With contributions from Noah Bierman, Boston Globe; Liz Bowie, Baltimore Sun; Grace Merritt, Hartford (Conn.) Courant; Tara Malone, Chicago Tribune; Betsy Hammond, The (Portland) Oregonian; Andrea Eger, Tulsa World; Karel Holloway, The Dallas Morning News; Jeannette Rundquist, Newark (NJ) Star-Ledger; and John Mooney, NJSpotlight.com

In the two years since Congress made the federal government’s largest one-time investment in public schools, change has rippled through classrooms from coast to coast. Tennessee and Delaware have revamped their laws to promote the growth of charter schools. Massachusetts and Maryland have launched efforts to tie teacher evaluations to student performance. Reflecting similar moves elsewhere, a persistently failing high school in Oregon is investing a record amount in additional training for teachers.

Nationwide, the economic-stimulus package has prevented massive teacher layoffs, spurred states to devise sweeping reform plans and jumpstarted a national conversation about overhauling the worst schools.

But over the long term ...

For the long-troubled public school system of New Orleans, the 2005 hurricane that broke the levees and displaced thousands of students also cleared the way for a nonprofit with the self-explanatory name New Schools for New Orleans. Now, that start-up organization has become both a symbol of an educational renaissance in post-Katrina New Orleans and an example of the groundbreaking change being encouraged by the federal government.
 
The $650 million Investing in Innovation program, better known by the shorthand “i3,” is a part of the nearly $100 billion stimulus effort designed to preserve education jobs and spark dramatic classroom reforms. The i3 program underscores the Obama administration’s determination to pursue those reforms by both fixing existing educational systems and encouraging experimentation with new ideas.
“We want ideas that work to actually grow faster because they were a part of this program,” said Jim Shelton, who runs the i3 program ...

With contributions from Liz Bowie, Baltimore Sun, and Edith Starzyk, The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer

The flood of federal stimulus money into the nation’s public schools has dramatically increased the demand for education consultants, leaving some stimulus recipients struggling to find seasoned advisors and others uneasy about the pitches they are getting.

The frenzy was caused by the unprecedented size and scope of the nearly $100 billion federal effort, which began two years ago. That has stirred up great expectations among policymakers and the public. Faced with nerve-wracking timelines, their own bold promises and a dearth of in-house expertise, states and school districts have anxiously sought advice on how to demonstrate progress and avoid missteps. “Some are calling it ‘No Consultant Left Behind,’ ” says Frederick M. Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C.

There are consultants who ...

With contributions from Grace Merritt, Hartford (Conn.) Courant; Dan Hardy, Philadelphia Inquirer; Eleanor Chute, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Sarah Day, Juneau (Alaska) Empire.

The economic-stimulus package that Congress passed two years ago preserved hundreds of thousands of jobs in the nation’s public schools but, with the economy still sputtering, the future of many of those positions remains in jeopardy.

In all, the nearly $100 billion shot-in-the-arm funded 367,524 education-related jobs during the 2009-10 school year, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

Though this tally includes jobs saved and created, observers say states and school districts did not go on a hiring spree with their stimulus funds. Instead, they hunkered down to prevent mass layoffs and to maintain the status quo—no small feat, given the historic recession and the soaring budget deficits that resulted.

“We saved 350,000 jobs. How often do you get to do that in ...