President Obama’s Education Budget Signals New Changes for ESEA

There may be bold changes for the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) as President Obama budget infuses more competition, flexibility and accountability in K-12 education. President Obama’s new budget includes $49.7 billion for the Department of Education’s discretionary programs, an increase of $3.5 billion over fiscal year 2010. The budget also includes $173 billion in loans, grants, tax credits and work-study programs to help students go to college.

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan mentions on www.Ed.gov that the budget sends a clear signal to the country that this president is serious about education. Duncan also mentioned that “There are a lot of innovative proposals in the budget that come from across America.”

The budget will also provide $9.3 billion in competitive grants to states over the next 10 years to improve the quality of early learning programs and prepare students for success in kindergarten.  

Here are some of the programs that will see increases in funds according to President’s Obama’s new budget and these increases include:

• $539 million for innovative teacher and leader reforms such as performance pay, bringing the total to $950 million, and $269 million for teacher and leader recruitment and preparation, bringing the total to $405 million.
• $354 million for school turnaround grants, bringing the total up to $900 million.
• $250 million for special education students, bringing the IDEA Grants to States total to $11.755B
• $210 million for Promise Neighborhoods, a new competitive grant program modeled on the Harlem Children’s Zone that combines comprehensive social services with school improvements in order to transform whole neighborhoods.
• $197 million for programs designed to promote a well-rounded education, supporting comprehensive literacy, STEM and other core subjects including history and arts.
• $81 million for expanding educational options, including at total of $365.5 million in funding for charter and other autonomous schools.
• $50 million for English Language Learner Programs, bringing the total amount up to $800 million.
• $45 million for school safety and student health programs for a total of $410 million under a new funding stream called Successful, Safe and Healthy Students.
• $98 million for Historically Black Colleges and Universities
• $96.57 million for Hispanic Serving Institutions, and other Minority Serving institutions

For more information about President Obama’s budget proposal, visit http://www2.ed.gov/news/pressreleases/2010/02/02012010.html and let NSSEA know your thoughts.

Obama Announces Millions More for Schools

President Barack Obama will be giving his first State of the Union Address tonight at 9 pm EST. During the address, President Obama plans to propose a major increase in funding for elementary and secondary education for the coming year.

Obama is recommending an increase of federal education aid to $4 billion for the next fiscal year. The Race to the Top competitive grants program would receive $1.3 million under Obama’s proposal. He will also discuss revamping the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) also known as Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), by increasing its funding to $1 million.

Read the article “Obama Announcing Billions for More Schools,” and let NSSEA know your thoughts!

Change

By Gene Schulist, School-Pak, Inc

“Alea jacta est”, the die has been cast. It looks like the health care bill is dead in the water.

Perhaps our government can now look at what’s going on in our country.

With all the promise of “Change We Can Believe In”, the administration has gone the route of past administrations, offering deals to banks, insurance companies, unions, whoever will help them accomplish what they want with little regard for the taxpayers.

As a small company, we pay over $25,000 a year in premiums with a $5,000 deductible. Our co-pay generally doesn’t cover the total office visit with exams so we end up paying on that $5,000 deductible with every visit.

Our congressional leaders, having the best retirement and health benefit package of any American citizen, are blind to what’s going on outside the beltway.

Unemployment has increased significantly over the past year. Foreclosures are at an all-time high. The bailout of the banks, while supporting all the deregulation that’s been in place, has destroyed the hopes of small business people throughout the nation.

Small businesses employ more than 90 percent of all workers and we’ve been ignored. We need to get some type of representation in congress. If there’s any now, it’s not very effective.

The answer is to have that paid lobbyist that can bend arms in Washington. Of course, that means hiring another “Candy Man” that can feed treats to our politicians making them unethically obese. I’m not sure I want to be part of the problem.

What we need is a new Congress. Maybe we should pick them randomly by their zip code or address.

“Hey, Harold. You’re our new Representative to Congress.”

“That’s fine but I really don’t know what to do”

“No, but the chances are you’re pretty honest since you weren’t elected on the dollars of a special interest”

The president and both parties’ congressional delegations have approval ratings under 50 percent. How could we possibly do worse?

Now is the time to provide help to small business, from school supply companies (special interest of mine) to day care centers, restaurants and auto repair shops. The inability to hire more employees is not based on maintaining profit structure. It’s based more on the fact we don’t want to close our doors.

Any suggestions on how to rattle their respective (does a derivative of respect really fit?) cages to get recognized are welcome. Feel free to comment and let’s get the ball rolling.

One Year of Stimulus?

By Jeff Pett Fleetwood Group

This week President Obama had his one-year anniversary.  I was going to say he “celebrated” it, but I am not confident there was any celebrating going on.  He probably did some reflecting on what he has been through in his first year in office, and the White House released photos covering the year from behind the scenes.  But with Haiti, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Iran, and oh-by-the-way the economy here at home to occupy his mind, the day may have slipped by virtually unnoticed.

Job #1 a year ago was the economy.  The “stimulus package” was rushed through the legislative process in record time with promises of avoiding Armageddon and happy days just around the corner.  In our industry we had hopes of schools getting lots of money that they could spend on supplies, furniture and equipment.  From our neck of the woods, however, we haven’t seen a whole lot of evidence that anyone is writing checks out of the stimulus bank account.

Have you tried to track any of the stimulus funds yet?  I did last summer and wrote about it in my August blog.  In that timeframe I could find no evidence of projects that were specifically going to any schools.  If you would like to do a little tour of your own, here is the website: www.recovery.gov .  Going back there this morning, I found the site has changed quite a bit.

The first thing I noticed is that when viewing the US map it is not as easy to see, at a glance, where the projects and money have gone.  You have to roll your mouse over a state to see an overview of three stats: funds awarded, funds received, and jobs created.  So far, nationwide, only 58 percent of the funds allocated have been awarded, and only 13 percent have actually been distributed!  In a year!

I have to admit that I laughed out loud when I saw the overall jobs created number.  There is a big, bold number on the home page stating that 640,329 jobs have been created or saved as of 10/30/09.  Right!  If I thought the government had a sense of humor this would surely be evidence of it.

The good news is that there are now many projects at least identified as education related.  The bad news is that the further into the data you go the foggier it gets.  Digging into Michigan, for instance, you find there are 66 web pages full of “projects” for specific schools identified.  At first glance that is encouraging!  I quick looked up our local school districts and saw huge grants have been awarded to them.  Huh?  I don’t remember seeing anything in the newspaper about that.  What’s going on here?

Each school is listed with an amount to be awarded, but in fact no money is shown as actually awarded.  When you click into the award identification number itself, however, you find that there are only 2 numbers used by most every K-12 school in Michigan.  One is for $389.9 million, and the other is for $872.9 million.  If you click into the detail of each of those they are reported to be less than 50 perecent completed, but the former has “created/saved” 402.55 jobs, and the latter has “created/saved” 12,454.01 jobs.

Unfortunately, that tells me that the state has claimed the money but it really isn’t getting directly to the schools.  That isn’t keeping them from claiming a large number of jobs either created or saved, though.  I do believe the state has saved a bunch of money, but these funds have likely only replaced the funds the state already owed each school district.  If this is representative of what is happening across the country to stimulate the economy, it is discouraging at best. 

I think I am done trying to track stimulus money.  It would appear that this huge stimulus package, that had to be passed in haste a year ago, has been so bound up by red tape that it has really had very little real impact.  The idea of passing more “stimulus” funding is, therefore, ludicrous.  And this whole reporting thing seems to be an exercise in futility.

So where does that leave us?  People I talk to in our distribution chain have made the adjustments their businesses needed to survive.  In some cases those adjustments had to be pretty big and painful.  If any jobs have actually been created or saved by stimulus money it hasn’t been in our slice of the business.  Nevertheless, you can pick up a resilient, positive tone that though this year will not likely bring growth, the following year will.  People believe we have likely seen “the bottom” in our economy.  Even though the phrase, “I’m from the government and I am here to help” still seems to mean what it always has, we are moving forward and expecting to come out of this in the not-too-distant future.

President Obama Seeks $1.35 Billion for Race to the Top FY 2011

On January 19, 2010, President Barack Obama announced his intentions to propose $1.35 billion for the Race to the Top Program for FY 2011. The Race to the Top Fund is an incentive program designed to promote the adoption and use of effective education policies and practices. States had to apply to be eligible to participate in the program. The Department of Education also announced that 40 states and the District of Columbia have submitted applications to participate in Phase I of Race to the Top. These 40 states include:

Alabama	Minnesota
Arizona	Nebraska
Arkansas	New Hampshire
California	New Jersey
Colorado	New Mexico
Connecticut	New York
Delaware	North Carolina
D.C.	Ohio
Florida	Oklahoma
Georgia	Oregon
Hawaii	Pennsylvania
Idaho	Rhode Island
Illinois	South Carolina
Indiana	South Dakota
Iowa	Tennessee
Kansas	Utah
Kentucky	Virginia
Louisiana	West Virginia
Massachusetts	Wisconsin
Michigan	Wyoming

The Race to the Top awards will be announced in April 2010 and states that were not awarded in Phase I can apply for a chance to win funds in Phase 2. The application deadline for states that are applying for Phase 2 is in June 2010 and awards will be announced in September 2010.

For more information about the Race to the Top Fund, visit “http://www.ed.gov/news/pressreleases/2010/01/01192010.html” let NSSEA know your thoughts!

Small Business Confidence at a Record Five-Month Low

A recent article on BusinessWeek.com reports that confidence in small business declined in December 2009—it’s THE lowest in five months.

The findings, released by the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), showed that the business optimism index declined from 88 to 88.3 in November in the category of business activity.

The report also showed that small business has turned more pessimistic at a time when small companies account for six out of every 10 jobs created over the past 15 years. The NFIB surveyed 830 small companies. Small businesses represent more than 99 percent of all U.S. employers and have created 64 percent of all new jobs in the past 15 years.

For more information about the survey, visit http://www.nfib.com/ and let NSSEA know your thoughts!

Are Interactive Whiteboards the New Chalkboard?

As the school supply industry continues to change with the progression of new technologies, the traditional classroom chalkboard seems to be forgotten about in this day and age of interactive whiteboards. Although, Interactive whiteboards are receiving praise and accolades from teachers and school professional alike, some perceive the whiteboards to be a waste of money according to an article on Edweek.org entitled “Whiteboards’ Impact on Teaching Seen as Uneven.”

The article mentions that the high-tech interactive whiteboards can cost up to $5,000 a pop and some teachers feel that they are a much needed necessity to the classroom. The article also links to a video of a teacher in Kent County, MD. In the video, Joy Maine explains how she incorporates the whiteboards into her curriculum. What do you think about interactive whiteboards? Read the article, “Whiteboards’ Impact on Teaching Seen as Uneven” and let NSSEA know your thoughts.

NCES Releases New Report on Educational Technology

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) recently released a report about technology in public schools. Conducted in 2008, the surveys collected data on the availability of technology in school districts and the use for a range of educational technology resources; for example, computer software, and other devices that enhance the capabilities of computers for instruction in districts and school networks. The NCES also collected data on educational technology leadership and staff support within districts and schools.

 The report focuses on these 10 specific topics:

1. Number of schools in the district with a local area network connecting computers within the school;
2. District networks connecting schools to the district and the number of schools with each type of district network connection;
3. Types of connections from districts to Internet service providers and backup connections to the Internet;
4. Formal computer replacement plans, asset recovery programs (i.e., third-party disposal services) for computers, and treatment of older computers that can no longer serve their original purposes;
5. Types of technology resources that districts offer to elementary and secondary teachers and students;
6. Written policies on acceptable student use of various technologies;
7. Types of student data kept in an electronic data system;
8. Employment of an individual responsible for educational technology leadership;
9. Teacher professional development offered or required by districts in various educational technology topics; and
10. Opinions of district respondents about statements related to the use of educational technology in the instructional program in the district.

The report concludes that 83 percent of those surveyed agreed that teachers are interested in using technology in classroom instruction, while 58 percent agreed that teachers are sufficiently trained to integrate technology into classroom instruction. When asked about the use of educational technology funding, 42 percent of respondents thought that funding for educational technology is adequate and 83 percent agreed that funding for educational technology is being spent in the most appropriate ways.

Take a look at the report “Educational Technology in Public School Districts: Fall 2008,” and let NSSEA know your thoughts!

Tips for the New Year

By Emily Raij, Maupin House

Start the year off right with a few quick and easy improvements to your marketing efforts.

Blogging

• Put your best and “most read” content at the top of the page instead of a big graphic that eats up a lot of space. For example, add a title like “Most Popular Articles” or “Reader Favorites,” and then insert the links to posts that got the most readers. You can also include a short intro for each article listed to engage readers even further and encourage them to continue reading your blog.
• Make sure your blog comments are displayed prominently. Is your comments box large and visible under each post? Are you publishing comments so that other readers can see them and add their own opinions? If you get a lot of spam comments, you might want to moderate more heavily and specifically approve or reject each comment rather than have it be automatically published.
• Blog at the right time. It is said that posting early in the morning is best—around 8 a.m. EST. Apparently, this is peak blog-surfing time for most readers. However, if you know your blog traffic increases at a different time of day (or night), post then to garner the most attention. To see when your traffic is heaviest and get additional website statistics, try a tracking service like Sitemeter.com.

Twittering

• TwitThis provides a free button for people to click on when they like one of your posts and want to send a tweet into their feed about your blog.
• Run contests and offer coupon codes through Twitter (and through sites like RetailMeNot.com).
• Answer customer service questions via your Twitter account. Not only can you quickly assist your customers, the questions will now be searchable and easy for others to find online. While you’re at it, make sure you regularly read all questions and comments from followers so that you’re taking advantage of positive and negative feedback.

 

Mailing

• Clean up your lists! The USPS began enforcing its Move Update requirements on January 4, 2010 to improve the percentage of deliverable mail. If you want to claim presort or automation rates, mailing list addresses must be updated using an approved method within 95 days prior to the mailing date. The price for non-compliance isn’t cheap: First-class and standard mail will be assessed at 7 cents for each piece that isn’t compliant.
• For more information on how to update your mailing lists, such as finding service providers to handle the job for you, visit http://www.usps.com/business/addressverification/welcome.htm.

What Is Your Social Media Strategy?

According to an article on Entrepreneur.com entitled “Focus Your Social Media Strategy,” some small businesses can become as famous as major brands with the help of viral online marketing.

For many small businesses, trying to keep the company running smoothly while combating the economy and ever-changing technology can be a daunting task. The article advises that small business owners focus on to effectively reaching and staying connected with their target market instead of keeping up with every new tool that comes along.

The article suggests four tips that can help small businesses enhance their social media strategy, they include:

1)      Define your goals.

The article mentions that small companies should figure out what outcomes they want to achieve and then ask the questions, “What are the easiest and fastest ways to achieve these goals?”

2)      Walk the walk.

It also indicates that small companies should have a solid and strong product to advertise.

3)      Make your profile dynamic.

The article advises that small business owners make their social media networks dynamic, but try not to join all of them at once. 

4)      Delegate and manage.

Last but not least, small business owners should hire staff to manage and maintain  the social media sites. The task can be overwhelming and having the media outlets will be ineffective if they are not maintained and updated often.

 For more information about the article “Focus Your Social Media Strategy,” visit http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34631345/ns/business-small_business/ and let NSSEA know your thoughts!