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Using Stimulus Funds to Build a Bridge to Better Practice

By Karen Hawley Miles

Schools are bracing for budget cuts of from 5 percent to 10 percent this year, with more to come. At the same time, however, the federal economic-stimulus package being readied for distribution includes more than $100 billion for education. Districts and states will use this emergency federal funding to backfill their budgets and prevent teacher layoffs. But, if they do only that, they will miss a historic opportunity: to use this confluence of tight budgets and short-term stimulus money to also make a down payment on reforms that will pay off for students long after the two-year federal...