Education

The Education Watch podcast this week covers a lot of ground that pertains to early education. We talk about a forthcoming Head Start brief, news from the U.S. Department of Education on Race to the Top (including five new winners of Early Learning Challenge grants) and new commentary in Ed Week on half-day kindergarten and the mismatch with the Common Core. 

For many early childhood educators, the words "technology" and "reading" don't go together. Yet the realities of today's hectic households and the affordances of new technologies are pushing us to think about where and how tech and literacy might overlap. As electronic games, especially apps, are increasingly aimed at children, and as digital media and social networking becomes a bigger part of parents' daily lives, it's time for new roadmaps.

Connecticut budget cuts stall plan to hire additional college faculty

Judge deals a setback to Louisiana’s voucher program

Wyoming governor's budget plan cuts $11.4M from UW

Iowa regents freeze tuition for in-state undergrads

Connecticut budget cuts stall plan to hire additional college faculty
Connecticut’s largest college system, the Connecticut State Colleges & Universities, has suspended its plan to hire 47 new faculty members because its budget was cut last week when Governor Dan Malloy included $14.4 million in higher education cuts to the system as part of his attempt to close a state budget shortfall. The cuts come after a reorganization last year in which the colleges saved $5.5 million by merging administrative duties between the community college and state university networks, an initiative pitched by a Malloy as a way to pump new money into academic programs. However, due to the budget shortfall, the money can no longer go towards funding new faculty, but instead towards closing the budget shortfall. The University of Connecticut, which operates under a separate governing board, will also be cut by $10.3 million, but previously planned faculty hiring that was paid for by a tuition increase last year will not be affected by the emergency budget cuts. More here…

Judge deals a setback to Louisiana’s voucher program
A Louisiana judge has ruled that it is unconstitutional for Louisiana to appropriate state money to private schools through a voucher program from a fund that clearly is meant to provide funding for public schools. The ruling does not rule the voucher program unconstitutional, per se. However, should the State Supreme Court uphold the ruling, that would force the legislature to appropriate funding for the private school voucher program separately from the funding for public schools, which is a formula designed to calculate state and local funding for public school districts. Appropriations are far more politically fraught than formula funds, so such a decision would significantly complicate one of Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal’s signature initiatives. More here…

Wyoming governor's budget plan cuts $11.4M from UW
State funding to the University of Wyoming would be cut by $11.4 million next year under Governor Matt Mead’s fiscal year 2014 budget recommendations. The 6 percent cut below fiscal year 2013 levels is less than the 8 percent cuts recommended for most other state agencies; university officials had been bracing for the larger, 8 percent cuts. The Governor also recommended introducing a recurring $2.4 million merit pay system for university employees, as well as $70 million for a new engineering building. The president of the University of Wyoming said he was grateful for the Governor’s recommendations. After being warned that large cuts may be forthcoming, the university had maintained empty faculty positions and worked to reduce other expenses, so the 6 percent cut was less than anticipated by administrative staff at the college. More here…

Iowa regents freeze tuition for in-state undergrads
The Iowa Board of Regents voted unanimously this week to freeze tuition for undergraduate resident students in the 2013-2014 school year for the first time in 30 years. The freeze is contingent on the state legislature awarding a 2.6 percent increase to the universities’ public funding over 2013 fiscal year levels. The tuition freeze is possible due to record enrollment rates at the University of Iowa and Iowa State University, as well as low inflation rates, according to the Board of Regents. Seventy-two percent of Iowa students graduate with some debt, and the average amount of debt upon graduation is $28,753 – the sixth highest amount of debt per borrower in the country, according to the Project on Student Debt. If the tuition freeze is implemented next year, tuition would remain at $6,648 at ISU and $6,678 at the University of Iowa. Out-of-state students, who already pay more than twice what in-state students pay at the college, will see tuition increase by at least $400 and possibly more than $1,000. More here…

They are both red states with conservative legislatures. But when it comes to investments in pre-K, Mississippi and Oklahoma have taken entirely different approaches. While Oklahoma has invested in universal voluntary preschool to all families that want to enroll their 4-year-olds, Mississippi is one of the few states in the country that doesn't spend a dime on preschool education for its population, not even for the neediest.

Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) just announced that he paid off his student loans early with the proceeds from a book deal. Paying down debt ahead of schedule is generally a prudent financial move. But if the Obama administration’s new Income-Based Repayment (IBR) plan had been in place when Senator Rubio graduated from law school, his decision to pay down debt early would have been a sucker bet. Why pay early when your unpaid loans will be forgiven?

Read the full post on Ed Money Watch.

This fall, millions of 5-year-olds donned backpacks full of school supplies for the first time as they headed off to kindergarten. Depending on where they live, however, these children are having widely divergent experiences, with some attending full-day kindergarten and others offered only half-day classes. And yet the new national English/language arts and math standards they are expected to meet are exactly the same.

As children pine for toys they see in store circulars and on TV, parents want to please. But they also wonder: will this toy keep my child occupied or get tossed in the back of the closet after 10 minutes? One piece of information that might help has less to do with the toy itself and more to do with what’s happening around it.

As we've noted many times on Early Ed Watch, Head Start, the federal government's pre-K program, is at a crossroads. 

In the midst of budget threats and an ongoing debate over whether Head Start creates lasting academic gains in children, Head Start has embarked on its largest reforms in decades to improve the quality of its grantees. The reform process, called “re-competition,” forces Head Start providers that are found during audits to be low-quality to compete with other agencies in the same geographic area for future Head Start grants. 

Connecticut Governor Dan Malloy shrinks deficit with cuts to social services, colleges

Alabama prepaid tuition program will run out of money in 2015 without lawsuit settlement, report estimates

West Virginia state higher ed chief says no cuts to financial aid

Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber’s budget offers 500 more teachers, cap on PERS increases

Connecticut Governor Dan Malloy shrinks deficit with cuts to social services, colleges
In response to a $363 million deficit, Connecticut Governor Dan Malloy this week announced a $123 million round of emergency cuts. Most of that is targeted at social services programs, and $25 million will cut funding for public colleges and universities. A smaller cut of $8.4 million was also applied to preK-12 education in the state. The cuts to higher education come on top of $68 million in cuts to colleges that lawmakers have made since 2011. The earlier cuts led to tuition hikes at the University of Connecticut of 6 percent, and at community colleges and other state universities of more than 3 percent. The new, $25 million cut to funding, as well as $3 million cut from payments for faculty benefits, means that over the last two years, state funding for higher education has dropped by 14 percent overall. In total, the new cuts represent less than half of the deficit, so the governor will have to work with the legislature to make more cuts in the coming weeks. More here…

Alabama prepaid tuition program will run out of money in 2015 without lawsuit settlement, report estimates
A new report on Alabama’s prepaid college tuition program shows that, unless the state Supreme Court approves a settlement with families to provide tuition at 2010 rates instead of current levels, the program will be short of funding by 2015.The tuition program has more than $300 million in investments, but pays out $90 million annually in tuition. The state legislature has already promised additional funds from the state’s Education Trust Fund coffers in 2015, but the extra payments still won’t cover the shortfall. The program, which allows parents to buy in and later receive college tuition and fees, has seen financial trouble since a simultaneous global recession and tuition hikes. Legislators attempted to change the program to pay out at 2010 levels in that year, but the law has been traveling through the courts since then. More here…

West Virginia state higher ed chief says no cuts to financial aid
Although West Virginia Governor Earl Tomblin asked all state agencies to cut their budgets by 7.5 percent in fiscal year 2014, the state Higher Education Policy Commission announced this week its financial aid programs would not be affected. Unlike other programs, like the K-12 funding formula, higher education is not exempt from the budget cuts, but the Commission stated that it would not cut financial aid spending regardless. In preparing its budget, the Commission decided to preserve the Promise Scholarship, which benefits students with strong academic performances and receives $47.5 million in funding annually from a combination of video gambling revenue and general funds. Governor Tomblin will present the 2014 budget in February, so negotiations with state agencies will continue until that time. More here…

Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber’s budget offers 500 more teachers, cap on PERS increases
Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber this week introduced his proposed fiscal years 2013-2015 biennial budget, which cuts some state programs and reforms the public employees retirement system while increasing education spending. His cuts, while controversial, would allow the state to increase funding for K-12 schools by 8 percent, up to $6.15 billion. That money will let states hire as many as 500 new teachers, or avoid hundreds of teacher layoffs if changes to the pension system are not approved. Funding for higher education would increase by $14 million for state Opportunity Grants and by $275 million in construction bonds for community colleges and universities. Early intervention spending would increase by $4 million, and special education for early childhood programs would increase by $16 million. The budget does not include any new revenue streams. More here…