ATLANTA — Dave Ebersbach lost his job as a math teacher this summer, and he spends each day hoping that his poverty-stricken school in Ohio will call up and offer him his position back.

He and thousands of other teachers around the country could get their jobs back now that the Senate has approved an emergency stimulus package designed to keep educators and other public employees out of the unemployment line.

"My biggest thing is I want to go back to the school I was at for the students," said Ebersbach, 43, one of 14 math teachers in the Toledo school district to receive notice a few weeks ago that their jobs were cut. "We're in a high-poverty school and one thing the students need more than anything else is consistency."

The $26 billion measure passed Thursday is less than was initially proposed by Education Secretary Arne Duncan, but will provide $16 billion to help states balance their Medicaid budgets and $10 billion for grants to school districts to forestall layoffs.

Republicans strenuously opposed the measure, denouncing it as yet another federal bailout the government cannot afford and calling it a giveaway to public employee unions.

For educators across the country, it's been a bewildering summer as money to save thousands of jobs stalled in Congress and unions and administrators sparred over ways to rehire laid-off teachers.

The result has been what is referred to in education circles as the "yo-yo effect." School budgets, facing severe reductions in state funding, are cut. Layoffs are made. And some or even all of the teachers are hired back over the summer as officials scramble for money.

The money coming from Congress could help fill some of that void.

Data provided by the U.S. Department of Education on how many jobs the bill is expected to fund reads like the medical chart of a battered patient: 16,500 in California. In Texas, 14,500. More than 9,000 in Florida.