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The top education official in the Obama administration says that federal stimulus dollars for school districts are meant to be spent over two years, which aligns with the position of L.A. school officials in their ongoing political war with employee unions over looming layoffs. The comment by Education Secretary Arne Duncan is significant because unions have been campaigning for district officials to spend as much of the stimulus money as needed to save jobs now. District officials have countered that employees must agree to conditional salary concessions if all jobs are to be saved. District officials have argued that federal stimulus money should be split over two years, in large measure because both years are likely to prove economically dire.

Concrete ideas from the Center for American Progress for strategic spending in three key areas-taking stock of current practices, focusing on support for quality instruction, and making transitional investments-in order to give some guidance to those districts seeking to balance the act's short-term focus on preserving jobs with its long-term goals of promoting student achievement.

The following five reforms can help states and school districts to implement innovative initiatives as they allocate their stimulus dollars across schools:

An unprecedented $100 billion in federal stimulus money is starting to flow to school districts. Educators welcome the aid, but with most districts just starting to get estimates of how much they'll receive, it's adding complexity to an already confusing budget cycle. Particularly challenging - and emotional - are decisions about how many teachers' jobs to fund for next year. Deadlines have been coming up for renewing contracts, yet many state and local education budgets are in flux. That's putting tens of thousands of teachers into layoff limbo.

As California received billions of dollars Friday to stave off widespread teacher layoffs, the state's highest elected education official pledged to reform schools, aligning academic standards with other states, rewarding teachers who work in the most challenging classrooms and improving student assessments.

While the Stabilization Fund will help relieve our immediate economic crisis, it is also intended to boost student achievement, so to access this money, we seek your commitment to the following four essential areas of reform: * Making improvements in teacher effectiveness and ensuring that all schools have highly qualified teachers; * Making progress toward college and career-ready standards and rigorous assessments that will improve both teaching and learning; * Improving achievement in low-performing schools, by providing intensive support and effective interventions in schools that need them the most; * Gathering information to improve student learning, teacher performance, and college and career-readiness through enhanced data systems that track progress.