Why Obama’s Stimulus May Retard Education Reform and What to Do About It

Michael J. Petrilli, Chester E. Finn Jr., & Frederick M. Hess
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As President-Elect Barack Obama and his Congressional allies shape — and debate — their big economic-stimulus package any day now, governors are pleading with them to include hundreds of billions for state governments that face whopping deficits. Most analysts of the stimulus measure will ask whether such spending will truly goose the economy, whether Obama kept his campaign promises, or how much of the bill is just pork. But those who worry about k-12 education should be asking: will it be good for education reform? And to date there’s ample reason to suspect that the answer will be “no”.