New York to Receive More Than $814 Million in Additional Recovery Funds

                                                        New York Recovery Dollars Have Provided Funding For More Than 29,000 Education Jobs

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

U. S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan today announced that an additional $814,624,071 is now available for New York under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009. To date, New York has received $6,277,589,038 through the ARRA. The state recently reported that recovery dollars have been used to provide funding for more than 29,000 education jobs from April 1 to June 30, 2010, while also supporting programs that drive education reform.

"With this application, New York provided us with basic information on what is working in their classrooms," said Duncan. "This data is a critical tool in helping us work together—with students, parents, teachers, administrators, community leaders and elected officials at every level—to improve education for New York's students."

The application required states to provide data that will lay the foundation for reform including:

1. •How teachers and principals are evaluated and how this information is used to support, retain, promote or remove staff.
   

2. •The extent to which the state has a Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems that includes all the necessary America COMPETES Act requirements and how it will implement a comprehensive system by 2011.
   

3. •Whether the state provides student growth data on current students and the students taught in the previous year to, at a minimum, teachers of reading/language arts and mathematics in grades in which the state administers assessments in those subjects in a manner that is timely and informs instructional programs.
   

4. •The number and identity of the schools that are Title I schools in improvement, corrective action or restructuring that are identified as persistently lowest-achieving schools.
   

State applications must describe the state's current ability to collect the data or other information needed for the assurance indicators and descriptors as well as the state's current ability to make the data or information easily available to the public. If the state is currently able to fully collect and publicly report the required data or other information at least annually, the state must provide the most recent data or information with its plan.

If a state is not currently able to fully collect or publicly report the data or other information at least annually, the plan must describe the state's process and timeline for developing and implementing the means to do so as soon as possible but no later than Sept. 30, 2011. The state plan must describe the state's collection and public

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Illinois, Kansas, Nevada, and South Dakota Will Receive Funds to Support Education Jobs

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan today announced that Illinois will receive $415.4 million, Kansas will receive $92.5 million, Nevada will receive $83.1 million, and South Dakota will receive $26.3 million to support education jobs.

"There is a huge sense of urgency to get these funds out the door. I commend these states for being among the first to submit their applications and thank our team at the Department for making funds available within a matter of days," said Duncan. "These education dollars will help these states keep thousands of teachers in the classroom working with our students this school year."

The $10 billion education fund will support education jobs in the 2010-11 school year and be distributed to states by a formula based on population figures. States can distribute their funding to school districts based on their own primary funding formula or districts' relative share of federal Title I funds.

Over the last two years, the Department has been able to support 300,000 education jobs through stimulus funding provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. At this time, seven states have drawn down 100 percent of previously allocated jobs funding, while 18 states total have drawn down 80 percent or more. A July report from the independent Center on Education Policy found that 75 percent of school districts that received stimulus funds expect to cut teaching positions in the upcoming school year.