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Initial Aid Is Puzzle to Track

Transparency Proves Elusive as Stimulus Funds Flow

States and federal agencies are off to a slow and uneven start in allowing the public to track the first allotments from up to $100 billion in new education funding under the federal economic-stimulus package, despite strong pledges of transparency for the program from the Obama administration.

Although about $145 million in aid has been sent from the U.S. Department of Education to states and local districts so far, most states’ “recovery” Web sites contain only general information about the stimulus program and no information on the money that’s flowed into their states.

Recovery.gov , the federal government’s main online portal on the stimulus is still without any state-by-state information on money that’s already filtered down from federal agencies to the states, and most Education Department spending data are buried in Excel spreadsheets deep in...