9486 in the collection  

School officials want a cut of federal bailout

Ohanian Comment: So if
schools get more federal money does that mean
more of the same following federal directives?
I think it would be great if they didn't have
enough money for DIBELS, not enough funds for
the incessant standardized testing, and so
on.

By Greg Toppo

If banks, insurance companies and automakers
are getting a piece of Washington's bailout
largesse, why not cash-strapped schools?
That's the thinking of officials at a few hard-
pressed school systems, who have set wheels in
motion to get a share of the $700 billion
Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP,
intended for ailing financial institutions, and
the economic stimulus package now before
Congress.

In Olmstead Falls, Ohio, Superintendent Todd
Hoadley sent in the paperwork two days before
Thanksgiving to request $100 million from the
federal government, half of it for school
construction. He has yet to see a check and
concedes he dabbling in a bit of hyperbole by
latching onto the program, but he says the
problems are real.

"We were trying to make the statement: 'Don't
forget public education,' " Hoadley says.

In Olmstead Falls, 1,200 students cram into a
40-year-old high school built for 800. The
school board wants to cut $1 million from the
district's $34 million budget, and Gov. Ted
Strickland has asked advisers to see what a 25%
statewide school funding cut would look like.

Hoping for some help

In Florida, Broward County school board members
directed Superintendent James Notter in early
December to devise a plan seeking as much as
$500 million from the pot of federal money.

The 260,000 student district, sixth-largest in
the country, has trimmed $128 million from its
operating budget the past two years.

School districts across the nation are quietly
hoping that the federal government finds a way
to include them in aid proposals. The National
School Boards Association has published a list
of priorities that includes money for
construction and modernization as well as cash
to reduce the cost of debt-servicing on bonds.

Also hoping for a slice of the pie: after-
school and arts advocates, career and technical
programs and Head Start.

Though no district yet has followed Hoadley and
applied for the bailout, most are counting on
Congress' stimulus plan to include as much as
$25 billion for school construction, teacher
training and other chronically underfunded line
items. Educators say they need the cash as they
face budget cuts in the next two years. Nearly
half of districts are cutting hiring and
supplies, a November survey by the American
Association of School Administrators found. One
in five has laid off staff.

Trimming past the fat

"This has become, in my opinion, an economic
development problem because we are endangering
the preparation of the workforce," says Miami-
Dade Schools chief Alberto Carvalho.

A proposed Senate plan would give schools $2.5
billion for construction, but funding for the
rest remains unclear until Congress acts,
probably by mid-February.

"This is the first time that we've been in a
big stimulus package like this since the '70s,"
says the administrators association's Bruce
Hunter. "That's a big deal."

In Miami, Carvalho says he has spent the past
few months trimming nearly $280 million — but
he faces another midyear cut of more than $100
million.

"We're well past cutting through the fat,
through the flesh, muscle," he says. "We're now
sawing into bone."

He has led a handful of Florida superintendents
calling for federal aid to schools as state
lawmakers, meeting this month in special
session, consider nearly $500 million in school
cuts.

In Florida and elsewhere, most schools are
seeing the grim results of higher expenses and
lower tax revenue. But in a few cases, they've
taken hits from large investments gone sour. In
Wisconsin, five small districts that funded
retiree benefits by investing $200 million —
much of it borrowed from an Irish bank — in
collateralized debt obligations are suing after
their "safe" investments went south.

Schools created the mess?

Mike Petrilli of the Thomas B. Fordham
Institute, a Washington think tank, says many
districts' financial woes can be traced to
long-term teacher contracts that have locked
them into automatic raises and growing pension
expenditures without the flexibility to cut
costs "in a smart way."

"School districts have gotten themselves into
this mess by making promises they can't
fulfill," he says. "And now the chickens are
coming home to roost."

When Hoadley filed for the bailout, he sent it
directly to U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry
Paulson and to the Federal Reserve of
Cleveland, where an official said he didn't
think school districts qualify for TARP
funding. Then, a few weeks later, Hoadley
looked on as lawmakers offered the auto
industry a piece of it.

The rules, he says, keep changing — who will
get the rest?

"One wonders where that's going or what that's
going to go for," Hoadley says. "Hopefully it's
going to come our way."










— Greg Toppo

2009-01-13
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-01-12-school-stimulus_N.htm

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