What Do You (Educators) Think About The Stimulus Bill?

[Dinger]

Particularly the Senate version?

[proud2BlibKansan]

1. I lobbied for it

My union sent me to DC last week and I lobbied both of my senators.

I am only up on the education and Medicaire parts but it's a good bill for our kids. Looks like the Senate took a few things out but all in all, we will be getting sorely needed funds. Today the tech person in my district told me our admins have been following this bill closely and we are looking into getting some of the tech funds as soon as the money is available.

There is also a chance my building may finally be air conditioned. :woohoo: And that's really enough for me. LOL

[LWolf]

2. The word in my area is that

the education portion, after the cuts, won't be enough to prevent early school closures this year. It will help, but it won't be enough.

My district is not waiting; we've made some pretty draconian cuts already, will be making more between now and March first, and will be looking at possibly ending the school year early after the state gives us budget figures the first week of March.

The district to the south of us is considering a 5 day cut. My district is considering a 10 day cut. The district to the east of us, a little rural district, has been talking about the possibility of just not coming back from spring break. Cutting April and May.

A 10 day pay cut will devastate my budget, and there are too many people who can't find jobs already. We won't be finding any temporary summer work this year.

I'm glad something passed. Every bit helps. We aren't out of trouble, as a district, a school site, or as those of us, admins, certified, and classified, facing loss of income.

[donco6]

3. It's certainly better than the alternative.

It'll keep us in operation this year and next. After that . . . who knows?

[ohgooglemebaby]

4. I am curious why more people are against it...

If it provides any money, that would be better than none. So I am thinking there must be another reason...

[endersdragon34]

5. My opinion

We could have put much more of that money into education and kept all schools open instead of starting half of the programs that won't create/save 1/10 as many jobs.

[proud2BlibKansan]

6. Can you give an example?

I have no idea what you mean.

[endersdragon34]

8. Basically just that its not doing enough

Another post says that some people were worried that there would still be school closings and lay-offs. Pretty much every dollar put into education saves jobs immediately in that sort of condition, and the funding is much more temporary then other money in the stimulous bill because the states should be able to take education back over at the end of the recession (which CBO says will be by the end of the year) as opposed to other areas that we are funding that will be much longer. I donno, they decided to cut money in the area of education rather then some of the environmental areas... I don't get it, and I think others don't either.

[proud2BlibKansan]

9. It's more than they were doing before.

[endersdragon34]

10. True, but that doesn't mean you have to like it

Now they can say they are doing something and have lost all money to do anything else (there is no way they will spend more money on education this year with a 1.75 trillion dollar budget deficit). They could have spent so much of that money that they are spending in ways that won't save near as many jobs (environmental spending for example that won't create/save near as many jobs) and kept the same deficit. For every, lets just say $50,000 they put into education it will save 1 job, instead of what, every $300,000 like the bill is currently planning to do. Sounds a lot more productive spending to me.

[endersdragon34]

11. Imagine it this way

You got hit by a drunk driver, spent a month in the hospital, and racked up $500,000 in medical expenses, not to mention lost wages and emotional distress. You take the guy to court and you get $50,000 for it, not even enough to cover the medical expenses, leaving you no choice but to declare bankruptcy. The same day another person in a frivolous law suit (think spilling coffee on herself) gets $700,000. Would you be happen that this is "more than they were doing before." This isn't enough money, and there's money going into frivolous places (and from the sound of it there is even more frivolous spending in the upcoming spending bill). Why should teachers be happy about this?

[proud2BlibKansan]

7. I don't get it either

Looks like I am the only one who voted yes.

[donco6]

12. I voted yes.

We're getting about $1.5 million. The unfortunate part is that it's coming through Title I and Title VIB. Both of these programs have non-supplanting language. This is a huge problem.

Supplanting means you aren't supposed to replace local dollars with federal dollars. The federal dollars were originally intended to create NEW programs, so they don't want local districts reducing their local effort and replacing that with federal dollars.

In our situation, and that of almost any other school district in the country right now, we find ourselves in a budget cutting mode. Which means local spending for ALL programs are decreasing, including special education (VIB). When that happens, we cannot INCREASE federal spending - even if we have the money. We have to carry it over from year to year to year. Which defeats the point of the stimulus.

What they need to do is eliminate the supplanting regs for ONE YEAR. In this way, we can catch up with our carryover and rearrange our budget to match what the reimbursement SHOULD be (43% or so), instead of what we're locked in at now (about 18%).

But special ed is one entrenched bureaucracy, and no mistake.