Ad draws attention to the consequences of Congressional inaction

WASHINGTON—The National Education Association today launched a multi-state television ad campaign urging Congress to pass the American Jobs Act. The legislation, if passed, will get more Americans working again, modernizing the nation’s aging schools and putting teachers and support staff back to work.

“The American Jobs Act is a win-win for the American people,” said NEA President Dennis Van Roekel. “Congress can choose to put students ahead of political gridlock by supporting a bill that puts Americans back to work, modernizes our schools, and puts educators in classrooms instead of on the unemployment lines.”

The 30-second ad is airing in select media markets in Massachusetts, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Texas and the District of Columbia. These are states that have been feeling the economic pinch caused by severe budget cuts and painful policy decisions.

Teachers, education support professionals, parents and others in local communities are rallying behind President Barack Obama’s bold proposal to get the economy moving in the right direction again. His proposal would put up to 280,000 educators back to work and modernize 35,000 of our nation’s aging public schools.

“The fact is that educators know firsthand the devastating impact the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression is having on our communities, our schools and students,” noted Van Roekel. “Children can’t learn if they’re hungry. They can’t learn if their family can’t afford to see a dentist or a doctor. They can’t learn if they’re anxious, nervous or have low self-esteem due to living in poverty. Unemployment isn’t just an economic issue – it’s an education issue.”

One such unemployed teacher from Florida visited Washington to urge her Congressional delegation to pass the American Jobs Act. Cherine Akbari, a history teacher from Northeast High School in Oakland Park, FL, was fired the last day of Teacher Appreciation Week and five days after she moved into her new house. The American Jobs Act would put people like Cherine back in the classroom with her students again. There are hundreds of thousands of unemployed educators like Cherine who are willing and eager to get back to schools and classrooms with help from Congress.

To view the 30-second ad, visit http://tinyurl.com/4x2thmt

Visit Education Votes to learn more about school budget cuts: www.educationvotes.nea.org

Follow us on twitter at www.twitter.com/NEAMedia

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/08/who_can_we_blame_for_job_losse.html

"Obama's America," tweets Republican political consultant Patrick Ruffini, linking to this map of economic devastation.

Fairly or not, Ruffini raises an interesting question: How much unemployment can we blame on the Obama administration? Economist Rob Shapiro dug into some Bureau of Labor Statistics data and came back with the best numbers I've seen on the subject. He separated job losses into two buckets: Those that happened before the stimulus, which was Obama's major effort to deal with joblessness, and those that happened after the stimulus. Here's what he found:

From December 2007 to July 2009 – the last year of the Bush second term and the first six months of the Obama presidency, before his policies could affect the economy – private sector employment crashed from 115,574,000 jobs to 107,778,000 jobs. Employment continued to fall, however, for the next six months, reaching a low of 107,107,000 jobs in December of 2009. So, out of 8,467,000 private sector jobs lost in this dismal cycle, 7,796,000 of those jobs or 92 percent were lost on the Republicans’ watch or under the sway of their policies. Some 671,000 additional jobs were lost as the stimulus and other moves by the administration kicked in, but 630,000 jobs then came back in the following six months. The tally, to date: Mr. Obama can be held accountable for the net loss of 41,000 jobs (671,000 – 630,000), while the Republicans should be held responsible for the net losses of 7,796,000 jobs.

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