Friday News Roundup: Week of August 2-6

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.

TexasLeaders Threaten to Sue Federal Government over EduJobs Provision

Illinois Governor’s Budget Cuts Hit Schools, Social Services Hardest

Tuition Rising at Louisiana Colleges

Texas Leaders Threaten to Sue Federal Government over EduJobs Provision
The U.S. Senate this week passed the Education Jobs Fund, a measure that would make $10 billion available to states to save teacher jobs. Many Texas state lawmakers are unhappy about the measure, which includes a provision that applies only to Texas ensuring that the funds are used properly. U.S. Representative Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) introduced the measure in the House, claiming that Texas legislators used federal stimulus funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act improperly to avoid tapping the state’s rainy day fund. The provision by Representative Doggett would require Governor Rick Perry to certify that the state will maintain the current 2009-10 proportion of state funding for education in the 2010-11 school year and for two more fiscal years, through 2013. Texas legislators claim that this violates a provision in the Texas constitution that bans the governor from committing to future legislative funding. Republicans in the Texas state legislature will ask the state attorney general to sue the federal government if the measure is retained in the U.S. House version of the Education Jobs Fund. More here…

Illinois Governor’s Budget Cuts Hit Schools, Social Services Hardest
Illinois Governor Pat Quinn this week announced the details of a $1 billion budget cut he originally announced in July. Under the more detailed outline, public PreK-12 education funding would be cut by $70 million more than originally expected, for a total cut of $311 million. The cuts would come mostly from state aid for transportation, forcing districts to find ways to shorten school bus routes and minimize stops. Cuts would also come from arts and foreign language instruction funding. Governor Quinn also cut $273 million more from social services, bringing the total cut for that department to $576 million. The state legislature submitted a budget in May before the end of their session, but Governor Quinn announced in July that he’d have to cut $1 billion from their proposal to help close the state’s $13 billion budget deficit. More here…

Tuition Rising at Louisiana Colleges
Under a law passed recently by the Louisiana state legislature, the state’s colleges and universities will be able to raise tuition if they promise to improve their performance. Under the law, the state’s two- and four-year colleges and universities are permitted to raise tuition by up to 10 percent a year until they reach the average of similar schools in the South if they meet the performance requirements set by the law – the Granting Resources and Autonomy for Diplomas (GRAD) Act. After schools reach the Southern schools tuition average, they are permitted to increase tuition up to 5 percent each year or an amount equal to the growth in a national higher education price index, whichever is greater. College leaders have said the tuition increases will allow them to offset the $250 million they’ve already had cut from their budgets in the last two years and the$300 million they’re expected to lose in the 2011 fiscal year. More here…