Posted on 08/18/2010 4:49:15 AM PDT by Second Amendment First
As schools handed out pink slips to teachers this spring, states made a beeline to Washington to plead for money for their ravaged education budgets. But now that the federal government has come through with $10 billion, some of the nation’s biggest school districts are balking at using their share of the money to hire teachers right away.
With the economic outlook weakening, they argue that big deficits are looming for the next academic year and that they need to preserve the funds to prevent future layoffs. Los Angeles, for example, is projecting a $280 million budget shortfall next year that could threaten more jobs.
“You’ve got this herculean task to deal with next year’s deficit,” said Lydia L. Ramos, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation’s second-largest after New York City.
“So if there’s a way that you can lessen the blow for next year,” she said, “we feel like it would be responsible to try to do that.”
The district laid off 682 teachers and counselors and about 2,000 support workers this spring and was not sure it would be able to hire any of them back with the stimulus money. The district says it could be forced to cut 4,500 more people next year.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Wait until we find out what's really in the health care bill.
And that's exactly what all the Big Banks did.
Why is it that no matter what is happening in the economy, the Government Worker’s are always to be exempted from sharing any of the pain of normal citizens?
They sound like eeeeevil corporations don’t they?
Time to push for school vouchers. Let the free market do what it does best, foster competition and effeciency.
So! All that “crisis” talk from 0bama was just a bunch of lies to get the Congress to allocate more money for his voting bloc.
When a city or town has a 'budget shortfall', why is it that Cops, Firemen, and Teachers are the first to go.I have nothing against Tree Trimmers, Secretaries, or Carnival Workers, but let's get real as to whose job is more important.You never hear of Public Works Employees (like Sewers & Garbage Collectors(1)) being fired. Or even the city's internal office staff, like secretaries, or 'assistants' being let go.
Or even city sponsored 'Festivals' being eliminated or scaled back.
(1) In Chicago, that's the 'Dept of Streets and Sanitation'. A Black Hole where ghost employees go to disappear and get paid (many are, or 'were' known mobsters).
So, another one year infusion which will probably become an annual growing underwriting of a pathetic top heavy under achieving business: the primary education system especially in the big city areas.
I want my bailout too but alas I am not a member of a big union nor a minority so I just get to watch the armored cars pass me by.
I was wondering who the “about 2,000 support workers” laid off are. Bureaucrats or teachers aids, janators and librarians?
Here in IL, that “about 2,000 support workers” usually means, Teachers Aides (TA's).
Our youngest daughter is one and that's how they are listed on the School District's website. Luckily the Dist she works for has plenty of money (very upscale) and the school and parents love her. The School Principal and the Teachers she works with even asked her to interview for a 'regular' Teaching Position that opened in the school. She lost out on that, but is still a TA there.
She works with 'Special Needs' children even though her 'specialty'((Major?) was in Reading, not in Special Ed. She has a BSEd (Bachelor of Science in Education) from ISU, IL State Univ. in Normal, IL (No stinking BA degree)
Probably the latter. Lower paid, many of them part-time.
What you got against tree trimmers? Next time you have a wind or ice storm and the tree branches fall across your power lines, you are going to sorely miss that lowly tree trimmer.
:-)
I actually knew a 'Tree Trimmer'. He was one of the 'regulars' back from my drinking days.
He was also a degenerate gambler and one day 'disappeared'. Rumors flew that he either skipped town, or ... 'they got him'. (At one point prior to that he mysteriously showed up with a broken arm and his story always changed how he got it. So rumor #2 was believed to be the truer of the two)
Anywho, after a wind storm in my neck of the woods, it's ComEd (our Elec Co) that goes out and removes all those branches and broken tree limbs.
Kind of looks like to me that they’re holding on to the money to contribute to the Demoncrats up for reelection in the fall.
If they want to contribute to Dems, they are doing it the wrong way. School Districts cannot make donations to political campaigns, at least here in California. If they want money to flow to the Dems, the would need to hire back more teachers, so that the union would get more dues, which would then be contributed to the Dems...
School vouchers are the way to go.
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