On April 1, the U.S. Department of Education released new guidelines on the use of education funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. EducationCounsel has since issued this memo providing an analysis of these new guidelines, focusing specifically on IDEA, Title I, and State Fiscal Stabilization Funds.

Franklin County’s 16 school districts will receive an estimated $104 million in one-time increased federal funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The increases would come as additional Title I funding for economically disadvantaged students and IDEA funding for students with special education needs. Districts are slated to receive all of these stimulus funds by October 2009.
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Ohio’s eight large urban school districts (the “Urban 8″) may receive $540 million in new federal funding over two years, according to estimates based on the House Appropriations Committee’s Draft 2009 Stimulus Bill. The increases would come as additional funding for construction and for support for economically disadvantaged students and students with special education needs. Under these estimates, additional funding would range from $14 million in Canton to $174 in Cleveland over the two-year period.

Between 2000 and 2008, Ohio’s eight large urban districts (the “Urban 8”)—Akron, Canton, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Toledo, and Youngstown—placed 44 school funding issues on the ballot, 27 of which (61%) passed. This compares with a passage rate of 54% across all school funding ballot issues statewide during the same period. Passage rates for individual districts among the Urban 8 ranged from as low as 25% (one of four) in Canton to as high as 100% (three of three) in Columbus. Among Urban 8 school funding issues 5 mills or less in size, 87% passed.

Statewide, 62% of school issues on the November ballot passed, but only 34% of requests for new operating monies were approved according to the Buckeye Association for School Administrators.Columbus City Schools’ 8.98-mill combined levy and bond issue passed with a 63% approval rate. Three of the seven other large urban school districts in Ohio had [...]