stimulus

We're holding off saying much on the conference report on the stimulus bill until we can get a copy of the bill's actual text, but for those who are interested here's a quick run-down of the early education-related numbers released by House Appropriations and Education and Labor Committees:

• $53.6 billion for the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund. Of this total, $39.5 billion will be for local school districts, including some funding that can be used for school modernization and repairs, and an additional $5 billion will provide bonuses for states that make progress on education reforms. $8.8 billion will be available for states to spend on other priority needs.
• $13 billion for Title I
• $12.2 billion for IDEA
• $2 billion for CCDBG
• $2.1 billion for Head Start and Early Head Start

Obviously these initial numbers leave a lot of questions to answer. We'll say more as soon as we receive the text of the legislation.

In a primetime news conference designed mainly to promote and defend the pending economic recovery bill, I expected to hear a few curveballs from the media. What was fairly unexpected, however, was a chunk of time devoted to the delicate balance between consumer spending and savings in the context of economic recovery. But sure enough, near the halfway point of the broadcast, there was Chuck Todd of NBC News playing the role of inquisitive asset-builder. Here's the exchange (my emphasis added):

Chuck Todd, NBC News: Thank you, Mr. President. In your opening remarks, you talked about that, if your plan works the way you want it to work, it's going to increase consumer spending. But isn't consumer spending, or overspending, how we got into this mess? And if people get money back into their pockets, do you not want them saving it or paying down debt first before they start spending money into the economy?

President Obama: Well, first of all, I don't think it's accurate to say that consumer spending got us into this mess. What got us into this mess initially were banks taking exorbitant, wild risks with other people's monies based on shaky assets and because of the enormous leverage, where they had $1 worth of assets and they were betting $30 on that $1, what we had was a crisis in the financial system.

That led to a contraction of credit, which, in turn, meant businesses couldn't make payroll or make inventories, which meant that everybody became uncertain about the future of the economy, so people started making decisions accordingly, reducing investment, initiating layoffs, which, in turn, made things worse.

Now, you are making a legitimate point, Chuck, about the fact that our savings rate has declined and this economy has been driven by consumer spending for a very long time. And that's not going to be sustainable.

You know, if -- if all we're doing is spending and we're not making things, then over time other countries are going to get tired of lending us money and eventually the party's going to be over. Well, in fact, the party now is over.

And so the -- the sequence of how we're approaching this is as follows. Our immediate job is to stop the downward spiral, and that means putting money into consumers' pockets. It means loosening up credit.

It means putting forward investments that not only employ people immediately, but also lay the groundwork for long-term economic growth.

...

Now, what we are going to also have to do is to make sure that, as soon as the economy stabilizes, investment begins again, we're no longer contracting but we're growing, that our mid-term and long-term budget is dealt with, and I think the same is true for individual consumers.

Right now, they're -- they're just trying to figure out, how do I make sure that, if I lose my job, you know, I'm still going to be able to make my mortgage payments? Or they're worried about, how am I going to pay next month's bills? So they're not engaging in a lot of long-term financial planning.

Once the economy stabilizes and people are less fearful, then I do think that we're going to have to start thinking about, how do we operate more prudently? Because there's no such thing as a free lunch.

So if -- if you want to get -- if you want to buy a house, then putting zero down and buying a house that is probably not affordable for you in case something goes wrong, that's something that has to be reconsidered. So we're going to have to change our -- our bad habits.

But right now, the key is making sure that we pull ourselves out of the economic slump that we're in.

Yesterday's New York Times featured an op-ed by Douglas J. Besharov and Douglas M. Call--from now on I'll call them Doug²--opposing Head Start funding in the House and Senate stimulus bills. Doug² argue that Head Start shouldn't be in the stimulus because the program is ineffective, so increasing Head Start funding would be an example of "spending vastly more on domestic programs without necessarily improving the way they operate."

The 111^th Congress will have numerous opportunities to enact policies that improve access, quality, efficiency, and alignment in early education, including the economic stimulus package currently being debated in Congress and the scheduled reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), also known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB). A new issue brief from New America's Early Education Initiative proposes 10 new policy ideas to improve access, quality, and alignment in early education from preschool through the early elementary school years:

Over the weekend, a group of Senators looking to forge compromise on the stimulus bill put together an amended version that would would significantly cut funding for education programs, relative to both the House-passed stimulus bill and the committee-passed version of the Senate stimulus bill. Here's a run-down of funding for key early education programs in the House, Senate committee, and proposed Senate compromise versions of the bill:

If accepted, the amended Senate version would cut education spending in the stimulus package by more than $60 billion, including significant reductions in the amount of funding provided for early education programs. Specifically, it cuts funding for Head Start and Early Head Start by over $1 billion, and it completely eliminates funding for school construction and renovation--which states and local school districts desperately need in order to expand access to high-quality early education programs.

"I never imagined I'd be in this position," intimates a stunned Lois Wadace. Like many Americans in the recent downturn, Wadace no longer has access to employer-sponsored insurance plan. A Kaiser Health News article in today's Washington Post chronicles the stories of Wadace and other members of the "new uninsured" who have been forced to scramble to cobble together health coverage in tough economic times.

In the near term, the newly uninsured have been forced to cut back on doctors visits, reduce their use of necessary (and costly) prescription drugs, attempt to navigate the tricky waters of the individual insurance market, and search for care in free clinics and emergency rooms. Access, literally, sometimes depends on the luck of the draw.

Our readers know that we give Massachusetts a lot of credit for forging ahead with its program to cover everyone, although we recognize the economic and logistical challenges. The Boston Globe takes a closer look at how families are cobbling together coverage, even in Massachusetts, where unemployment has reached a 15 year high. Here are three stories that the Globe's Kay Lazar found when she looked "at the people behind the statistics."

Vivian Izuchi, 53, a married mother of three, lost her job as director of a church after-school program. She got another similar job fairly quickly, a blessing in this economy. But the last one had health coverage. This one doesn't. "I am investigating everything and anything I can," she told the newspaper, as she sorts through a "maze of state-subsidized programs" to see if her family qualifies. Her husband is now unemployed, so no on-the-job insurance option there.

Courtesy of our colleagues over at Ed Money Watch, this table compares funding levels for various programs in the House and Senate stimulus bills:

You can read the full analysis here.

In addition to the Education Department funding programs in this table, both the House and Senate bills would provide funds for early childhood programs operated by the Department of Health and Human Services. Both the House and Senate bills provide:

• $1 billion for Head Start
• $1.1 billion for Early Head Start
• $2 billion for the Child Care and Development Block Grant

While the House and Senate bills provide the same funding levels for Title I and IDEA, only the Senate version sets aside 15 percent of both Title I and IDEA funding for services to preschool-aged children. That makes the Senate version of the stimulus bill, as currently written, a much stronger bill for early education than the House version. Let's hope the Senate's Title I and IDEA provisions make it into the final legislation.

House Passes Stimulus Bill ...

 ... While Senate Details Own Stimulus Proposal

Report Recommends Reforms to Pk-16 Pipeline to Improve College Readiness

Briefly Noted ...

I have a piece up in the Washington Independent today about why the stimulus should include school facilities investments. Key paragraph:

New investments in school construction and modernization are a natural fit for the stimulus package. Unlike education programs, which need ongoing funding in order to keep operating, a two-year investment in school construction would produce thousands of school buildings that could be used for decades to come, with no need for continued federal funding. Similarly, investments in “greening” existing school facilities to reduce their energy consumption will produce substantial, ongoing savings that school districts can use to fund pre-k, increased teacher compensation, and other educational programs.