Congressman Kurt Schrader voted on Thursday evening to retain jobs for an estimated 1,660 Oregon educators by supporting an amendment that appropriates $10 billion to an education jobs fund and an additional $4.95 billion in Pell Grant funding that is fully offset.

“Education is an important part of any economic recovery,” said Schrader. “The stimulus package provided a unique opportunity to improve our public education system by providing schools with the resources to hire quality educators. We need to position our youth and our displaced workers for the new post recovery economy.”

At a time when State budgets are tight, it is important to make sure the quality of our children’s education is sustained. The quality of our children’s education is contingent upon investments that prevent their school days from being cut and that help to reduce their classroom size. A consistent investment in our education workforce is critical to the success of our public school system. These investments will also ensure that we are preparing our children so that they can compete for the jobs of the future.

The education jobs fund is expected to help retain more than 140,000 K-12 education jobs nationwide, and approximately 315 jobs in the 5th Congressional District of Oregon. This money will be administered through existing funding formulas and are prohibited from being used for any purpose other than retaining jobs for K-12 educators.

Under Schrader’s leadership the Oregon State Legislature funded the Opportunity Grant Program so that students planning to go to college would have the funding to receive a quality education. The Opportunity Grant program is now the state’s largest need-based grant program and because of the economic recession is under siege. The additional $4.95 billion in Pell Grant funding appropriated by the amendment will help to ensure that Oregon students working minimum-wage jobs have the opportunity to pursue higher education.