The U.S. House of Representatives today passed the emergency jobs bill that is supposed to save 160,000 teaching jobs around the country.

A spreadsheet on the House Education and Labor Committee website shows how much money each state should receive and how many teaching jobs each state should save.

But reporters were skeptical during a press conference call held today by Arne Duncan after the jobs bill was passed. For example, columnist Peter Callaghan of the Tacoma News Tribune told Duncan that he had a hard time finding districts that needed to rehire teachers in Washington state.

Incidentally, reporters also wondered on the EWA K-12 listserve about the jobs saved. Dave Murray of the Grand Rapids Press noted that the estimates of how many jobs would be saved went from 4,100 to 4,700 while the $318 million remained the same. Ben Botkin, education and politics reporter for the Times-News in Twin Falls, said the Idaho state schools superintendent downplayed the federal government's estimates.

The education secretary and his staff said the money could be used to restore counselors and social workers as well as after-school and summer school programs. ED plans to get the money out fast, within a couple of weeks, using a streamlined application process, Duncan said.

Duncan also will be meeting via conference call on Wednesday, Aug. 11, with governors and chief state school officers.

Also catching listservers' eyes: a press release from the American Federation of Teachers. One of the teachers who had lost her job attending the House vote had already been recalled to work, the release noted.

While education reporters wondered whether there were jobs that needed to be restored, White House reporters appeared to be concerned that the bill would not result of in the rehiring of all the educators who lost their positions.

During the White House briefing Tuesday morning, Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton was asked about it. With a hat tip to Education Week's Dakarai Aarons for providing the transcript, here's the exchange:

"Q: Bill, following up on that, when the President promised today in the Rose Garden that this bill, if passed, would bring, he said, “hundreds of thousands of additional jobs in the next year, how can you back up that claim when even the White House's own material about this event -- some of the teachers that were appearing with the President, you had to say they might get their jobs back.  There's no guarantee that these teachers are actually going to be rehired. So how can you back up the claim that hundreds of thousands of people are going to get their jobs?

MR. BURTON: Well, obviously we have some of the best economists in the world working at this White House, and they've taken a hard look at the numbers. They've taken a hard look at, state by state, what the states need in order to avoid some of these drastic cuts that would take teachers out of our classrooms and takes cops and firefighters off our streets.  And they’re confident that those numbers are accurate."