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A weekly report on education news and commentary you won’t find anywhere else — from the nation’s leading voice on education innovation and opportunity.

Covid $ Diverted...Follow the money and #FundFamilies (not failure)

COVID ED FUNDS DIVERTED. This week, Biden press secretary Jen Psaki [[link removed]] admitted that the Blob’s intention for stimulus funds is for staff, not kids, for hiring and salaries and not on ensuring schools are opened!

“A big part of the challenge here for a number of schools is that they need… to obligate funds according to spending plans, rather than exhausting all balances as soon as they’re received. So the challenge here is, how do they plan ahead? They can hire, if they need to hire additional teachers now for smaller class sizes or if they need to hire bus drivers or if they need to hire, they need to do improvements to their facilities, they want to be able to know, understandably, just like any business or company, that they will be able to employ teachers next year and the year ahead, so that’s why this funding is so essential is because they need to be able to plan ahead so that they can make the improvements now and do the hiring now.”

As reported by The Federalist [[link removed]], “Psaki’s comments come after nearly $1 trillion of Congress’ previous coronavirus spending funds are still sitting unused. One $100 million authorization [[link removed]] in the CARES Act, which granted federally funded schools resources ‘for cleaning and disinfecting’ as well as ‘assistance in counseling and distance learning,’ was also left untouched as schools around the United States kept their doors closed in exchange for virtual learning.

FROM CALIFORNIA comes news that dollars intended to help low income, [[link removed]]English learners and foster youth could be spent on... wait for it… pay raises for teachers. Democrat legislator Shirley Weber, a former college professor and San Diego school board member points out that “this is not what we (the legislature) intended.” State Superintendent Tom Torlakson was heavily financed by the teachers unions and apparently doesn’t care what the legislature intended. He is going full speed ahead on his plan to take the dollars away from kids and give it to the unions.

FOLLOW THE MONEY. As CATO’s Neal McClusky reports, despite two enormous COVID relief packages to schools already passed, combined with another larger $212 billion in funding appropriated for education to educate — almost one-third [[link removed]] of what we spent on education nationally in the last regular year — classrooms remain closed across the country (except in private and some charter schools) while billions sit unused nearly a year after being dispensed.

RANDI STUTTERS THROUGH THE NUMBERS. Check out this summer’s Facebook interview [[link removed]] with the AFT president, who gets tongue tied when asked about how she arrived at her prediction that 1.4 million education jobs could be lost without the above referenced stimulus bill. “How did you get to your number?” Weingarten is asked, as she ahs and ums while she tries to cobble together an insufficient and misleading explanation:

“So we uh both punted and then we actually, um, used some of the statistics we’ve already been seeing, um, from, um, some of the very well established budget experts, uh, in Washington, DC...If you just uh...count the jobs lost, uh, that come out every month... Because as people have been starting to go inside… you know remote… um, there have been support personnel...so you can do both remote and in person… there has been a need to get additional teachers...Without the stimulus that hiring is going to stop.” HUH?

REQUIRE REOPENING TO RECEIVE FUNDS. The answer is right in front of us and the chorus for this logical next step is growing. As proposed by Louisiana Congressman and minority whip Steve Scalise [[link removed]], “Let's be clear: The extra $100+ billion for schools Democrats want to pass isn't even tied to reopening. They REJECTED @RepAshleyHinson’s [[link removed]] bill to require schools getting money to at least have a plan to reopen. Why should we send more money to schools not even planning to open?”

Why indeed? The moral of the story is that if schools won’t reopen, we can give families the funds. They will get the education their kids need and deserve.

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