Alabama spends education stimulus money on prisons

The state of Alabama awarded the biggest chunk of $1.1 billion in federal education stimulus funds to prisoners and prison employees -- even though the money in question was not allocated for jail education programs.

So far, the Department of Corrections has snagged $118 million of the education funds to pay for prisoner health care and employees' salaries, according to the Press-Register's Reva Havner Philips. This unorthodox funding was legal, since governors were permitted to earmark about 18 percent of education stimulus dollars to unrelated programs. Nonetheless, "Alabama spent about $4,500 in education stimulus dollars per prisoner, about four times the amount per student in kindergarten through 12th grade," Philips writes.