Friday News Roundup: Week of January 12-16

Although we generally focus on federal funding, we thought it might be helpful to start a weekly news roundup that also includes a “state of the states and localities” as it relates to education funding in these tough economic times. Each Friday we’ll recap the big stories of the week in education funding – state, federal, and local – in the hope of giving you a better idea of the effects of the financial crisis on schools, colleges, and universities.

And to start it off…

House Proposed Stimulus Plan

ELL Spending

School District Consolidation

Tuition Up, But Not All Going To Instruction

House Proposed Stimulus Plan
Yesterday, the House Appropriations Committee released a summary of the economic stimulus plan, the “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.” The $825 billion dollar package includes $17.1 billion to increase the maximum Pell Grant to $5,350, $13 billion for formula grants under IDEA, and $13 billion for Title I grants for schools and districts that serve low-income populations. Though education spending is only a fraction of the overall proposed package, it represents a huge influx of dollars to an area whose total budget for FY 2008 was only $68.6 billion. Read the summary here or the full text of the bill here.

ELL Spending
EdWeek reported this week on varied state funding levels for the nation’s 5.1 million English-language learners (ELLs). While some states significantly supplement federal funds for ELL students with state funds, spending nearly twice as much on ELLs as on other students, other states rely solely on the federal Title III grants for their funding. Over the past ten-plus years, states have struggled to find the funds necessary to educate all ELLs because this population has grown so quickly (it more than doubled between the 1995-96 and 2005-06 school years). In addition, determining the efficacy of both federal and state dollars is difficult – there is no system in place to follow the dollars beyond the district level to see how students are benefiting. More here.

School District Consolidation
The New York Times this week examined a report issued by a New York state commission calling for school districts with enrollments of less than 1,000 students to merge with other small districts or with nearby larger districts to cut down on costs. Though the potential consolidation could result in decreasing property taxes and more efficient funding of education, there are several potential problems with the proposed plan. Educators in small school districts worry that the personal relationships between teachers, administrators, and their students would be diminished in a larger district. Larger districts tend to be more bureaucratic, making it harder to bridge the distance between administration and instruction, parents and school leaders, and the school and the community. As foundations continue to fund efforts to split up large schools and keep class sizes low, it seems counterintuitive to encourage school districts that have small school advantages to consolidate. More here.

Tuition Up, But Not All Going to Instruction
Declining state appropriations for higher education fueled sharp increases in tuition at public colleges and universities from 2002 to 2006. However, a new report released Thursday by the Delta Project on Postsecondary Education Costs, Productivity, and Accountability suggests that the increased student burden did not translate into greater investments in students. The report, “Trends in College Spending,” found that net tuition revenue at public research universities increased by an average of $383 per student in 2002-06, and increased by $124 per student community colleges. At public research universities, 92 percent of tuition increases were used to offset revenue decreases from other sources, while only 8 percent went to actual increases in spending. Tuition continued to rise, albeit by a lesser degree, even after state appropriations for higher education picked up again in 2005. Despite the tuition increases, the percentage of university revenues devoted to direct instruction consistently declined from 2002-05, with the greatest cuts found at community colleges. The report, which also included data on enrollment and degree completion, found students at public research universities covered close to half of the cost of their own education in 2006, up 39 percent from 2002. For the full report, click here.