[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Page 13848]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         EDUCATION JOBS PACKAGE

  Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I rise today to urge this body to get our 
priorities straight. During this trying moment for struggling families 
all over America, as we work to get our economic ship righted, it is 
our kids and schools that should be at the top of our list.
  And moving forward with a more lasting agenda, this body must make 
good on our commitment to ensure that we leave more opportunity for our 
children than we ourselves have had. It starts with our commitment to 
education.
  We have a very American responsibility--to set the table for our 
kids' futures; to prepare them for the competitive world that awaits 
them; and to enrich their lives with a better education than the one 
that was offered to us. This is our central calling.
  As I have discussed many times before back in Colorado and here on 
the Senate floor, we must be willing to make the hard choices necessary 
to jumpstart our economy and put the country on a path that will return 
us to fiscal responsibility. This means recognizing how we got into 
this fiscal mess--by not paying for our priorities, not planning for 
future emergencies, taking on more than we can afford, and damaging, 
expensive bailouts.
  Yet we cannot fight our way out of this fiscal hole riding on the 
backs of our kids. It is wrong, and it is a disservice to them.
  I support legislation to preserve teacher jobs. And the full Senate 
must do the same. In so many areas, our children are taking the brunt 
of our economic downturn. School is one place we have to try to 
inoculate from economic hardship.
  Hundreds of thousands of teachers across the country--including an 
estimated 3,000 teachers in Colorado--are in jeopardy of losing their 
jobs if we do not act. Districts have already cut their budgets 
substantially. The education jobs package would preserve thousands of 
these middle-class jobs.
  I am the first person to say that we cannot simply continue to do the 
same thing in education and expect a different result. We need to 
improve the system so it does a better job of supporting our teachers 
and educating students.
  However, we cannot stand by while schools are devastated by layoffs. 
Allowing this would be a shortsighted blow against our communities.
  The education jobs package would keep people working, and ensure that 
students can continue learning. This will actually spur economic 
recovery in the short run, preserving thousands of good jobs, and by 
laying the groundwork for our kids' success, it would foster prosperity 
in the long run.
  Preserving teaching jobs is a commonsense investment. Yet inside the 
Beltway the livelihood of our teachers has become a political pawn. We 
have seen people using this money as a negotiating tool. And we have 
seen people force false choices between jobs and critical education 
reforms. Let's not play politics with our children's future.
  I call on our colleagues to move quickly to pass an education jobs 
package and keep our teachers in the classroom so our kids have the 
tools they need to succeed.

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