Duncan Promotes Bill with $23B to Save Teachers’ Jobs (NC)
June 4, 2010
Saying "We can’t afford to take a step back," the U.S. secretary of education urged an audience of Durham educators and community leaders Thursday to support a federal bill that would provide $23 billion to save teaching jobs.
"We can’t afford to see class size go to 45," Arne Duncan, the top federal education official, said before an audience of perhaps 150 people in the Southern High School library. "We can’t afford to see summer school eliminated. … We can’t afford to see PE and art and music and band and chess and debate and sports teams be eliminated."
Minnie Forte-Brown, the chairwoman of Durham’s school board, moderated a panel discussion on the so-called teacher jobs bill. Duncan was joined by Gov. Beverly Perdue and U.S. Rep. Bob Etheridge, D-Lillington, in asking listeners to back the bill.
"Education is the difference-maker," said the governor, a former school teacher. "We need this legislation, Mr. Secretary."
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"If you start cutting back, you’re going to have real problems, you’re going to start moving backwards rather than moving forwards," said Etheridge, whom Forte-Brown introduced as the only former state education superintendent to serve in Congress. (Etheridge’s 2nd District, which once included Durham, now arcs around it.)
Duncan praised Perdue and the North Carolina school board for their embrace of a national education curriculum known as the Common Core State Standards. The board officially adopted the standards Thursday morning, making North Carolina the fifth state to do so, according to a report.
But the bulk of Duncan’s comments concerned the jobs bill, which supporters say is necessary due to declines in tax revenues caused by the economic recession of the past few years. As many as 300,000 teaching jobs around the nation are said to be in jeopardy due to decreased local and state tax collections.
"What I think the general public is starting to understand is school districts have made tough cuts for a couple of years now," Duncan said. "And we’re through fat, we’re through flesh and we’re into bone now. And we do everything we can to protect children from these cuts, and that’s just not possible."
The need for the federal education bailout appeared to become more acute late last week after the U.S. House voted down a Medicaid funding provision that several states were relying on for significant revenue. North Carolina’s 2010-11 budget of about $19 billion could be short nearly $500 million because of that congressional decision.
Etheridge said he was not sure how many more votes needed to be secured before Congress could pass the teacher jobs bill. But he and Duncan b oth said that they would like to see the measure approved this month.
Duncan warned the audience of the possible consequences should the bill fail. "The last thing we need as a country is to have a couple hundred thousand teachers on the unemployment rolls," he said.
June Atkinson, the North Carolina superintendent, said after the panel that she was anxious about the teacher bailout bill’s prospects. "I know there is a lot of concern around building a bigger deficit hole," she said. "That’s why I’m pessimistic."
Added Atkinson: "My cup is half full and half empty when it comes to optimism about the bill. I guess it will be a struggle."
Durham entered the spring budget cycle facing a potential loss next year of 237 teaching jobs, a number that a proposed county tax hike would nearly halve. State budget measures could reduce the funding gap further.
Duncan and other officials in President Obama’s administration have said that North Carolina could lose more than 10,000 jobs due to flagging local and state revenue. But Kristy Moore, the president of the Durham Association of Educators, said Thursday that the figure was closer to 7,000 in an estimate the state Association of Educators prepared last month.
Both job-loss figures include certified personnel, meaning classroom teachers, library specialists, counselors and other professional school employees.