Sec. Duncan has recently announced plans to release a second wave of stimulus funds early, but the Wall Street Journal article, “A Hard Lesson for Teachers,” (Aug. 11, 2009) shows that the first round of funding hasn’t made a huge impact in terms of teachers keeping their jobs. In fact, the article cites NEA figures that almost 100,000 teachers won’t have jobs in the upcoming school year. Moreover, teacher colleges are reporting a downturn in applications.
Even with the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the deep education cuts shouldn’t be a surprise. As Dr. Richard Sims Chief Economist for the NEA reminded AEP Summit attendees in his session, “Economic Forecast for the Education Market,” education is mostly state and locally funded—specifically by property, sales, and income taxes. And more important, education is fighting for state funds with health care and corrections. Until the local real estate and job markets improve, education will not recover.
The question is: What does this mean for educational publishers? Will districts spend stimulus funds on instructional materials? Some AEP members have been told that they would receive order purchased with the stimulus dollars, but only from a few states. Complicating the matter are states like California looking to provide free texts and others hoping that switching to electronic ones will reduce costs.
Have you received orders based on the stimulus funding? What are the implications of states looking for free and reduced cost materials on the quality of educational materials being used in the classroom?
AEP is working on collecting success stories to show schools, state education officials, and legislators the value of high-quality, differentiated educational materials. For more information contact Stacey Pusey.
Listen to Dr. Sims’ Summit session and view his presentation file.
Not sure it is smart for companies to post that they are receiving stimulus funding on the Internet.
Having said that though, I will say anonymously that we have seen purchase orders coming in specifically marked as “ARRA”.
Thanks for the feedback.
We aren’t looking for specific sales data–we’re just trying to get a general sense of whether or not the ARRA funds are hitting the educational publishing market.
Not a single order and our content cuts across Title I, IDEA and early childhood education.