AUSTIN - The "Blue Screen of Death" -- that's what some state employees called the blank computer screen that served as the first notice that they were no longer state employees. "They were sitting there working at their computers, and then -- boom -- the network people locked them out," said Marcus Chase, a producer of educational videos who was one of about 150 Texas Education Agency employees to get a pink slip in recent weeks. "It was disrespectful how it went down." An estimated 5,000 to 10,000 state workers have lost their jobs or will lose them soon as...
