The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, a stimulus package signed into law on February 17, 2009, by President Obama, replaced the Improving America’s Schools Act of 1994. It provided $115 billion for education spending, including $13 billion for low-income public school children, $12.2 billion for IDEA special education, and $4.35 billion for the program Race to the Top. [Source] The Race to the Top initiative offered competitve grants to states that made dramatic changes to their education systems such as accelerating student performance, adopting rigorous academic standards, implementing data systems to measure student progress, and evaluating teacher and principals in part on students’ performance. [Source] The implication for language policy is that student performance included subgroups, such as emerging bilinguals, so teachers and administrators needed to assure the success of the school’s special populations of students.
