AFT Members Join the Push to Get Jobs Bill Passed

[ProSense]

AFT Members Join the Push to Get Jobs Bill Passed

On the same day that President Obama sent the American Jobs Act to Congress, he stood in the White House Rose Garden with AFT members and others who would be helped by his bold plan to create jobs and put money back in the hands of middle-class families.

The bill includes $30 billion to prevent layoffs of teachers and other educators, and another $25 billion to repair and modernize public schools. The president said the bill will help keep as many as 280,000 educators on the job. "All across America," he said, "teachers are being laid off in droves—which is unfair to our kids, it undermines our future, and it is exactly what we shouldn't be doing if we want our kids to be college-ready and then prepared for the jobs of the 21st century. We've got to get our teachers back to work."

Baltimore special education teacher Terrell Williams, an AFT member at the Rose Garden event, says the plan to modernize obsolete schools is especially vital. Williams, a teacher at Holabird Middle School and member of the Baltimore Teachers Union, said he recently completed summer school duties in classrooms without air conditioning—rooms that sweltered in 106-degree heat on many days—and he worries about the message that such conditions are sending to students: "We tell kids that education is the key to their future, and then we contradict ourselves by sending them to schools without working fountains or even doors on the stalls in bathrooms."

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(More than 150 members already have answered an AFT Voices question asking how they think money from the American Jobs Act should be put to work in their communities. Read their responses and add your own.)

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[TheWraith]

1. I initially misread that as "ATF members."

That was... confusing.

[ProSense]

2. Well

"I initially misread that as 'ATF members.'"

...at least you didn't misread it as "OFA members."