The emergency funding bill known as "Edujobs" has more lives than a cat. Put to rest again last week, Edujobs has found new life in a bill that would also provide $16 billion in desperately needed Medicaid funding for states.
The Obstacles to Edujobs
The key sticking points in Edujobs has always been the price tag and the offsets. Republicans balked at the $10 billion the bill asks for, citing the need for belt-tightening during an endless recession that now seems poised for a double dip. The White House turned up its nose at the idea that funding to restore teaching positions should come out of its pet reform projects, like Race to the Top.
Cutting the Budget to Find Funding
In this most recent incarnation, edujobs is tied to the idea of Medicaid funding the states' need in order to avoid another round of budget cuts. It also borrows funding from education programs that are not so near and dear to the Department of Education: the Striving Readers program, which promotes adolescent literacy and the Ready to Teach program, which provides funding for telecommunications programs for teachers and also cuts $82 for student financial aid administration.
Uncertainty
Even though the bill is likely to be supported by Democrats, it's not a sure thing. Passage would simply send it back to the House, which is in recess until mid-September.
In most states, school will have been in session for at least a month before the bill could pass the House, and the states could only then begin to apply for funding to restore lost teaching positions. While teachers might be glad of a job whenever they are hired back, the damage to students will have already occurred and won't be easily rectified.
Both parties talk long and loud about the importance of education, and their commitment to the youngest of our citizens, but their actions are still falling short.
Let Us Know What You Think
But that's just my opinion, what's yours? Is Congress doing everything it can for American students? What's the situation in your community?
Read more: education, teacher layoffs, edujobs bill, congress doesnt pass edujobs, race to top, medicaid bill to include edujobs, edujobs finds new life in senate bill
comments15 comments add your comment
Dianne D. says
Aug 3, 2010 8:00 AM
In my community, only about 34% of the money allocated for education actually makes it to the classrooms. The rest gets tied up in the administrative offices. There is something desperately wrong there.
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Carol B. says
Aug 3, 2010 7:56 AM
Jobs, but educating people whether children or adults is more than a job. It takes 24/7 attention to the work, it means no real holidays (always thinking how to do something that will work better, be more fun, enhance the program) and we need all our teachers and then some, to educate our people well. The "classroom teachers" are the ones in front, but everyone is an educator just by being there- teaching someone something by the way we live.
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Ann G. says
Aug 3, 2010 7:41 AM
Without health and education an individual will be struggling all his/her life unless incredibly lucky. Multiply this exponentially and the same goes for a country. United States has the worst health care "system" in the developed world and one of the worst, if not the worst, public education systems. That along with the greed of Wall Street is driving the USA down. When are these right wingers going to wake up and realize what they are doing to your country. What a shame!!!!!!!
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Edward M. says
Aug 3, 2010 6:43 AM
Has anyone with a modicum of intelligence considered that the funding for most of your projects could be found by cutting the "defence" budget, say by half.
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Alexandra R. says
Aug 3, 2010 6:33 AM
Education and health care are most important. The human and economic loss to a country is incalculable if these are deficient.
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Therese J. says
Aug 3, 2010 6:04 AM
To quote your article, "Republicans balked at the $10 billion the bill asks for, citing the need for belt-tightening during an endless recession..." Education should be a TOP priority, receiving the funding needed to educate our future wage-earners. Instead, Republicans have focused on having tax cuts for the wealthy continued, when, by their own planning 10 years ago, the cuts are set to expire this January. Now they blame the Democrats-- --for everything that has gone wrong, including the recession!
Congress needs to get its priorities right and focus on educating our students NOW so we'll have responsible, effective, thoughtful, adults in years to come.
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Jo B. says
Aug 3, 2010 5:39 AM
One word: Education. Without good education a country is nothing.
Interesting article.thank you for sharing x
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nobo dy says
Aug 3, 2010 1:16 AM
thanks
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Kaye Skinner says
Aug 2, 2010 11:25 PM
Prayers going up.
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Chien Chao says
Aug 2, 2010 7:20 PM
education is the root of a country
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Saturday, July 4, 2009
NY Times article
By MIREYA NAVARRO
Published: July 3, 2009
Wearing a purple sweatsuit and leaning on a cane, Gloria Allen, 82, was hobbling down a hallway in a public housing project in Morningside Heights, knocking on doors and shouting, “Recycling education!”
There was no answer at the next apartment, but as soon as she detected movement inside, Ms. Allen, a retired printing-company worker, began her pitch.
“Please come out, baby,” she purred. “Please come out so we can educate you on how to recycle.”
The typical neighborhood environmentalist is often pictured as young and affluent, the kind of person who can afford a hybrid car and screen-printed hemp fabrics. But at General Grant Houses, a sprawling public housing development off West 125th Street in Manhattan, the eco-conscious are mainly people like Ms. Allen and Sarah Martin, who as leaders of the residents’ association fret as much about backed-up pipes as they do about recycling.
Proselytizing on the issue in housing projects is an enormous challenge but crucial, environmentalists say, given the incentive to cut back on energy and garbage disposal costs and a housing authority’s power to impose recycling rules building by building.
In New York, the incentive may be greatest of all. Only 17 percent of the city’s household waste makes it into recycling bins, and New York has the largest public housing system in the country, with 2,600 buildings, 174,000 apartments and more than 400,000 residents in five boroughs.
Yet the effort initiated by Ms. Allen and Ms. Martin originated as a grass-roots crusade of their own.
Margarita Lopez, the city housing agency’s environmental coordinator, said that residents who step up and organize the efforts defy cynical clichés about public housing. “There are people who think we’re not able to do this, who look at public housing as second-class citizens,” she said. “People would be surprised about how in tune the residents are.”
Polls show that concern about the environment is sometimes broadest in low-income communities because residents bear the brunt of problems like air pollution.
Ms. Allen and Ms. Martin say they see recycling as a way to address the health and quality-of-life issues associated with trash, including the emissions from abundant garbage-truck pickups.
“If we could reduce the amount of garbage in our community, it would reduce the diesel in the air,” said Ms. Martin, 72, a former medical assistant and school food preparation manager who wears hoop earrings under a baseball cap.
So she and Ms. Allen, who each live alone but have 6 children, 14 grandchildren and 3 great-grandchildren between them, have taken time from their full plate of tenant complaints to introduce, or reintroduce, the development’s 4,500 denizens to recycling, building by building.
While recycling is required by law, it had failed to take root at General Grant because the bins were not conveniently located and residents found it easy to ignore recycling signs, the women say.
Education is crucial, they insist, so they recruit volunteers and train them in which kinds of metal, glass and plastic items can be recycled. Then they guide them from door to door, distributing color-coded bags as they impart the fundamentals to neighbors who can be welcoming, indifferent or hostile.
“It’s not easy,” Ms. Martin said. “It’s not like you slap a flier on a door and say: ‘Recycle. It’s the law.’ It takes time, patience and energy.”
Some residents refuse to budge when Ms. Allen and Ms. Martin knock. And some object to their campaign. During one of their rounds, they were berated by a neighbor who insisted that recycling bins would attract vermin and should not be placed in front of the buildings.
“People are going to put garbage in there,” the neighbor warned.
But many readily embrace the effort. “This saves public housing work and money and it contributes to the general hygiene,” said Jose Morales, 51, an unemployed plumber and widower with two children who correctly chose a green recycling bag when Ms. Allen tested him with a flattened cereal box.
On other environmental fronts, efforts are under way by the city housing authority to make the apartment units more energy-efficient, using federal stimulus money to replace old boilers, water heaters and appliances. More than two dozen resident “green committees” have also been formed to help with projects like planting trees and recruiting workers for green jobs.
Published: July 3, 2009
Wearing a purple sweatsuit and leaning on a cane, Gloria Allen, 82, was hobbling down a hallway in a public housing project in Morningside Heights, knocking on doors and shouting, “Recycling education!”
There was no answer at the next apartment, but as soon as she detected movement inside, Ms. Allen, a retired printing-company worker, began her pitch.
“Please come out, baby,” she purred. “Please come out so we can educate you on how to recycle.”
The typical neighborhood environmentalist is often pictured as young and affluent, the kind of person who can afford a hybrid car and screen-printed hemp fabrics. But at General Grant Houses, a sprawling public housing development off West 125th Street in Manhattan, the eco-conscious are mainly people like Ms. Allen and Sarah Martin, who as leaders of the residents’ association fret as much about backed-up pipes as they do about recycling.
Proselytizing on the issue in housing projects is an enormous challenge but crucial, environmentalists say, given the incentive to cut back on energy and garbage disposal costs and a housing authority’s power to impose recycling rules building by building.
In New York, the incentive may be greatest of all. Only 17 percent of the city’s household waste makes it into recycling bins, and New York has the largest public housing system in the country, with 2,600 buildings, 174,000 apartments and more than 400,000 residents in five boroughs.
Yet the effort initiated by Ms. Allen and Ms. Martin originated as a grass-roots crusade of their own.
Margarita Lopez, the city housing agency’s environmental coordinator, said that residents who step up and organize the efforts defy cynical clichés about public housing. “There are people who think we’re not able to do this, who look at public housing as second-class citizens,” she said. “People would be surprised about how in tune the residents are.”
Polls show that concern about the environment is sometimes broadest in low-income communities because residents bear the brunt of problems like air pollution.
Ms. Allen and Ms. Martin say they see recycling as a way to address the health and quality-of-life issues associated with trash, including the emissions from abundant garbage-truck pickups.
“If we could reduce the amount of garbage in our community, it would reduce the diesel in the air,” said Ms. Martin, 72, a former medical assistant and school food preparation manager who wears hoop earrings under a baseball cap.
So she and Ms. Allen, who each live alone but have 6 children, 14 grandchildren and 3 great-grandchildren between them, have taken time from their full plate of tenant complaints to introduce, or reintroduce, the development’s 4,500 denizens to recycling, building by building.
While recycling is required by law, it had failed to take root at General Grant because the bins were not conveniently located and residents found it easy to ignore recycling signs, the women say.
Education is crucial, they insist, so they recruit volunteers and train them in which kinds of metal, glass and plastic items can be recycled. Then they guide them from door to door, distributing color-coded bags as they impart the fundamentals to neighbors who can be welcoming, indifferent or hostile.
“It’s not easy,” Ms. Martin said. “It’s not like you slap a flier on a door and say: ‘Recycle. It’s the law.’ It takes time, patience and energy.”
Some residents refuse to budge when Ms. Allen and Ms. Martin knock. And some object to their campaign. During one of their rounds, they were berated by a neighbor who insisted that recycling bins would attract vermin and should not be placed in front of the buildings.
“People are going to put garbage in there,” the neighbor warned.
But many readily embrace the effort. “This saves public housing work and money and it contributes to the general hygiene,” said Jose Morales, 51, an unemployed plumber and widower with two children who correctly chose a green recycling bag when Ms. Allen tested him with a flattened cereal box.
On other environmental fronts, efforts are under way by the city housing authority to make the apartment units more energy-efficient, using federal stimulus money to replace old boilers, water heaters and appliances. More than two dozen resident “green committees” have also been formed to help with projects like planting trees and recruiting workers for green jobs.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
education is a wonderful thing
Is it possible that the Mayor is the President of the Optimist Club? or some executive type that could have made one of those secret, handshake deals with the City Manager, without anybody else knowing it? A deal that could miraculously pop up sometime in the near future? The Mayor and Council got the same memo the resident got, with the same claim. Perhaps they just didnt bother to read it. Perhaps an email to the Mayor and ALL the Council informing them of this claim by the City Manager would be in order so they can be fully informed and take the appropriate actions to straighten this situation out. I am sure they will do the right thing, once it is brought to their attention, or at least Mr. Dotson will.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
education is a wonderful thing
Are the ones who dont show up HERE, on an anonymous blog, with numbers and facts to support their position also cowards? The only one that is KNOWN to have told a lie so far is the City Manager, with his Optimist fairy tale. The revenue numbers make NO SENSE, but may just be incompetence and general cluelessness on the part of city officials, giving them the benefit of the doubt. That is not necessarily a good thing to have in your city officials, but it beats having liars and thieves there! Right? What are the chances we have ALL OF THE ABOVE in City Hall? With NO Council oversight, save Dotson. Its a sad situation- and expensive! sad and expensive for the taxpayers! NOT to the City Managers, or the Council! THEIR checks roll in steadily, and in full. Where are all those people who spoke FOR the pool being open year-round at a cost of 200k HERE? They could present their own facts and figures HERE for discussion! NONE show up with credible or rational responses. This forum requires NO time off work, travel time, parking, babysitters- NOTHING! And STILL they dont show up here, the easiest forum for anybody to access! Are THEY all cowards too? Perhaps they are just not fully informed on ALL the issues? If so, this is a good place to become educated, as there are several people in the community who have considerable knowledge and experience at the pool and are familiar with its workings, and others who are open-minded and willing to learn.
Saturday, August 2, 2008
comments
The City Manager has 8 years experience as a Councilman and several years experience as the City Manager. Is there ANYBODY who is suggesting that he has ANY clue regarding construction projects? The bathrooms have cost us $400 a square foot SO FAR, when I can get construction built for $125 a square foot. Does THAT sound like somebody who knows what they are doing? It has been almost TWO years since it was agreed upon. The Country Club enclosure came in at $600 a square foot. Does THAT sound like somebody who has ANY clue? Both were several MONTHS behind schedule and after almost TWO YEARS the bathrooms arent even close to being finished! Does that even remotely sound like effective or efficient management from somebody with years of job experience? While I agree that education alone cannot guarantee results, neither can experience alone. The best combination is to have some of both, of course, but neither can replace honesty or integrity.
Friday, August 1, 2008
educatio, or not
Education is generally a good thing, and the reason why we encourage our kids to become well-educated, so they can become more successful in our society. There ARE exceptions, however. there are some City officials, for instance, who have risen up the ladder somehow, thru hook or crook, to fairly responsible positions. A handful have only a high school degree or maybe a semester or two at a state college. Education will never replace honesty, integrity, or character- you either have or you dont. Everyone will have to decide for themselves whether these City officials can be called a success or not. Examine their latest decisions and decide whether their life experiences have led them to any decisions that make logical financial sense, or NOT. If so, please explain how they make sense. If not,I rest my case.
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