President Obama scolded governors who cut too much from their state education budgets, telling themt hat there is “no excuse” today to spend more to hire teachers and to bring down the cost of community colleges that provide job training to high school graduates.
“We’ve all faced some stark choices over the past several years,” Obama said at the National Governors Association Annual Meeting. “But that is no excuse to lose sight of what matters most. And the fact is that too many states are making cuts to education that I believe are simply too big.”
Obama told the governors to pressure Congress “to provide even more funding, so that you could prevent further layoffs and rehire teachers that had lost their jobs.”
Senate Republicans have opposed spending more money to keep teachers on staff, noting that the federal government has twice tried to bailout state education funding to prevent teacher layoffs.
The president did sympathize with the position of the budget hawks. “Trust me, I know something about trying to deal with tight budgets,” he said.
