Are You Feeling Stimulated Yet?

It seems like we should all hear the dull roar of an oncoming train, or a dam bursting with seven hundred and eighty-seven billion dollars rushing toward us. Given the great, sucking vacuum we have created over the past several years, it seems like we should all get a bit of stimulation sooner rather than later.
I'm in the education biz, and I was pleased and happy to hear that the education budget will be double what it was under the regime of our president's pointy-headed predecessor. With those dollars, Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan want schools to do better. Over the past eight years, there were plenty of Children Left Behind, in spite of legislation to the contrary. With all this money headed our way, Secretary Duncan sees a chance to put lasting reforms into place. "It's also an opportunity to redefine the federal role in education, something we're thinking a whole lot about. How can we move from being (about) compliance with bureaucracy to really the engine of innovation and change?"
Don't get me wrong, I'm excited about working for innovation and change. But that's not exactly the world I've been living in for some time now, so I have become more than a little skeptical. For example, I know that millions of dollars were spent "modernizing" the school where I work. I don't know exactly what your vision of a "modernized school" is, but I confess I was a little let down by the very twentieth century feeling we were left with as we began to teach our children in the twenty-first. I appreciate all the fresh paint and new tile that went in, and the fact that there are actual architectural details in our very public building. Are teachers using interactive technology to teach their classes? Not unless you count white boards and dry erase markers as interactive technology. Desks that include a pop-up screen and keyboard for every student? Wireless access for students and staff? Not yet, anyway. I'm the tech guy at my school, so maybe my idea of what "modern" looks like is different. I am glad that every one of our classrooms has access to the Internet. I am pleased and happy to be in charge of a working computer lab. Now I wait for the big infusion.
The big bucks only stop here on condition. To get the money, states will have to show they are making good progress in four areas: Boosting teacher effectiveness and getting more good teachers into high-poverty, high-minority schools. Setting up data systems to track how much a student has learned from one year to the next. Improving academic standards and tests. Supporting struggling schools. But wasn't that what we were doing all along? And don't we need money to make those things happen in the first place?
It's not Christmas morning. I didn't wake up today with a great big raise and a truck full of laptops for every student outside our school. It's not going to happen fast, but I have my fingers crossed that it will happen at all. For a few billion more, I could definitely help create an engine of innovation and change. Or at least we can put a coat of paint on the old one.