not north chicago, but the storyline seems remarkably similar here, from the daily news in washington state:
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Castle Rock Superintendent Susan Barker is so upset about how state and federal officials are counting teaching jobs as “saved” with stimulus dollars that she’s thinking of writing President Barack Obama.
State and federal figures released last week report that initial federal stimulus dollars “saved or retained” 24,000 teachers in Washington — including 36 in Castle Rock. Teaching positions make up the bulk of the 34,500 jobs listed as saved in Washington by the federal Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, which oversees stimulus spending.
Problem is, Barker said, that’s just not true.
Barker called the federal board’s information a “misrepresentation of fact, and I know what we call that in my world.”
The state did use stimulus money to help pay teachers during the 2008-09 school year. And the federal money did help avoid more painful budget cuts elsewhere in state government. But the teachers had binding contracts and teachers never would have been cut during a school year, so saying the money saved those jobs is just plain misleading, Barker said.
What has Barker upset involves the money used last school year. She’s happy the money was available and that it helped the state avoid further cuts elsewhere. But listing 24,000 jobs that never were in jeopardy just doesn’t sit right with her.
“It’s just wrong,” Barker said. “We did not ‘save’ the number of jobs that we had to report saving. We did not ‘retain’ those jobs. ... It’s highly inaccurate.”
“I didn’t think they’d be buying data to support their position,” Barker said Monday of the stimulus funding.