Even as the Obama administration tries to make good on promises of unprecedented transparency and accountability in economic-stimulus funding, the first reports from states and school districts show the difficulty of figuring out--in detail--how the money for education has been spent. In the broadest sense, the quarterly stimulus reports made public Oct. 30 provide a first glimpse at how states are spending some $100 billion in education aid under the program. The biggest chunk of the $14 billion in such aid spent by states and districts so far has been focused on creating and saving jobs, about 335,000 of them through Sept. 30, according to the reports. Only about $600 million in education funds had been used for other purposes, such as payments to companies for purchases, or outside staff. Yet getting details about exactly what jobs were created--and precisely how each purchasing dollar was spent--is harder. In many cases, states, districts, and other stimulus-aid recipients offered wide variation in how much detail they provided on the electronic reports. Some left blank key data fields, such as program descriptions. So far, though, much of the focus by the U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has been on the big picture: how many jobs were created or saved with the education stimulus money, which is being allocated as part of the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act passed by Congress in February.