The education component of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) is tied to a federal reform agenda.

Also known as the federal stimulus, ARRA offers more than $100 billion for prekindergarten through 12th grade schools nationwide, and nearly $8 billion for California. This one-time infusion of additional money for 2008-09 and 2009-10 is more funding than California would receive from ongoing federal education programs in a single normal year, but it is substantially less than the cuts in state education funding since 2007-08.

But the stimulus's education components are intended to do much more than save school programs and positions. They create incentives for states to begin or continue specific reform efforts in four interrelated areas that the Obama administration believes are key to helping schools provide a world-class education to their students. These reform areas are providing a starting point for the administration's approach to the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (aka NCLB).

This chart lays out the requirements that must be met to receive federal support and how the different pots of stimulus funds relate to the four reform areas. It is excerpted from our report The New Federal Education Policies: California's Challenge. Because of its size, we are presenting it as a PDF document.

Click here to view or download the chart.

Note, for a more printer-friendly version, you may want to get the full report.