Leslie Turk

AP: teachers benefited most from stimulus

by Leslie Turk

The Associated Press is reporting today that teachers appear to have benefited most from the effort to save jobs with the $787 billion recovery package. Billions of dollars were sent to states threatening major layoffs in education because of budget shortfalls.

While national data on the impact of President Barack Obama's stimulus plan won't be available until later this month, preliminary information obtained by the AP from a handful of states shows that the stimulus spared tens of thousands of teachers from losing their jobs.
State officials around the U.S. worked to meet a Saturday reporting deadline as part of the most ambitious effort to calculate in real time the effect of the government spending program. From 11 jobs repaving a road in Caldwell, Texas, to one job at Utah food banks, to two forensic scientist positions in North Dakota, states were required to say exactly what became of billions in government aid.
The national data will be available next month. Read the AP story here.