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.

Obama Administration Comes Urges Congress to Act

From a Capitol Hill press conference with the Education Secretary to a Washington Post op-ed today by White House Council of Economic Advisers Christina Romer, the administration has been out in force this week urging Congress to act.

"We desperately need Congress to act, to recognize the emergency for what it is, and to act with a real sense of urgency," Education Secretary Arne Duncan said at a press conference Wednesday with congressional Democrats and union leaders. "We have to keep hundreds of thousands of teachers teaching."

State budget shortfalls have forced districts across the country to lay off teachers at an alarming rate. California alone has already sent out more than 23,000 pink slips, and teacher unions estimate that number could rise to 36,000. According to estimates released by the White House, the emergency teacher jobs bill could save California approximately 31,000 jobs.

Teacher layoffs of this scale are expected to have a dramatic impact on students: Come next fall students may face larger class sizes, fewer after-school and summer programs, and the elimination of certain subjects -- such as art, music or advanced placement classes.

In her op-ed today, Romer outlined some of the broader implications of firings on this scale.

"Such layoffs are terrible for teachers, for communities and, most important, for students. For the families directly affected, layoffs mean not only lost wages but often lost homes and postponed dreams. Because unemployed teachers have to cut back on spending, local businesses and overall economic activity suffer. And the costs of decreased learning time and support for students will be felt not just in the next year or two but will reduce our productivity for decades to come," she wrote.

Several states are already taking drastic action to avert the impending layoffs. Some schools in Kansas, for example, have gone to a four-day school week, and several schools in Iowa are reducing full-day kindergartens to half days and putting off buying new text books.

Stimulus Funding Fades as Teachers Face Layoffs

In addition to funding shortages at the state level, stimulus funding for education is also winding down. The Recovery Act, specifically the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund, has helped save upward of 300,000 education jobs. Since the Recovery Act was enacted, the Education Department has provided roughly $100 billion to states. The Harkin bill would, in essence, be an extension of SFSF funding.

Some lawmakers, however, have questioned whether the federal government should provide the emergency funding.

"Our governor, a Democratic governor, said at the time of the stimulus funding two years ago that these are one-time funds; don't spend it on continuing operations," Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., said at a congressional hearing last month. "I wonder from whose schoolchildren we're going to borrow this money, because we have a looming debt crisis in our country. We all want to help our children and help our schools, but that's a deep concern."