Whether one agrees with the philosophy behind federal stimulus money, it is difficult to argue with the practice of accepting the dollars once they are offered. If you (as a state) turn away the cash, it will go somewhere else.

Another story is how to use the funds, particularly in the case of the soon-to-be-arriving education stimulus. One can make a strong argument for a cautious approach; in other words, why go out and spend now when you’re likely going to need it even more later?

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett put it this way when informing school districts how much they should receive come November. (The federal law says the money does not have to be spent until September 2012).

"With your staffs and budgets set for the 2010-2011 school year, I urge you to be careful with how and when you spend these funds. Please consider reserving this one-time funding until the level of resources budgeted by the General Assembly in the upcoming budget cycle become clearer."

That won’t be clear until late April in 2011, if then.

While timing may be a consideration, I suspect that taking the education dollars and using them to fill a Medicaid budget gap was not what those doing the allocating had in mind. But that appears to be the case in Rhode Island. The Providence Journal reports:

Instead, Governor Carcieri intends to use the $32.9 million Rhode Island is eligible to receive to plug an estimated $38-million deficit in this year’s budget.

His plan drew a strong protest from Education Commissioner Deborah A. Gist, Congressman James R. Langevin and representatives of teachers unions and the state’s school committees.

School districts across the state were hoping that more than 400 teaching jobs would be restored or protected after Congress passed the bill in August. Nationwide, the law allocates $10 billion for schools and $16.1 billion to prevent Medicaid cuts.

Rhode Island is eligible to receive more than $100 million, $32.9 million intended for education jobs and about $70 million for Medicaid reimbursements.

But that’s about $38 million less for Medicaid than the state was counting on when it passed the 2010-11 budget, said Carcieri’s spokeswoman, Amy Kempe.

“While I’m sure it may be technically allowable and that the governor’s office is doing the appropriate thing, I don’t think we are acknowledging the intention of President Obama, [U.S. Education Secretary Arne] Duncan or Congress had for these funds,” Gist said.

Gist said she is especially concerned because the state is facing an even worse budget gap in fiscal year 2012 and the education jobs money could be spent during that year as well. According to the state Budget Office, the overall deficit could be as large as $320 million next year.

The executive director of the National Education Association of Rhode Island also criticized the governor’s plan, particularly after Carcieri and the General Assembly reduced state education aid to schools by 3.6 percent this year, a $29-million cut.

“I voted for this bill to help keep Rhode Island teachers on the job,” Langevin said in a statement. “Properly supporting our state’s education system is the best way to reverse our current economic situation over the long term.”

Officials at the U.S. Department of Education said Tuesday that using the federal money to supplant state funding is not expressly prohibited, although they cautioned they will carefully review each state’s application to ensure it follows the guidelines.

They’ve tried it in Dallas, Chicago, New York and Washington, D.C. among other places. The results have been mixed at best. Overall, in this writer’s view, there’s something that just doesn’t feel right.

It, in this case, is paying students for academic performance. And it, in this case, adds the twist of rewarding parents with cold, hard cash if their kids pass certain math tests and if the parents go "above and beyond" by attending conferences with teachers.

Shouldn’t parents already have an interest in the education progress of their offspring? Shouldn’t students take the responsibility, with the help of their parents, to try and perform to the best of their abilities? I know the answer and also realize what should happen doesn’t happen all the time. But high expectations, in my opinion, instead of high rewards, would yield more productive results.

Your thoughts? Here’s an excerpt from the Houston Chronicle:

The Houston school board signed off Thursday on the $1.5 million program, which is funded by the Dallas-based Liemandt Foundation. The incentives will go to students and parents at 25 elementary schools that rank among the lowest in math achievement.

The pilot program — thought to be the first that offers joint incentives for parents and students — will allow fifth-graders to earn up to $440 for passing short math tests that show they have mastered key concepts, according to the draft proposal. Parents will get slightly less money for their children doing the work, and they can earn an extra $180 for attending nine conferences with teachers to review the youngsters’ progress.

Combined, the students and their parents can pocket $1,020.

Parents can opt out of the pay program, which also is expected to include money for teachers – up to $40 per student – for holding the parent conferences. The Houston Independent School District already has the nation’s largest program that rewards teachers and school staff for boosting students’ scores on standardized tests.

Nationwide, public support is low for school districts paying students for specific behaviors, such as reading books, attending class or getting good grades, according to the 2010 Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll. About one in four Americans favor the idea. A similar number said they had paid their own children for academic accomplishments.

The Houston program appears to be based on the Dallas work. Second-graders in Dallas were paid $2 for each book they read once they passed a simple quiz to confirm they had done the reading. A study found that the students who were promised money improved in reading comprehension and language more than those who weren’t offered the reward.

The idea of paying parents intrigues Dan Ariely, a Duke University professor who studies human behavior, but he said he expects little long-term benefit from the cash rewards for students.

"The parents actually have some control over the kids," he said. "They can tell the kids to study."

For the students, he said, the monetary incentive will do nothing to instill in them a love of learning. "What is questionable is whether you could create short-term learning or not," he added. 

Having interviewed Bob Bowen for a BizVoice article in the past, I can vouch for the fact that it rarely takes him long to bring up his passion for Purdue University. (Funny, during the conversation, I conveniently neglected to mention the four years I spent in Bloomington.) Now, the founder of Bowen Engineering Corporation, a thriving central Indiana company that has many Boilers on staff, will parlay his passion for Purdue into helping a new generation of graduates:

Robert Bowen, founder and chairman of Bowen Engineering Corp., is the first Hancher Distinguished Fellow, teaching a class in construction engineering and management at Purdue University this fall.

Donn Hancher was one of the founding faculty members of the College of Engineering’s Division of Construction Engineering and Management. He earned his bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degrees in civil engineering at Purdue and was a faculty member for 16 years.

The teaching fellowship will be funded by an endowment set up by engineering alumni, including Bowen.

While fundraising for the endowment is still under way, Bowen is volunteering his time to teach during the fall semester. His class, "Leadership and Advanced Project Management," focuses on the technical challenges of the construction industry and the managerial decisions needed to keep a project moving forward.

"Donn Hancher and Bob Bowen have something key in common: They both are passionate about the success of Purdue’s CEM program and its students," said Mark Hastak, head of construction engineering and management.

When fully funded, the Hancher fellowship will be a renewable, three-to-five-year teaching appointment, Hastak said. The idea is to find professionals who are willing to share their experience and knowledge with future leaders in the industry.

"CEM has been searching for ways to involve industry leaders in the classroom, and the Hancher Distinguished Fellow is perfect," Hastak said.

The classes will involve more than war stories, he added. "The Hancher Fellow will push our students to a better understanding of the challenges they will face and the skills they will need."

Getting more of the education dollars into the classroom has been a constant theme for Gov. Mitch Daniels and Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett. But in July, the State Budget Agency released a report that indicated Hoosier districts spent an average of 57.8% in the classroom in the 2008-2009 school year, a decrease from 60.6% the previous year.

These numbers always come with controversy. Districts themselves are much more generous with what qualifies as a classroom expenditure, so their numbers can often dramatically differ from what a government or independent review will find. The goal of 65% into the classroom is also not without dispute.

What makes this interesting at this time is that a Pepperdine University review of California education spending from 2003-2004 to 2008-2009 found that direct classroom expenditures statewide went from 59% to 57.8%. Yikes, we’re tied with California. When it comes to money and expenditures, that can’t be a good thing.

A couple of other nuggets from the Pepperdine report (where they evidently do have more than surfing as a major; really, it must be the college campus with the most scenic views):

• School spending increased by 25.8% per capita during the five-year period. So much for all that talk about spending cuts
• Teacher salaries and benefits accounted for 48% of spending, a lower number than I would have anticipated
• The president of the California Foundation for Education and Commerce stated: "If California had the extra $1.8 billion that went to things other than teaching, we might have been able to hire more than 22,000 teachers statewide."

Indiana is truly blessed to have the many esteemed public institutions of higher learning that it does. Thanks to efforts from Indiana schools, men have walked on the moon, more people now survive cancer (ask Lance Armstrong) and our food is grown incredibly efficiently. But lest we not forget, the fine folks in Muncie are considered a national leader in the world of technology. Here is just one example:

Under the direction of computer science professor Paul Gestwicki students spent an entire semester developing several dozens applications for Google Android. The new smart phone operating system was launched in 2009 and quickly is proving popular with consumers as potential rival to the BlackBerry and the iPhone.

When they were done in fall 2009, 18 students with no computer programming experience had created a bird-watching program, several games, an English-to-Spanish tutoring system, math flashcards, and a Dungeons and Dragons character generator with Web-based database storage capability.

"This was an incredible experience because it opened new doors and new ways of thinking for all of us," says Travis Cawthorn, ’12, of Frankton, Indiana, majoring in accounting. "I created a game that should be fun to play with for hours. Let’s be honest, many students my age use smart phones for entertainment."

The class was part of an experimental partnership between Google and several technology-centered universities including Ball State, Harvard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), University of Colorado, and University of Michigan.

Google provided the class with 20 G1 developer phones loaded with Google’s Android operating system and gave them access to the new App Inventor for Android, which makes it possible for users with no programming experience to create mobile applications.

And stay tuned for our September/October edition of BizVoice for my article on Ball State’s WiMAX test bed. The school’s work is helping America’s top companies perfect their wireless broadband technologies and rendering Ball State an archetype in the field.

Education funding ALWAYS generates interest. For many years, it was the funding percentage increase that schools would receive. In recent times, the focus has switched to cuts and trying to minimize the dollar reductions.

In New Jersey, cost cutting governor Chris Christie has state budget woes and education tied together. His target, however, is superintendents’ pay. Not only are there 591 school districts in the Garden State (that’s a ridiculous number), but apparently bidding wars contribute to driving up salaries. While the governor makes a tidy $175,000 a year, that salary is exceeded by 253 of the school leaders.

The solution (one that does not require any legislative or regulatory steps): superintendents will be paid on a sliding scale — the smaller the district, the smaller the salary. It was reported that 366 of the current 591 would be getting pay cuts. In addition, state government will negotiate the pay for the leaders of the 16 largest districts. There would also be caps for assistant superintendents and business administrators.

Christie’ s response when asked about the possibility of superintendents leaving the state: "If that’s the sole reason they’re here, then goodbye."

It just might be that Christie sees too much red tape to reducing the number of school districts (New Jersey also has tried unsuccessfully to eliminate townships), so this is a money-saving alternative.

An intriguing article by biologist Christoph Randler from the Harvard Business Review contends that morning people are actually most successful in the business world, due to their proclivity to be more proactive. Honestly, it makes a lot of sense.

And if you’re not a morning person (I’m not either), just please don’t be like that guy in a recent McDonald’s commercial who refused to speak to anyone - regardless of the critical nature of their inquiry – until he had his coffee. Oh, you’re so precious and delicate that no mere mortal is allowed to speak to you until you’ve had some caffeine? Wish somebody in that ad would’ve just said, "Great, here’s some scalding Folgers in your face. You awake now, tough guy?"

Anyway, here’s an excerpt:

If I wanted to train myself to be a morning person, how would I do it?

The fascinating thing about our findings is that duration of sleep has nothing to do with the increased proactivity and morning alertness that we see among morning people. But while the number of hours of sleep doesn’t matter, the timing of sleep does. So you could try shifting your daily cycle by going to bed earlier. Another thing you could do is go outside into the daylight early in the morning. The daylight resets your circadian clock and helps shift you toward morningness. If you go outside only in the evening, you tend to shift toward eveningness.

If I taught myself to be a morning person, would I become more proactive?

I don’t know. One theory is that morning people are more proactive because getting up early gives them more time to prepare for the day. If that’s true, then increasing your morningness might improve your proactivity. But there’s evidence that something inherent may determine proactivity. Studies show that conscientiousness is also associated with morningness. Perhaps proactivity grows out of conscientiousness.