Scarcity is a curse. Yet most of the world’s cultures and religions have some sort of story about how having too much abundance is a curse as well.
Meanwhile around the military, EMS, and work like wildland fire fighting you often hear someone say, “slow is smooth, smooth is fast.”
Carpenters like to say, measure twice and cut once.
What does all that have in common? And what does it have to do with education? With more than $200 billion in federal dollars hitting schools we might pause and ask, what’s the story the sector wants to be able to tell in 3 or 5 years about this money? That’s what I look at today in The 74:
The reflexive answer is states should spend it now, as fast as possible. After all, wasn’t the pandemic an unmitigated fiscal calamity for states and schools? It turns out, no. The impact has been less severe than anticipated. There are pockets of acute problems: For instance, state revenues for tourist-dependent Nevada and Florida are down more than 11 percent. But overall, the fiscal situation is manageable. Some states are trying to figure out what to do with surpluses, which is good news. And it’s in part because previous federal stimulus packages during 2020 kept consumers spending.
Schools also received support last year. In total, including the Biden plan, America’s K-12 schools have received an infusion of about $200 billion in federal dollars since the pandemic started last year…
…While effective reforms vary, what they have in common is effective implementation and real adherence to whatever underlying elements made those initiatives effective in the first place. In a word: planning…
