May 5, 2010
In Iowa's Interest: Keeping Our Teachers on the Job
By Senator Tom Harkin
Last week in Washington, I was proud to join President Obama in honoring Iowa’s own Sarah Brown Wessling as the 2010 Teacher of the Year. Sarah is an inspiration to us all and has played an influential role in touching the lives of countless students that have passed through her Johnson Community School District classroom.
Sarah Brown Wessling’s award came on the eve of Teacher Appreciation Week - a week when we can thank and recognize teachers for the important role they play in our lives. A great teacher can shape a child’s development and I can fondly remember many of the teachers I had growing up. During this week, I encourage all Iowans to reflect on the contributions teachers have made in their lives and show their gratitude to those who are positively impacting the next generation.
Unfortunately, as we celebrate National Teacher Appreciation Week, Iowa - and states across the country - are about to face a massive wave of layoffs in our schools. In fact, in testimony before my Appropriations Subcommittee last month, Education Secretary Arne Duncan estimated that as many as 300,000 educators across the nation could get pink slips this fall.
Make no mistake: this is a crisis of the first order. Not since the Great Depression have our public schools faced the prospect of such massive layoffs. Job losses of this magnitude would take a terrible toll on our education system, resulting in bigger class sizes, fewer program offerings and less time for students to learn in school. This would be a major setback for the nation’s economic recovery - both in the immediate future and in terms of our nation’s ability to compete in the economy of the 21st Century.
The timing, too, could not be worse. Right now, states are taking the lead in creating college and career-ready standards. Nationally in Congress we are hard at work at reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. There is an acute sense that we must invest at every level to lift our public schools to world standards. But the proposed budget cuts and teacher layoffs would almost completely derail this effort.
For this reason I have introduced the Keep Our Educators Working Act. This bill would create an Education Jobs Fund that states can use for retaining or hiring employees at the pre-K and K-12 levels, and also at public institutions of higher education. Dozens of groups across the country – from teachers’ unions to school boards to colleges and universities – have endorsed my bill. And I am very pleased that President Obama supports this investment as well.
The Keep Our Educators Working Act would help keep educators like Sarah Brown Wessling in the classroom. That is why we must pass this critical legislation – to ensure all of our children have access to a quality education so that they can truly succeed as adults.