A Second Stimulus for Education?

WikiCommons/Creative Commons

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


This morning Secretary of Education Arne Duncan asked Congress for more money to prevent massive teacher layoffs and program cuts across the country, something he and President Obama had previously been leary of doing for fear of a Republican backlash against additional government stimulus spending.

If Duncan gets his wish, this would be a second round of funding for the nation’s schools. (The first round was part of last year’s $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.) After Duncan’s testimony, Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa, who is on the Senate Approproations Committee and chairs the Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee, unveiled a bill that would give states an additional $23 billion to save teaching jobs. 

“Every day brings more reports about a massive wave of layoffs that could soon strike school districts and institutions of higher education. Based on estimates we’re seeing so far, the number of pink slips for educators could easily top 100,000 this fall,” Harkin said. He added, “Job cuts of this magnitude would of course have a devastating impact on families across the country and could stall the nation’s economic recovery. But they would also take a terrible toll on our educational system.”

The $23 billion Harkin has proposed would constitute new spending he considers “emergency aid.” The $100 billion given to states last year to prevent them from distributing swathes of pink slips has run out, and many states are facing budget gaps as wide as the ones they confronted last year. California has already notified some 23,000 teachers that they could be out of a job come summer, and Republican Gov. Chris Christie has told New Jersey schools that if desperately needed federal dollars don’t come through, the education funding they receive from the state could be cut by as much as five percent.

The House already approved a bill similar to Harkin’s late last year. But it passed by a slim margin because lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are worried about their spending records as they head into this fall’s mid-term elections. Harkin will surely face similar challenges getting his bill passed—eight of his fellow Senate Democrats up for re-election this fall.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate