Video: Education Secretary Arne Duncan -- May 25, 2010
While it's difficult to criticize funding for educators, this would be the 2nd bailout for state teachers' unions who already received $40 billion as part of last January's stimulus package.
Two clips, links, full story treatment.
---
Obama pushing $26 billion teachers union bailout
What's particularly galling about this is that a huge chunk of the stimulus is already devoted to education funding. In particular, the $53.6 billion State Fiscal Stabilization Fund, included $39.5 billion for local school districts to prevent teacher layoffs and program cuts. Further, it's notoriously difficult to fire incompetent teachers, thanks to union strictures. Los Angeles Unified School District spent $3.5 million just to fire seven bad teachers out of over 33,000 on the payroll.
And we're supposed to prop them up?
---
Obama Makes Emergency Funding Request for Teachers
Despite President Obama's pledge for honest budgeting and billions of dollars in stimulus money spent to save teachers' jobs, the Education Department is asking for off-the-books emergency funding to keep local districts from laying off school teachers next school year.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan sent Democratic lawmakers a request Thursday to pass a $26 billion emergency supplemental to fund up to 300,000 teachers' jobs that he says will otherwise be lost in the fall.
The request comes just a year after an unprecedented $100 billion in federal stimulus money was allocated to school districts as part of the $863 billion recovery act. Of that amount, $48 billion was designated for saving teachers' jobs and investing in educational programs. Another $31 billion in stimulus funds were sent to states for Pell grants, competitive funds and programs helping disadvantaged students.
An additional $21 billion in stimulus money is still available but not yet obligated for district expenses, according to the U.S. Education Department.
"We were told the stimulus package would fix these things. Clearly, it has not succeeded at that. At some point, some tough decisions have to be made at the local level -- spending cuts or reforms. I think it's not an appropriate role for the federal government to be involved indefinitely in these things," Cole said.
"This latest state bailout proposal promotes the same flawed logic as the failed 'stimulus' bill that has contributed to a record $1.5 trillion deficit and left one in every 10 Americans from our workforce out of work," House Minority Leader John Boehner said in a written statement.
"Giving states another $23 billion in federal education money simply throws more money into taxpayer-funded bailouts when we should be discussing why we aren't seeing the results we need from the billions in federal dollars that are already being spent," Boehner said.
---
Source: White House Blog
Obama:
And it’s why, through our recovery efforts, we’ve provided emergency aid that saved the jobs of more than 400,000 teachers and other education jobs -– and why I believe these efforts must continue. I believe these efforts must continue as states face severe budget shortfalls that put hundreds of thousands of jobs at risk. We need and our children need our teachers in the classroom. We need your passion and your patience, your skill and experience, your determination to reach every single child.
---
Must Read Story on Teachers' Unions:
Fired RI teachers approve deal to get jobs back
---
David Horowitz:
Obama’s Latest Bailout: Another Payoff To Teachers’ Union
---
Watch (Click ONLY if you're coming from our daily email or RSS)
