U.S. Department of Education

The Department of Education (ED) released long awaited guidance documents for the major programs funded in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act on April 1st. Each document specifies how funds for each program will be distributed, how each governor must disperse the funds, and how states and local education agencies (LEAs) will be able to use them. Because each document is 40 pages or longer, we will summarize the guidance in three separate posts. Yesterday we discussed the guidance for the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund.

The Department of Education released long awaited guidance documents for the major programs funded in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act today. Each document specifies how funds for each program will be distributed, how each governor must disperse the funds, and how states and local education agencies (LEAs) or institutions of higher education (IHEs) may use them.

Should the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) program be mended or ended? That was the subject of debate at an event on Tuesday hosted by the New America Foundation's Education Policy Program.

On one side was Robert Shireman, a senior advisor at the U.S. Department of Education, who helped write the Obama administration's plan to sunset the FFEL program and use the savings to turn the Pell Grant program into a true entitlement for low-income students by financing it entirely through mandatory funding. The recent turmoil in the financial markets, he said, has exposed the risks that the federal government takes on by relying on private lenders to make government-backed loans to students. Without federal intervention, the whole program could have collapsed. "It's not a system that assures that the loans are actually made," he stated.

On the other side were representatives of the student loan industry, who urged the administration to abandon the proposal, which they said would be harmful to students, and instead work with them to reform the program. "I do believe the administration is approaching this from a sincere belief that they want to do the right thing and lenders, for the most part, don't disagree with what the administration is trying to accomplish," said Scott Fleming, director of the Chartwell Education Group, a lobbying firm that has represented lenders. "It's simply that we disagree with how they put it in practice."

Budget Fight Ahead Over Obama's Plan to End FFEL

Default Rates are Up, Particularly in FFEL

New America to Host Event on "Future of Federal Student Loans"

Briefly Noted...

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) provided new or additional funds for several federal education programs. Title I and IDEA, programs that received more than $10 billion each in the stimulus legislation, have gotten significant coverage in the media. But several smaller programs have been mostly overlooked.

This week, the House and Senate Budget Committees will draft their versions of the fiscal year 2010 congressional budget resolution. Both the full House and Senate could consider the measure as early as next week. Unfortunately, arcane procedures surrounding the budget resolution prevent the media and education advocates from discerning what effect it may have on federal education programs. This confusion is made worse by political rhetoric and partisan spin from both sides of the aisle.

In response, the New America Foundation's Federal Education Budget Project has released an updated version of the issue brief "A Primer on the Budget Resolution's Impact on Education Funding." The primer is an insightful guide to the congressional budget process and how it affects education spending. It also includes a helpful explanation of the budget reconciliation process, which may be used this year.

More Students Attending Community Colleges...

...As A Survey Discusses How to Keep Them Enrolled

Turmoil in Connecticut over Nonprofit Lender/Guaranty Agency

Briefly Noted...

By Kevin Hartnett

When No Child Left Behind (NCLB) became law in 2001, it mandated that all classrooms be staffed by a "highly qualified" teacher, re-igniting the debate around how teachers are trained and recruited.

At the center of the debate are Alternative Certification (AC) programs. These programs fast-track teacher candidates with prior "real-world" experience into classrooms by requiring them to take fewer courses than are required in Traditional Certification (TC) programs (like an undergraduate degree in education). Proponents of AC programs argue that traditional training courses add little to a teacher's ability, while critics charge that AC programs yield fundamentally unprepared educators. In 2008 AC teachers accounted for one-third of all new teaching hires. While several academic studies have attempted to assess the efficacy of AC programs over TC programs, few have been able to produce clear evidence one way or the other.

A new report from the Department of Education (ED) sheds light on the AC debate. The study compared 87 TC teachers and 87 AC teachers in 63 different schools, across seven states, over a two-year period. AC and TC teachers within the same school were paired and each randomly assigned a class of students. After controlling for background characteristics like teaching experience and prior academic achievement, the study found that type of teacher preparation had no significant effect on student achievement.

By Pat Smith

The time has come for a new era in federal student loan policy -- one in which students can borrow fully confident that their loan payments will be manageable when they leave postsecondary education.

Last week the Department of Education released a study of education revenue and expenditures using 2007 federal, state, and local National Center for Education Statistics finance data. This report provides some of the most up to date information on where education dollars come from and how they are spent.