The "economic stimulus" will (further) ruin education and the economy.

• Author: Lips, Dan
• Position: Education

PRES. BARACK OBAMA did education no favor by W signing into law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Widely touted as an economic stimulus package, the nearly $800,000,000,000 legislation includes billions of dollars for education and the creation of a State Fiscal Stabilization Fund to assist state governments in providing public education and other services. The act also contains significant spending increases for current and proposed Federal programs for K-12, postsecondary, and early childhood education. This approach is bad economic and education policy. An unprecedented Federal spending increase for education will not help economic growth--and past experience suggests strongly that this plan will not improve American educational performance. Instead of a massive Federal spending increase, Congress should have embraced fiscally responsible solutions to help states meet financial challenges and improve educational services.

At least $142,000,000,000 in new Federal funds is to be disbursed over the next two years--nearly double the total outlays of the Department of Education in 2007. Title I and IDEA--the two main Federal K-12 education programs--are marked for $13,000,000,000 spending increases. The package includes new funding for a series of other K-12 education programs such as Impact Aid ($100,000,000), Technology Education ($1,000,000,000), Education for Homeless Children ($66,000,000), Charter School Facilities ($25,000,000), and Teacher Incentive Fund ($200,000,000). Also included is a $14,000,000,000 program for school construction and modernization.

There are significant increases for higher education as well, like a $1,500,000,000 increase for Pell Grant funding and $6,000,000,000 for a new program to support "repair, renovation, and modernization" efforts at higher education institutions.

In addition, the package provides funding increases for early childhood education and care programs. Specifically, it calls for $2,100,000,000 in new funds for Head Start and a $2,000,000,000 increase for the Child Care Development Block Grant program.

Moreover, the spending plan has new funding to promote science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education. There is $100,000,000 in new funding for the National Science Foundation to develop new teachers in STEM fields and support research and development to improve math and science instruction, as well as $2,500,000,000 for a range of other projects, including support for STEM education at higher education institutions.

The largest education initiative is a $79,000,000,000 State Fiscal Stabilization Fund to help state governments pay for public services, including education. At least 61% of the funds for this program must be used by states for education. To have access, states must comply with a range...