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April 03, 2003 |
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Dear Friends,
I suspect my life has been like yours over the last week; we keep one ear tuned to the news and keep doing our jobs otherwise.
Here in Washington we have had daily briefings from the Pentagon on operations in Iraq. But we have continued on with the rest of our work otherwise. We passed a budget, we are finishing a supplemental appropriation for the war, and last night at 1:30 in the morning we finished work on a national energy bill in the Commerce Committee.
Today, I introduced a bipartisan bill with Representative Max Sandlin of Texas that will provide tax credits for teachers in Title I schools. The bill would provide a $2,000 non-refundable tax credit to full-time educators who work at schools with at least 40 percent of their students from families in poverty.
We are facing a nationwide shortage of 2 million teachers in the coming decade. And it is toughest to recruit and retain teachers in low-income neighborhoods. In Albuquerque, we have 134 Title I schools and we have 766 Title I eligible schools. A $2000 tax credit isn’t all that needs to be done, but it will bring many New Mexico teachers closer to the regional average salary.
The conservative Chairman of the Education Committee – John Boehner – is an original co-sponsor of the bill and the NEA has endorsed it. That’s pretty broad support. Now we are going to try to make some progress among legislators.
The cherry blossoms are out.
Wish you were here,
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