could save about 3,300 teacher jobs in the state, cannot be distributed until the state legislature approves the supplemental appropriation. This won’t happen until legislators return to begin their session in January of 2011. Missouri plans to distribute the funds through the existing school funding formula, which focuses funds on low-income school districts where local property tax revenues are lowest. More here…

Oklahoma Higher Education Costs Set to Rise
The Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education this week approved an increase of up to 6.9 percent in costs at the state’s public higher education institutions. The report examined the cost of tuition, fees, textbooks, supplies, and room and board, and recommended cost hikes ranging from 1 to almost 7 percent. Undergraduate students at the state’s research universities will see a 4.9 percent increase in tuition and room and board, from $14,658 last year to $15,369 in the 2010-11 school year. In 2008-09, Oklahoma’s four-year public institutions were ranked 14^th in the country for affordability. Higher education officials in the state say that even with these increases, higher education remains affordable. More here…