Edmoney is going live with the data from seven states that were audited by the US Department of Education Inspector General's Office.

The inspector general's auditing services division issued its final report on the spot checks it did of various states' ability to monitor how districts and charter schools are spending stimulus dollars.

Tennessee got a clean bill of health from the auditors. Concerns were raised about the six others, though Texas and Illinois were taking steps in the right direction.

The audit wasn't looking to uncover any improper expenditures, just raising questions about whether states had the right controls in place to make sure stimulus money was spent on things it was designed to be spent on. Nonetheless, New York and Pennsylvania seemed to have the most question marks from the federal auditors on their controls. And Philadelphia was marked as a possible "high-risk" grantee by the same auditors.

And it gives reporters something to think about as they monitor their districts' and states' (and charter schools') stimulus spending.

And it also gives us an opportunity to demonstrate what we hope to accomplish with this database.

The states reviewed were: California, Illinois, Indiana, New Yorkl, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Texas.

Incidentally, The Dallas Morning News has an article about the difficulty for obtaining an accurate picture in how school districts spend the money.