Obama Education Bailout Bill Will Not Halt Teacher Lay Offs

Found at the Toledo Blade:

TPS teacher who watched Obama sign bill is laid off
Board not using $7.6M share to rehire workers

As Toledo Public Schools teacher Amanda VanNess stood in the Oval Office and watched President Obama sign an education stimulus bill, she already knew she’d lost her teaching job back home to budget cuts and low seniority.

TPS teacher who watched Obama sign bill is laid off
Board not using $7.6M share to rehire workers

The $26 billion stimulus bill, designed to save 160,000 teacher and other government jobs across the nation, couldn’t save her position at Pickett Elementary.

In fact, Ms. VanNess has been laid off twice from TPS this year.

TPS hasn’t spent a dollar of the $7.6 million in teacher rehire money it received from the Aug. 10 bill, opting instead to save it for next school year to rehire or retain a myriad school employees – probably not teachers.

The legislation allows the one-time money to be spent that way over the two school years.

The hard-fought federal legislation was sold as a way for school districts to call back laid-off teachers or to save others from losing jobs. But as of Nov. 15, Ms. VanNess will be without a teaching assignment, according to TPS’ human resources department.

article continues at TB

Setting aside the phantom constitutionality of funding schools via federal dollars…

The confiscation of public money for targeted “crisis” situations is difficult to argue against except that the targets are not stipulated or specific and the benefits don’t match up with the salesman’s promises.  One would assume that billions of $$$ approved for an education bailout would be spent immediately for retaining teachers or hiring more.  No, this money can be spent over a two year period and probably not be spent on teacher’s salaries.  I fail to understand how an office clerk at the board of education office can improve the children’s level of education in the classroom.

Can anyone say bait-and-switch?

“Race to the Top”  supplants  “No Child Left Behind” and the results will negate it’s goal.