"Stimulus" Plan

I watched the President’s speech last night (pretty good overall, I thought) and this morning I read the following article http://www.edutopia.org/poll-economic-stimulus-school-technology

In the interest of full disclosure, I have to say that I have a problem with federal funding of education to begin with. Admittedly, if I were President, I would give the states a 2-year warning, then remove it all together from the budget, allowing the states to set up their own educational system and fund it themselves based on the needs that they have. (I would probably keep a small line item to fund national groups to establish recommended standards – like NCTM, etc)

With that said, I don’t like the technology in education money in this plan. Not just because I don’t like the feds involved in local affairs, but because I have doubts that the money will actually show up in a classroom. And herein lies the problems with any federal program designed to help at the local level – oversight and overhead. The expense of running a large bureaucracy is great. Plus, there is just no way to ensure that the money is used as intended… There is no way to protect the “investment” of the tax payer when the money goes to D.C., then back to the states, then to the ISD’s, then to the local districts, and lastly ends up in the school. There are just too many hands in that pot, and some money will be lost every step of the way. Additionally, I have yet to see a definition of the types of technology this money will be used to purchase. Of course once the purchase is made, will there be funding for training of teachers and maintenance/replacement of the technology?