Teachers' jobs vs. Race to the Top?
by Rajiv Venkataramanan on Jul 06 2010
"When a ship is sinking, you don't worry about redesigning a room; you worry about keeping it afloat."
This is what Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.), the powerful chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said of "Race to the Top (RttT)" money he wants to reroute to save teachers' jobs across the country.
As a war funding bill winds its way through Capitol Hill, $23 billion of domestic spending has been tacked onto it. Ten billion of that domestic spending would go towards rescuing between 100,000 and 300,000 education jobs in debt-ridden states that will have to make painful cuts this year.
How would Congress pay for that $10 billion of emergency education aid? Obey and other House Democrats have decided to cut nearly $800 million from three of President Obama's flagship education reform initiatives:
- $500 million from RttT,
- $100 million from charter school expansions, and
- $200 million from the teacher incentive fund.
In what amounts to a direct affront to President Obama's ambitious education