President Signs Education Jobs Bill! 161,000! That is the estimated number of jobs, according to the House Education and Labor Committee, that will be saved this fall due to the passage of the much-anticipated Education Jobs Fund, which cleared the House of Representatives on Tuesday afternoon and was signed into law Tuesday evening by President Obama. The US House of Representatives joined Tuesday, Aug. 10 in an emergency session to vote on a package of emergency spending that included $10 billion to save education jobs. The House voted 247-161 to approve the measure. ASCA has been working with a number of education groups and coalitions to get this bill passed in both the House and the Senate. ASCA applauds school counselors and all constituents who called, wrote and visited their members of Congress to seek passage of this measure. The hard work has paid off. The Ed Jobs portion of this bill will provide $10 billion that will be issued to states relatively quickly - within weeks according to Secretary Duncan - to hire, re-hire and retain educator jobs. Very little of this money is supposed to go to overhead or administrative costs, leaving the vast majority of the money to allow people to keep their jobs as we come upon an even tighter budget year. Without this measure, well over 100,000 educator jobs were expected to be eliminated for the upcoming school year. The bill also included over $16 billion for Medicaid funding to states. This is another, albeit indirect, victory for education. Simply put, if Medicaid funding weren't restored, state budgets would be forced to make drastic cuts. Typically, education is the hardest hit when state-level cuts are made. Click here for an estimate of how many jobs this will save in your state and how the money is expected to trickle down. Sincerely, ASCA Staff phone: 703-683-ASCA |
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