SEATTLE - On the heels of President Obama's request made during his State of the Union Address for an additional $4 billion in federal education aid, the Center on Reinventing Public Education released data today that indicates that short-term federal stimulus funds could result in less spending necessary for schools in the future. But, at the same time, state spending levels cannot continue to be reduced.

Such was the finding of the report, "Have States Disproportionately Cut Education Budgets During ARRA? Early Findings." It studied education budgets in 23 states that received stimulus funding and found short-term benefits that could result in long-term success in some states.

Despite the federal money, researchers Marguerite Roza and Susan Funk also discovered that 13 of the 23 states saw regular state education spending decline during the infusion of the federal stimulus money tied to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. ARRA resulted in $100 billion in federal education funds, including the $54 billion State Fiscal Stabilization Fund (SFSF) intended to stabilize state budgets and avert cuts to education.

“A key concern emerging in this analysis is the notion that while the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund was intended to ‘protect’ state education spending (and did likely result in short-term stabilization), the long-term effect could be the opposite,” the study said. “For states where education’s share of the state budget shrank during SFSF, we might anticipate that restoring education’s previous share could be difficult.”

In the other 10 states that received federal SFSF money, education as a state share of spending remained stable or went up.

“State spending plans are still in flux, so thinking ahead on the interplay between stimulus funds and state budgets could enable policymakers to make more proactive decisions now to avert unintended consequences later," concluded the report.

CRPE is a University of Washington think tank that performs independent research and policy analysis on K-12 public education reform issues.