· I ask that you support consideration and passage of HR 4899 as amended by the House of Representatives, which includes nearly $15 billion for our education system.
· Recession-ravaged states must get help so that students won’t face larger class sizes, shortened days and weeks, and the elimination of summer school and other education courses and programs. The time for this help is now, and the need is indisputable.
· Because critical decisions are being made right now for summer school and the next school year, Congress must move swiftly in approving this aid, and must not alter the bill’s underlying provisions. To this end, we would strongly oppose any amendments to strip funds from this program or to modify the proposed framework for getting assistance out as quickly as possible.
· Securing this much-needed support has been one of the AFT’s top legislative priorities this year, and we’ve worked hard to garner support for the funding. So-called deficit hawks in the House and in the administration insisted that the additional funds for education be included in the bill only if there were “offsets” to other programs. To pay for the funding to save educator jobs and support Pell Grants House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) found offsets including taking $500 million from Race to the Top (RTTT), leaving $3.2 billion; $200 million from the Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF), leaving $400 million; and $100 million from charter school grants, leaving $156 million.
· Democrats in the US House of Representatives, led by Chairman Obey, took a courageous stand for students by ignoring a threatened presidential veto, based on the education offsets, and voting for $10 billion to avert massive teacher layoffs and disruption to core programs and nearly $5 billion in Pell Grants to help college students with tuition.
· If the emergency spending bill, which includes nearly $5 billion to remove most of the Pell Grant shortfall, is not passed by the Senate, and signed into law, Congress will be forced to reduce the maximum Pell Grant or cut spending to other programs by this amount -- including the very programs over which the Administration is threatening to veto the emergency spending bill.
· Reform will not occur in an environment defined by larger class sizes, the elimination of summer school, shortened school days and weeks, and fewer programs to help the students who need it most - which is what will happen if the education jobs and Pell Grant funding is not provided.
· It was deeply disturbing and disappointing that a Democratic administration would threaten to veto a bill supporting jobs and education because paying for it would require a negligible cut from its new pet programs. We understand the administration wants to protect its favorite programs for future disbursements, but we need to protect kids and this generation of new teachers now. A small sacrifice from the Race to the Top program isn’t too much to ask, especially since it still would leave more than $3 billion for future spending.
- An educational catastrophe directly affecting the quality of our students’ education awaits us if Congress fails to act immediately to avert the predicted loss of as many as 300,000 educator jobs. Job losses of this magnitude affect not just the employees, but their students, their students’ families and communities, and beyond. None of us will be untouched by these losses. Consider a recent finding by the Economic Policy Institute that estimates that every 100,000 education jobs lost translates into roughly 30,000 jobs lost in other sectors, due to reduced spending by schools and by those laid off. Thus, if the forecast of 300,000 education job cuts becomes a reality, nearly an additional 100,000 jobs will be lost in other sectors, bringing the total job losses to almost 400,000.