Ohio Recieves $1 Billion in Recovery Funds
On June 10th, it was announced that $1 billion would made available to the state of Ohio under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The funds are meant to lay the ground work for a generation of education reform as well save many thousands of teaching jobs at risk of being lost. This funding comes after Ohio successfully completed the fist part of the State Stabilization Application. Go Ohio!
“The $1 billion Ohio will receive today is part of the single largest boost in education funding in recent history,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Anne Duncan. “The President’s leadership and support from Congress have made this historic investment possible. Ohio can now utilize these funds to save jobs and lay the groundwork for a generation of education reform.”
To this day, Ohio has received $432 million in education stimulus dollars. On April 1st Ohio received $186 million in Title I funding and $233 million in IDEA funding. On the same date Ohio also received $11 million in vocational rehabilitation funding and $2 million in independent living funding.
In order to receive the funding, Ohio promised that it would keep statistical information on the quality of classroom teachers, annual student improvements, the effectiveness of state standards and assessments, and interventions of under performing schools. Ohio is also required to report the number of jobs saved through the stimulus funding and how funds are used.
This stimulus funding will be a great blessing to the state of Ohio, hopefully for decades to come. If there are any states in need of education reform, Ohio is at the top of that list.
Hopefully more states will soon begin to see the stimulus funding coming their way. It will take time to see how effective this stimulus money will be. Lets hope that the stimulus funds are truly allocated to the proper areas and not sqaunderd away by greedy officials.
