CA: Pink slips handed to few thousand teachers across the state

Sac Bee ^ | 5/16/03 | AP - Los Angeles

[NormsRevenge]

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Warned two months ago that they may lose their jobs, as many as 3,000 teachers across California received layoff notices from school districts coping with tight budgets.

The pink slips were handed out Thursday by school systems across the state - a day after Gov. Gray Davis revised his budget that called for a $1.5 billion cut from schools next year.

[NormsRevenge]

They damn near had riots in Oakland outside the school admin hdqtrs.

What an inept bunch of bums running the schools in Oakland, Moonbeam was there and still is!

They just got an OK to borrow 100 million from the state to keep their schools going, but they still had to lay off a bunch of staff.

I don't think the thought has ever crossed their minds that maybe some of the 6 digit overpaid administrators ought to be sent packing as well. But, how would they function without a bureaucracy of dead weight? ;-|

[LADY J]

Let the liberals take over with all the 'feel good' programs that they want and suffer the consequences.

[lainie]

This reminds me, it's time for my non-L.A-County-public-school-attending first grader to do her math problems at the kitchen table.

;)

[lainie]

It can't be a mistake that the nation's two largest bastions of liberal ninniness are the first two in constant news headlines, folding and buckling under the weight of their insolvency. Bloomberg is screwed (and screwing) the people of NYC and Red Davis is ..well, it's getting to be too easy anymore.

[lainie]

ping

[Gritty]

With Kalifornia schools already among the worst in the nation, how will anybody tell the difference?

[Salvation]

Home Schooling and vouchers!

[blackdog]

Pure BS. Come September you won't see a single reduction in headcount, spending, administration, or an open space in the faculty parking lot.

For anyone who's ever been laid off, since when do you get a notice of notice of notice of layoff which is explained to mean "come September everything will be okee-dokee? They've been announcing layoffs for two years in our local district. They even put names and faces in the paper in order to make the taxpayers feel awful. Well, not a single person has been laid off and two of them spent most of the year on maternity leave and if you count the long term substitutes, the headcount went up.

[mabelkitty]

Socialism guarantees jobs for life, as does Communism.

No wonder the newly unemployed preach on the benefits of them.

[lainie]

The radio reported this morning that Davis' shenanigans are starting to include raiding funded water/municipal bond issues; stuff like that. The teachers' lobby is pretty powerful I guess. I don't fully understand why.

[blackdog]

If schools can take a 20% accross the board cut, it would by default priority mean the entire state payroll could be reduced by a greater percentage on lesser important issues.

By announcing school layoffs, they are pokering the public to buckle and fold. They picked the most valuable landmark in state spending to threaten to blow up. If the public say's that's just fine, we won't be held hostage even by the schools, it means that the rest of gubmint is worth far less than the most valuable.

School cut tactics are like wasting your queen in chess. Sure it's a dramatic move, but now you are toast.

[BurbankKarl]

now tell me this....

statewide, how many administrators were laid off?



though so.

[NathanR]

The teachers' lobby is pretty powerful I guess. I don't fully understand why.

Did you forget your "</sarcasm"??

[Davea]

This all Bush's fault!!!(/sarcasm)

[Davea]

Oops. Should read "This is all Bush's fault" (/sarcasm)

[lainie]

Well, I do mostly understand it -- at least in theory. I suppose the reality is that government (especially when it's Rat-led) is the teacher union's lackey. If a governor ever tries to cut the bloat, he'll be met with screams of discrimination and chilllllllllllldren hype. OTOH, who are the Rats going to vote for, a republican? (shrug)

[ReagansShinyHair]

Administrators still have district seniority, so they don't get laid off. They do get sent back to classrooms, and salary is usually reduced, depending on the amount of time they have spent in a classroom. (A teacher at the top of the pay scale would have to take a pay CUT to start as a beginning VP.)

I teach in Southern California, and my district laid off about 150 people. None of them had credentials. They were all on Emergency permits.

[McGavin999]

Well, the people of California need to get smart and tell these administrators that if the only way they can figure out how to save money is to fire teachers, then THEY should be replaced. There are plenty of ways to cut costs without cutting teachers, or sports, or art or any of the other things they always go for.

If the administrators can't find a way, then get administrators who can.

[Ciexyz]

None of them had credentials. They were all on emergency permits.

I'm shocked! If the salaries are so high to "attract the best", as the argument goes, then why haven't they hired credentialled teachers?

[ReagansShinyHair]

Geez, now you made me go into a teaching rant. You get to hear about some gross mis-spending in schools, and just the general crap that goes on. Vouchers. Please.

We don't have high salaries in my district. I started in business and took an $8000/year pay cut to start teaching. I like it, though, and I am good at it, so I don't mind. I also had to pay $5000 to get my credential in the first place. Credentialism is an obstacle to good teachers anyway. Most anyone with brains stays out of something so stupid and time consuming when they can make much more in business. I'm getting a law degree and going to study educational law, to hopefully enact some positive changes in our messed up school system. Someday. The only reason I put up with the stupidity is because I do care about the future of America.

As for spending cuts, don't you know the school districts are running as leanly as they can? /major sarcasm

We have five new 19 inch flat screen monitors for the secretaries at my school alone. There are quite a few schools in my district, so I would hazard a guess that the money they spent on all those things would most likely have paid the salary and benefits of at least one more teacher. Let's see...31 schools in all, x 5 monitors each (even though there would be many more because other schools are bigger)...that makes 155 monitors. Those monitors are about $1000 apiece, right? Ok, make that TWO teachers.

My superintendent is regularly written about in the NEA Today (super-liberal teacher magazine) because he is so wasteful with money. He is also more highly paid than any other superintendent of similar sized school districts. I've never seen his office, but if it's anything like Roy Roemer's (of LAUSD), it's got mahogany desks.

My mom teaches in another school district. It's basically all title 1. Poor mexican kids. I do mean mexican, not americans of mexican heritage. These are not children of taxpaying, upstanding citizens. She's had completely new carpeting, completely new desks, and completely new cupboards twice in the past 5 years. They had money they needed to spend, or they would lose it. What a waste. I'm sure it cost millions. They did the whole schools.

My school just got new desks and chairs last year. (Ours were pretty ratty, though). We are getting an all new reading program. The "old" one is 4-7 years old, depending on grade level. It's perfectly fine. There's no reason to change. The new program is no more effective. They are building three new schools, and they built a new high school last year. At least, finally, they are spending big money on something that we need. Our schools are desperately overcrowded.

All that, and I don't have paper any more in my classroom. Well, we have graph paper left. We just write on that. Don't blame me when they all have horrible penmanship. I don't have any pencils, either. I bought some pens and gave those to my students to write with. I don't know why their parents can't give them a pencil, but that's beside the point. Why do I have new desks, but no paper?

The scariest thing is, when I taught in LAUSD, it was worse.