How to prevent huge teacher layoffs, by Christina D. Romer, Commentary, Washington Post: The emergency spending bill before the House would address the education crisis facing communities across America -- and the jobs of hundreds of thousands of teachers are at stake. Because ... state and local budgets are stressed to the breaking point..., hundreds of thousands of public school teachers are likely to be laid off over the next few months. As many as one out of every 15 teachers could receive a pink slip this summer...Then this:
Bill on jobless benefits, state financial help scaled back, by Lori Montgomery, Washington Post: Under fire from rank-and-file Democrats worried about the soaring national debt, congressional leaders reached a tentative agreement Wednesday to scale back a package that would have devoted nearly $200 billion to jobless benefits and other economic provisions...Which he follows with the following observation:
The deficit hawks generally talk about the fate of our children when making the case to reduce the deficit, but at a time like now when the recession is pressuring school budgets, how are kids helped by reducing their educational opportunities?It used to be fun reading Molly Ivins skilfully mocking hypocritical politicians trotting out the "What about the children?" line. Now she's gone. They're still here.
And I'm depressed as hell.
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