As my colleague Alyson Klein has been reporting over at Politics K-12, Congress agreed to a basic deal last week to prevent a government shutdown, but there was no specific language available to give the details. Now there is, and it looks like the regional educational labs can finally breathe a bit.
Jim Kohlmoos of the Knowledge Alliance, which represents the labs, spotted the year-end continuing resolution filed in the wee hours this morning. It provides $57.65 million for the labs for this year—$12 million less than the fiscal 2010 levels but a whole lot better than nothing—and authorizes their contract to be extended for up to 12 months from the time they would expire. That gives the Institute of Education Sciences enough time to choose a new round of labs, provided it ever officially opens the competition. (We’re still waiting on that request for proposals.)