We received the following press release from the U.S. House Labor and Education Committee:
White House Releases State-by-State Estimates of Jobs Funded Through the Education Jobs Bill
Chairman Miller Urges Congress to Act Quickly to Prevent Students from Losing a Year of LearningWASHINGTON, D.C. – Today the White House released state-by-state estimates of the number of jobs that will be saved or created through the $23 billion Education Jobs Fund, that is included as emergency spending in the FY2010 Supplemental Appropriations Bill. The $23 billion emergency investment will help fund an estimated 300,000 education jobs across the country, including teachers, librarians, principals, guidance counselors, school cafeteria workers, and janitors, among others.
U.S. Rep. George Miller (D-CA), chair of the House Education and Labor Committee and a lead advocate in Congress for education jobs, released the following statement.
“The financial industry collapse has trickled down to local communities in the form of decreased revenues, lost property taxes
and, ultimately, harmful budget cuts to school districts across the country. Without immediate action, our students and teachers stand to suffer the consequences of a system breakdown in which they played no part. If we balk now and let our students lose a year of learning in our schools because of the of financial scandals, it will be a scandal on the Congress.”“These budget cuts would punish teachers, devastate communities and set back the significant progress students have made since the implementation of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Keeping teachers in classrooms and educators in schools is part of a larger strategy of getting Americans back to work. By investing this emergency money to save jobs, we prevent further turmoil by keeping unemployment and COBRA costs from spiraling out of control and creating more burden on local communities….”
The estimate [pdf] for Missouri:
Estimates of Jobs Funded Under
Teacher Jobs Bill*
All Funding Directed to K – 12
Council of Economic Advisers
May 2010Missouri 7,194
Total 313,471
Sources: State – level funding estimates from Department of Education; compensation estimates based on National Center for Education Statistics data.
*These estimates should be viewed as provisional and subject to margins of error.
And this definitely has local impact. From the Warrensburg Daily Star-Journal:
3/2/2010 12:47:00 PM
School officials cut budget now to lessen later pain
Jack Miles
EditorWarrensburg – Teacher cutbacks and program reductions face students returning in the 2010-11 school year and cuts could worsen, district
administrators reported Monday.The board-approved plan to slash spending by more than $1.5 million affects every district school….
If we don’t invest in the future we’re doomed.
We here in Franklin County are experiencing the same layoffs of teachers and staff members in our schools. The right wingers chant the “burdening our children and grandchildren with debt” script provided to them by their think tanks. Ask them to explain exactly what they mean, and their faces go blank.
A cynical person might suspect that the corpocracy prefers uneducated and desperate workers who will work for pennies and not complain.
My husband figured out that, for the salary just one of our St. Louis Cardinals players is making, we could pay 450 teachers $40K for one year.
We’re willing to spend all kinds of money on sports tickets, trips to sporting events, and a zillion other ways of entertaining ourselves. College basketball coaches often make more than the college president. What does that say about our value system?
Folks in the St. Louis area are all up in arms because it has been suggested that the short stretch of a highway named for Mark McGwire be renamed. Can you imagine St. Louisans marching in the streets over teacher layoffs?
Okay, I know I live in fantasy land. But the investments we make now will expand or limit the chances our grandchildren have for a healthy life experience.