Pasadena, California -- (SBWIRE) -- 08/12/2010 -- Congress on Tuesday voted along party lines to give funding to save 161,000 teaching jobs that the Department of Education said would have been lost because of a financial crunch. President Obama immediately signed it into law. The legislation will provide $10 billion to save the jobs.

The bill is expected to save 8,100 jobs in New York, 4,500 jobs in North Carolina, and 16,500 jobs in California. It will save thousands of jobs in other states too. The bill will allow school districts to reevaluate their hiring for the coming school year but allowing them to have enough funding for electives that were going to be cut. In times of budget deficits, electives such as computer, arts and foreign languages are the first to go. Schools were also planning to balance the declining budgets by cutting back on energy usage, transportation, closing libraries and even going on a four-day school week.

A. Harrison Barnes, CEO of EducationCrossing sees this bill as an opportunity for teachers. “This means teaching opportunities are now available for teachers with the required credentials throughout the country. We have almost 7,000 teaching jobs on our site and half of them have been posted within the last ten days. With this bill passed, we expect more teaching jobs to be announced soon.”