Education Week reports a little pot of gold stashed away in the pending “stimulus” bill that I hadn’t noticed, or seen discussed, before.
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan says he is eager to use a proposed $15 billion federal incentive-grant fund in part to reward states, districts, and even nonprofit organizations that have set high standards for the students they serve….
The education incentive-grant money would be available to Mr. Duncan under both versions of a huge economic-stimulus package working its way through Congress. The House approved a broad, $819 billion measure Jan. 28. The Senate is expected to consider such legislation this week….
The $15 billion fund is a relatively small slice of the more than $120 billion slated for education programs under the pending stimulus legislation….
Perhaps $15 billion is now too trifling an amount for most commentators to notice.
Would this $15 billion really stimulate anything, and, if it would, do we really want more of whatever that is? On the other hand everyone keeps talking about spending stimulus money on “shovel-ready” projects, and it is certainly true that the education establishment produces much that needs to be shoveled.
UPDATE [6 Feb.]
Academics, also wanting to be stimulated, fear losing pork. The Chronicle of Higher Education reports this morning:
As the Obama administration fights for its economic-stimulus plan in Congress, supporters of university research are trying to ensure they don’t lose out in a compromise.
The Senate is working today on a stimulus plan estimated to cost more than $900-billion, or about $100-billion more than the House version….
But the House version, while cheaper over all, contains about $1-billion more for scientific research and development than does the Senate bill….
And the fear, said Peter Harsha, director of government affairs at the Computing Research Association, an advocacy group with members in industry and on campuses, is that the Senate may bring its total stimulus package closer in price to the House version by cutting out even more money for scientific research.
I think scientific research is a Good Thing. Perhaps the federal government, i.e., taxpayers, should spend more on it. But I don’t see how such spending is “timely, targeted, temporary,” which Obama had said he wanted stimulus funds to be, or how it will contribute in the short run to reviving the economy. Maybe in the long run, but as Keynes, the patron saint of the Democrats, said, “in the long run….”
