Florida could get $5B in education funding from stimulus bill listen

Tags: Economy, education, economic stimulus package, politics

Public housing provisions total nearly $10 billion. Nearly $15 billion would go to clean-water and environmental protection projects.

And minus the construction money, education programs would receive nearly $100 billion in new funding, including $12 billion for special education, boosting the federal share for education services to the highest level ever, according to the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Arne Duncan is the Secretary of Education. On a conference call with reporters today, he called the funding for education a "historic opportunity”and spoke about how soon the money can flow from state capitals to individual school districts.

According to the National Education Association, Florida should receive more than $5 billion in education funding.

But there were concerns that the state might not qualify for all that funding. That’s because of a provision that deals with requiring that states must keep their funding at 2006 levels, or risk losing federal funds, without getting a waiver.

That could Florida, because it has cut more than $600 million from its education budget.