Free Daily Headlines :

  • COVID-19
  • Vaccine Info
  • Money
  • Politics
  • Education
  • Health
  • Justice
  • More
    • Environment
    • Economic Development
    • Gaming
    • Investigations
    • Social Services
    • TRANSPORTATION
  • Opinion
    • CT Viewpoints
    • CT Artpoints
DONATE
Reflecting Connecticut’s Reality.
    COVID-19
    Vaccine Info
    Money
    Politics
    Education
    Health
    Justice
    More
    Environment
    Economic Development
    Gaming
    Investigations
    Social Services
    TRANSPORTATION
    Opinion
    CT Viewpoints
    CT Artpoints

LET�S GET SOCIAL

Show your love for great stories and out standing journalism

Jobs: Federal funds just a temporary reprieve

  • by Michele McNeil
  • February 12, 2011
  • View as "Clean Read" "Exit Clean Read"

The economic stimulus package that Congress passed two years ago preserved hundreds of thousands of jobs in the nation’s public schools but, with the economy still sputtering, the future of many of those positions remains in jeopardy.

In all, the nearly $100 billion shot-in-the-arm funded 367,524 education-related jobs during the 2009-10 school year, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

Though this tally includes jobs saved and created, observers say states and school districts did not go on a hiring spree with their stimulus funds. Instead, they hunkered down to prevent mass layoffs and to maintain the status quo-no small feat, given the historic recession and the soaring budget deficits that resulted.

“We saved 350,000 jobs. How often do you get to do that in life?” Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said in an interview. “I think it helped to stave off a total disaster.”

hechinger bug3

While the number of jobs saved may seem eye-popping, the stimulus funding didn’t seem like a windfall to many school districts. That’s because many recession-battered states, desperate to balance their budgets, cut education funding and spent the savings on other public services. They then used federal stimulus money to back-fill those budgetary holes for education. Congress attempted to bar such maneuvers but that provision of the stimulus bill was filled with so many loopholes that states generally could get around it.

In a report by the American Association of School Administrators last April, 87 percent of districts reported that they saw no net increase in funding despite the stimulus package.

A March 2010 report by the Center on Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington Bothell came to a similar conclusion: that stimulus funds largely subsidized the existing K-12 workforce because adding staff would have created a funding cliff when the money ran out.

And that is quickly happening.

Districts have less than one-quarter of their stimulus funds remaining, which means jobs for thousands of teachers, aides, janitors and consultants hang in the balance.

States must now figure out how to keep these education jobs on the payroll even as their own economies continue to struggle. Helping, at least temporarily, is an additional $10 billion Congress approved in August for educator jobs as part of a state bailout package called the Education Jobs and Medicaid Assistance Act.

Even so, this budget year, 13 states are making a combined $1 billion in unexpected midyear cuts to K-12 education, according to a November report by the National Association of State Budget Officials and the National Governors Association.

Nor does it get better next budget year, when nearly half of the states are expecting overall budget gaps. And in 2013, 17 states are still predicting shortfalls.

Michael Griffith, a fiscal analyst with the Denver-based Education Commission of the States, which tracks and analyzes state education policies, said it will take up to three years before states fully recover. “Even with stimulus money, districts had to make pretty large cuts,” he said. “The money prevented them from cutting muscle and bone.”

In Connecticut, the state budget is facing a $3.67 billion deficit and local school systems are still reeling from last summer’s painful budget cuts, which resulted in bigger class sizes, teacher layoffs and program cuts. While figuring out how to pay for reforms the state legislature mandated to compete for federal stimulus grants, local schools are also worried about what will happen this coming summer when the stimulus funds that have propped up their education budgets are exhausted.

“If I’m a superintendent of schools, I’m sweating right now,” said state House Minority Leader Lawrence Cafero.

Thanks in part to stimulus funding, most Pennsylvania school districts have weathered the recession with a lot of belt-tightening but few drastic cuts. The state estimates that 8,100 education jobs were saved.

But in 2011, things could get far worse. State funding will almost certainly be reduced, local revenues still have not rebounded and school boards are hesitant to hike taxes with unemployment still high. “We’re bracing ourselves,” said Lawrence Feinberg, a school board member in a relatively prosperous suburban Philadelphia school district.

For the Pittsburgh Public Schools, which were in the midst of developing and implementing a series of reforms when the economic stimulus was passed, the funding has saved about 200 teaching jobs each year. Without the money, Peter Camarda, executive director of budget development, management and operations for the district, said the layoffs “would have been very disruptive to education and would have taken the district off course.”

In energy-rich Alaska, which weathered the downturn better than other states, some districts used the stimulus as an opportunity to beef up programs. In Juneau, district leaders added literacy specialists and leaders, middle-school exploratory classes and drug prevention program staff. In all, ARRA funds paid for 10 existing staff positions and about six and a half new ones. But now the district faces a new round of tough choices as it stares down a $4 million hole in its $80 million budget.

Even though the stimulus saved hundreds of thousands of jobs, school districts still had to lay off teachers. Yet with all of this money came little action among school administrators and state policy leaders addressing fundamental problems in staffing and education finance.

Tim Daly, executive director of the New York City-based New Teacher Project, a teacher-training organization, lamented that there was little movement to change how teachers are laid off. Rather than getting rid of poorly performing teachers, he said, most districts are bound by union contracts to lay off the most recently hired teachers first.

The stimulus package “forestalled the conversation about how to redo the workforce with the least harm to kids,” Daly said. “We set a precedent that you don’t have to change the way you do layoffs in a financial crisis.”

But there are merits to protecting teachers with more seniority, according to the country’s two main teachers’ unions.

“With the end of the stimulus funding, we’re seeing efforts to pit one teacher against the other by trying to cut those with experience since they tend to earn more,” American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said in a statement. Instead of focusing on how districts do layoffs, she said “let’s [improve teaching] by developing a fair and comprehensive teacher evaluation system, which would make seniority-based layoffs moot.”

National Education Association President Dennis Van Roekel said experienced teachers are valuable, and that “in no other profession is experience deemed a liability rather than an asset.”

To expect school districts to dramatically change how they do business in such a short timeframe may be unrealistic, said Karen Hawley Miles, executive director of Education Resource Strategies in Massachusetts, a nonprofit that works with large urban districts to improve student learning.

Still, she pointed to districts that are focusing on not just keeping more people in the classroom, but on retaining the right people-districts such as Charlotte-Mecklenburg, in North Carolina, which was able to conduct layoffs based in part on merit.

“But those who were able to really seize it [stimulus funding] as a transformational moment are in the minority,” she said. “Moving these behemoth organizations takes a long time.”

(Michele McNeil is an assistant editor covering federal education policy at Education Week. With contributions from Grace Merritt, Hartford Courant; Dan Hardy, Philadelphia Inquirer; Eleanor Chute, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Sarah Day, Juneau (Alaska) Empire.)

Stories in this report include:

  • Bridgeport: Can a private firm and federal funds fix this public school?
  • Overview: Has the education stimulus ‘moon shot’ hit its target?
  • Jobs: Federal funds just a temporary reprieve
  • Consultants: Washington’s billions spawn an industry
  • Innovation: A mixed record in changing education


Sign up for CT Mirror's free daily news summary.

Free to Read. Not Free to Produce.

The Connecticut Mirror is a nonprofit newsroom. 90% of our revenue comes from people like you. If you value our reporting please consider making a donation. You'll enjoy reading CT Mirror even more knowing you helped make it happen.

YES, I'LL DONATE TODAY

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Michele McNeil

SEE WHAT READERS SAID

RELATED STORIES
Health issues carried weight on the campaign trail.
by Victoria Knight | Kaiser Health News

Even with the Democrats’ newfound Senate majority, differences in health policy between the party’s moderate and progressive wings will persist.

Trump’s pardons included health care execs behind massive fraud
by Fred Schulte | Kaiser Health News

At the last minute, President Donald Trump granted pardons to several individuals convicted in huge Medicare swindles that prosecutors alleged often harmed or endangered elderly and infirm patients while fleecing taxpayers. “These aren’t just technical financial crimes. These were major, major crimes,” said Louis Saccoccio, chief executive officer of the National Health Care Anti-Fraud Association, […]

‘It’s a nightmare:’ A growing number of seniors are unable to book vaccine appointments as problems mount
by Dave Altimari and Jenna Carlesso

The state acknowledged Friday in an email to local health workers that some residents are waiting days for a callback.

Panel recommends small, inflationary pay hike for state officials
by Keith M. Phaneuf

Connecticut's part-time legislature hasn't received a pay hike since 2001. The annual base-pay for senators and representatives is $28,000.

Police task force seeks wider applicant pool for watchdog role
by Kelan Lyons

The task force sent four recommendations — and two that didn't get unanimous approval— to lawmakers for the 2021 session.

Support Our Work

Show your love for great stories and outstanding journalism.

$
Select One
  • Monthly
  • Yearly
  • Once
Artpoint painter
CT ViewpointsCT Artpoints
Opinion Miguel Cardona, who are you?
by Ann Policelli Cronin

When I ask Connecticut teachers about Miguel Cardona, those who know him or have worked with him say that he is really nice guy who knows what the challenges in our classrooms are, knows how to help teachers to improve their teaching, and respects public schools. All good. But what is his vision for teaching and learning that he will bring to the U.S. Department of Education?

Opinion Connecticut needs a strong two-party system, this Democrat says
by Edward Marcus

J.R. Romano’s recent resignation as the state’s Republican Party chair has brought into focus the need for a viable opposition party in Connecticut. It is not healthy politics when everything is totally controlled by one party:  the legislature, the governorship, and most of the major municipalities in our state.

Opinion Connecticut’s $100 million college shell game
by Stephen Adair

The plan to consolidate the 12 community colleges in Connecticut into one college with 12 campuses is called “Students First,” which is ironic because it does not fund students first.  It funds a new administration in a new, statewide bureaucracy. The Board of Regents (BOR) and the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities (CSCU) system office […]

Opinion Inconsistent television captioning is a barrier to equal access
by Jeffrey Bravin and Barbara Cassin

Our world long ago entered the age of the 24-hour news cycle, and a full understanding of the “who, what, when, where and why” of the news is critical for deaf, deafblind and hard of hearing citizens. Yet, Connecticut’s inconsistent quality of television captioning locks our community out of the complete sense of what is happening.

Artwork Grand guidance
by Anne:Gogh

In a world of systemic oppression aimed towards those of darker skintones – representation matters. We are more than our equity elusive environments, more than numbers in a prison and much more than victims of societal dispositions. This piece depicts a melanated young man draped in a cape ascending high above multiple forms of oppression. […]

Artwork Shea
by Anthony Valentine

Shea is a story about race and social inequalities that plague America. It is a narrative that prompts the question, “Do you know what it’s like to wake up in new skin?”

Artwork The Declaration of Human Rights
by Andres Chaparro

Through my artwork I strive to create an example of ideas that reflect my desire to raise social consciousness, and cultural awareness. Jazz music is the catalyst to all my work, and plays a major influence in each piece of work.”

Artwork ‘A thing of beauty. Destroy it forever’
by Richard DiCarlo | Derby

During times like these it’s often fun to revisit something familiar and approach things with a different slant. I have been taking some Pop culture and Art masterpieces and applying the vintage 1960’s and 70’s classic figures (Fisher Price, little people) to the make an amusing pieces. Here is my homage to Fisher -Price, Yellow […]

Twitter Feed
A Twitter List by CTMirror

Engage

  • Reflections Tickets & Sponsorships
  • Events
  • Donate
  • Newsletter Sign-Up
  • Submit to Viewpoints
  • Submit to ArtPoints
  • Economic Indicator Dashboard
  • Speaking Engagements
  • Commenting Guidelines
  • Legal Notices
  • Contact Us

About

  • About CT Mirror
  • Announcements
  • Board
  • Staff
  • Sponsors and Funders
  • Donors
  • Friends of CT Mirror
  • History
  • Financial
  • Policies
  • Strategic Plan

Opportunity

  • Advertising and Sponsorship
  • Speaking Engagements
  • Use of Photography
  • Work for Us

Go Deeper

  • Steady Habits Podcast
  • Economic Indicator Dashboard
  • Five Things

The Connecticut News Project, Inc. 1049 Asylum Avenue, Hartford, CT 06105. Phone: 860-218-6380

© Copyright 2021, The Connecticut News Project. All Rights Reserved. Website by Web Publisher PRO