White House Urges Congress to Act on Emergency Funding to Avert Teacher Layoffs

May 28, 2010— -- The Obama administration has been making a big push this week to ramp up support for $23 billion in emergency federal funding for education to avert the estimated 100,000 to 300,000 teacher layoffs pending nationwide.

But teachers across the country will now have to wait at least another week for the House Appropriations Committee to take up the proposal.

The committee was expected to vote Thursday on the legislation as an amendment to the war supplemental request, but the markup has now been postponed until after the Memorial Day recess.

A committee aide told ABC News Thursday that "there was no chance that the House could get to it before the recess with everything else that the House has to focus on. … We'll have to see what happens when members get back in town."

The Senate was originally slated to consider the proposal before the House, but Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said earlier in the week that he didn't have the 60 votes needed to beat a filibuster.

If the education funding passes in the House, supporters in the Senate hope to include it in the conference report reconciling the House and Senate bills.

"I remain committed to securing this funding," Harkin said in a written statement earlier this week. "For example, the House is on track to include $23 billion for education jobs in its supplemental appropriations bill. When the bill goes to conference, I will fight to ensure that the House funding prevails. Three hundred thousand jobs and the education of our nation's children depend on it."

In a statement released earlier in the week, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs confirmed the president's support for emergency action.

"The president shares the concern of millions of Americans that cuts to state and local budgets are forcing states and localities to cut education spending drastically, impacting the learning and growth of our nation's children. … President Obama strongly supports targeted aid focused on preventing these teacher layoffs in order to stem the education crisis," Gibbs wrote.