CNN 2010-03-15

WHITFIELD: A dismal 1 economy eating away at school budgets. Now, a Kansas City Missouri school district makes a drastic move. The school board has narrowly approved a plan to close almost half of the district's 61 schools in an urban area of the city. It's all in an effort to save $50 million and addressed declining enrollment 2. Right now, Superintendent 3 John Covington is holding a news conference to discuss the next step for the school district.

And it's not just Kansas City; schools across the country are in trouble. Some are on the brink 4 and many are looking for federal stimulus 5 dollars.

Our Josh Levs is working at the CNN Stimulus Desk. So, Josh some drastic measures that some school districts are taking and many are saying if only they had some federal stimulus money?

JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. Yes. It's definitely connected to that, because there are billions out there, Fred, in the battle. The competition for that money really might be fueling some of the major steps that we're seeing schools take around the country. There's this stimulus funded program; it's called race to the top, and this is what the education department says about it. They're calling it a $4.35 billion effort to dramatically reshape America's educational system. That's how big this program is.

Now, schools want a piece of that pie, obviously, and this is a race. Forty states applied 6 for that money, and last week, the Department of Education pared that down to 16 finalists. It's 15 states, and Washington D.C. is still on the run, and all later this month, they're going to have to lobby for why they deserve the money. But you know somebody get to this point, they had to show that they were taking steps on their own to turn around their schools, especially the lowest performing ones, and they have to show they were doing things to only have high quality teachers in schools.

Now, in steps, Rhode Island which made headlines last month as you know when the Central Fall School District fired every teacher at its high school after it was designated the worst in the state. For months, Rhode Island's education commissioner 7 had said, getting stimulus money for the school was a priority, and this drastic measure won the praise of Education Secretary, Arne Duncan, and it just may have helped them or in a finalist spot in the race to the top.

Now, Fred, Missouri did not make the cut so far, but states are going to get a second chance to apply for this money in a couple of months, and now, they said that they have taken that one particular school district there in Kansas City, it just might help. Officials in Kansas City are saying that one of the reasons they did is that they want to improve quality. They want to get rid of a bunch of schools in order to improve the quality of the ones that they are keeping, and Fred, the federal government is looking for big steps now in deciding who gets that money -- Fred.

WHITFIELD: And how much money are we talking about?

LEVS: Well, you know, the whole program has just over $4 billion. Just about half of it is gotta be used for now, so we're talking about $2 billion that's going to be spent for now to some schools -- Fred.

WHITFIELD: All right. Josh Levs, thanks so much at the Stimulus Desk.

LEVS: You got it.

WHITFIELD: Appreciate that breakdown 8.