28,000 education jobs created or retained thanks to stimuls funds

From State Supt. desk last week:

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell announced about 28,000 education jobs in prekindergarten through grade twelve were saved by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009. The figure was derived from the first quarterly reports submitted to the California Department of Education by school districts and other subrecipients of ARRA funds.

           "Thanks to the swift action by President Barack Obama and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, critically needed ARRA funds were available to help schools that have been severely challenged by the state budget crisis," said O'Connell. "While California's budget crisis continues, this federal infusion of cash has helped avert layoffs and keep vital staff in our schools."

Signed into law in February by Obama, ARRA is an unprecedented federal investment of one-time funds to provide public education and early childhood programs in the nation with critically needed funding. The entire national spending and tax package includes more than $100 billion for elementary, secondary, and postsecondary education. Of that amount, CDE is administering an expected $7 billion to benefit preK-12 public education. (This amount is revised from an earlier reported estimate of $8 billion.)

Federal law requires ARRA recipients to report each quarter on the status of spending on the funds, estimated jobs created or retained, and information about subrecipients. To meet this mandate, subrecipients were required to report to the CDE. The CDE constructed a Web-based data system to collect information for each grant from subrecipients. While the data are still subject to review, CDE is releasing the information in the interest of transparency.

           Ninety-nine percent of the 1,647 entities receiving ARRA grants administered by CDE submitted reports in the first quarterly reporting cycle. So far, 3,538 grants totaling $4.8 billion in ARRA funding have been allocated to California subrecipients, including school districts, county offices of education, special education local plan areas, charter schools, state operated schools, and school food authorities. Of that amount, $3.2 billion has been disbursed by CDE to the subrecipients. The quarterly reports indicate that for most of the grants, less than half of the allocated amounts have been spent at the local level.

           In keeping with the goals and direction from Secretary Duncan, local educational agencies are to spend ARRA funds to avoid teacher layoffs, continue efforts to close achievement gaps that exist between higher- and lower-performing pupils, improve educational opportunities for students, and to advance education reform.

"I urge districts, county offices of education, and charter schools to consider carefully how to advance these goals as they make local decisions on the use of these funds," added O'Connell. "I'd like to thank Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger for working with us to quickly allocate the ARRA funds to help our schools."

Aggregated information will be posted on the state and federal recovery Web sites athttp://www.recovery.ca.gov and http://www.recovery.gov, respectively. The CDE will post disaggregated information at the subrecipient level about amounts expended and estimates of jobs saved at http://www.cde.ca.gov/ar/rr/. For more information on ARRA, its effect on K-12 public education, and the specific data elements reported and how they were calculated, please visit http://www.cde.ca.gov/ar/.