Saving the Teachers
Last year’s $100 billion education stimulus plan insulated the public schools from the worst of the recession and saved an estimated 300,000 jobs. With the economy still lagging and states forced to slash their budgets, Congress must act again to prevent a wave of teacher layoffs that could damage the fragile recovery and hobble the school reform effort for years to come.
In March, Representative George Miller, a Democrat of California, introduced a jobs bill that included a $23 billion school rescue plan. Senator Tom Harkin, a Democrat of Iowa, has since introduced a similar plan fashioned as an emergency spending bill. The House version is the better of the two.
The need for a second school stimulus plan was underscored on Monday by a new analysis from the American Association of School Administrators, which reported that cash-strapped districts were prepared to cut as many 275,000 jobs in the 2010-2011 school year.
The loss of that many paychecks — and the resulting decline in consumer spending — could kill off still more jobs in the communities where teachers and other school employees live.
Assuming that both houses pass their respective bills, House leaders should insist on two important changes.
First, they should discard ambiguous language in both bills that could allow that states to use the money for expenditures other than education. Second, they should remove a provision of the Senate version that exempts the states from adhering to important reform requirements laid out the original stimulus bill.
Under those conditions, states are barred from cutting school funds and using the new federal dollars to fill the gap. They are also required to create data driven systems for monitoring student progress and evaluating teachers — and to ensure that low-income and minority children are no longer disproportionately taught by unqualified teachers.
Despite arguments to the contrary, the school rescue plan can, in fact, do double duty.
It could both prevent layoffs and advance the cause of reform.
The New York Times
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