A “Crisis,” More Hype, and Another Call for Bailouts
Bethany Aronhalt /
Brace yourselves – America is about to fall into an “education catastrophe,” says Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan. Up to 300,000 educational workers may receive pink slips this coming fall. The only solution is the same solution to all our other economic problems. Yes, you know the drill. It is time for another bailout, this time to save our education system.
Last Sunday, President Obama wrote a letter to Congress urging members to provide $23 billion in relief to state and local governments to supposedly prevent the layoffs of thousands of teachers nationwide. Countless newspaper articles have concluded that if Congress does not act now, class sizes will become so large that student achievement will fall far behind, the academic year will shorten, and some schools will even lock their doors for good. Well, is the hysteria pushing this agenda really necessary?
Charles Lane from the Washington Post calls this plea for more funding simply hype. Lane accurately reminds his readers that educational workers not only include K-12 teachers but also bus drivers, custodians, administration, etc., as well as some college faculty. Moreover, consider the ambiguity behind the broad estimate of 100,000 to 300,000 future layoffs. From January 2009 to May 2010, which includes the deepest points of the recession, a total of 61,600 state and local educational jobs were lost, at a 0.59% rate of job loss. Over the entire last three years, from December 2007 to May 2010, there was actually a net increase in total state and local educational jobs by 20,700. Yet, the Obama administration is leading Americans to believe that up to 300,000 educational jobs will be lost this coming fall alone.