Great, let’s raise a generation of even dumber Americans. Isn’t it obvious how much the future depends on a educated populace capable of critical thinking?

Another problem that I see is the loss of momentum in training a new generation of teachers. What message is being sent to students as they look to their future and how to make it.

Just a few years ago, a full 1/2 of our staff was given non-renewal notices. The vast majority were called back, but the uncertainty of the economy even back then meant the District had no idea what their budget would look like.

Los Angeles Unified is in high anxiety mode, which means no one can really act rationally. The principal of my school asked what she should be cutting back on, and was basically told–”If you have any money, spend it right now, because if you don’t, you’re going to lose it.” All untenured teachers are spending half their time teaching and the other half looking for work. One teacher I know really wants to buy a house–and with prices down he might finally be able to do it–but not if he’s about to lose his job.
Most likely scenario I’ve heard–they’re going to be laying off huge numbers of administrative staff–but most of them are ex-teachers or principals with lots of seniority so they’ll bump low seniority school principals and administrators, who in turn will bump teachers who are (most likely) still working on their credentials or still on probation (and who therefor, ironically, have the lowest salaries). And in addition, class sizes will go up, and benefits will be cut way back, including us teachers having to finally pay a few hundred dollars each month for our health benefits.

Maybe it’s time for a general strike.

Notes from the other side: I just got my tax bill and it’s HIGHER. They have said they are basing the taxes on 2007 (it so happens that the housing market didn’t turn bad as quickly as in other communities). They have said that taxes will go down NEXT year — a little.

My granddaughter’s school district has four elementary schools. Just read yesterday that they will be announcing the closure of one of them on Tuesday.

I have a brother who is the heavey equipment operation class instructor at Shasta Community College in Redding, CA. His program is threatened with closure even though his enrollment numbers are way up due to the economic conditions. He has been growing his classes but the administration thinks that it and other vocational programs aren’t that important. They are proteting the classes that transfers to 4 year schools will take (and voc student take too for their AA degrees). The college has a $2 million dollar shortfall.

unless enrollment is down, that’s criminal.

I have taught for 33 years, and am considering retirement. There are about 30 teachers in my district in the same situation. I would think it would be a good use of stimulus money to offer us a retirement incentive…say 40K. I bet lots of teachers and administrators around the country would retire if incentivized.

I get to keep my job if I want it, but I’d love for the young teachers raising families to be able to keep their jobs first.

Ohio doesn’t require notification of teaching staff until April but, even so, the dire warnings are hitting the headlines already. The busing for field trips was slashed some time ago. There went the popular and valuable symphony kiddy-concerts, and a significant chunk of our sonny’s pay. I used to attend those just to watch the children’s faces as they reveled in the experience. Orchestra members would come right out up close and personal in the crowd, so the children could touch, talk and try their own hands at playing a tune. Lots of smiles and good will. Lots of closely shared good feelings on both sides The orchestra members loved it too.
Gone. not enough fuel in the buses or the budget for anything but dubya’s endless rigid testing regime. The love is draining out of the learning process. And they wonder why the children become more listless and bored in the classroom… I know. I’ve been there. *raises hand*

Arizona has a brand new Republican Governor as of the confirmation of the DHS secretary….. The first thing right out of the hat is a 40% cut to education across the board from K through University…… they are taking 250 Million right out of education budget…… Since this was proposed there has been Bi-partisan protests, university students marching to the capital.

Local taking head show had one of the Democratic reps proposed that cuts will NOT cure the deficit and they should go for all the loop holes, we have exemptions from taxes for golf carts and of course business incentives/loop holes…… The repug rep had the worst pickle face…..

Why not complete the destruction of our schools…… Arizona is only 49th in the nation for education…..

Any word on cutting special ed programs? Why, yes, my son is in one.
Also, it seems that there is a lot of new building and remodeling of older schools in the Valley. Turning former middle schools into High Schools, building new elementary and High Schools here. Addressing population shifts and student needs. I wonder how this affects teacher salary budgets.

My sister, a high school principal, will be having a faculty meeting tomorrow afternoon. They will be discussing the 36% that will immediately be cut from her school’s operating budget.

We were brainstorming last night about how/where that can happen. She has several teachers and coaches who are still Limbaugh Republicans who apparently are walking around singing “la la la….I can’t hear you”. They will not want to make suggestions.

Would love to be a fly on the wall.

Where I come from, we’re just a bunch of highly paid civil-service drones. It’s not just voters being tax-adverse — in many rural communities, where the school district is one of the largest employers, and the teachers about the only middle-class wage-earners left in the neighborhood, cutting school budgets and laying off teachers has the appeal of ’sticking it to the Man.’

You can’t get at the board that closed the textile mill, or the shoe stitchery, and left you unemployed or working 25 hr/wk at the supermarket, but by god, someone’s going to pay.

If they put vocational ed back in the high schools, we’d have nowhere near the drop out rate we have now. And crime would go down as a bonus.

Not everyone enjoys academics, yet for some unknown reason we’re to pretend all Americans do.

Nevertheless, it’s true also in Ohio.

You are very wise, AND very kind.

Amen re the vocational programs. My sister’s school has an award winning Auto Tech program. Those kids have employers fighting over them.

Gives a lot of kids from that poor area (think closed textile mills) an appealing option rather than their having to join the military.

I’m with Adie…you’re not only wise, but very practical. What specific fields of vocational training do you think would be most helpful?

Education both K-12 and universities are a great place to be investing money in a much larger and more effective stimulus package.

There is this myth that it would be difficult to find outlets to spend a large stimulus, but it is rapidly developing that with state deficits and shortfalls in education the stimulus may be insufficient to meet needs across the board.

A good site for monitoring layoffs is: http://www.layoffdaily.com/

Question:
How are we ever going to convince the wingnuts that America needs education?
Do they think doctors grow on trees? They want the cure for their cancer but if there are no researchers then there will no cure…. I just don’t get it……

How do they think roads, bridges and buildings going to be designed without engineers and architects? How do they think how broadband, cable TV and phone systems are going to be upgraded to new technology?

Thanks, Adie. Auto mechanics is a good one. Woodshop, metal shop, cooking, sewing…waitperson.

Around us, vocational schools are separated completely from the regular academic schools in most communities. I always hated that. It smacks too much of class-warfare. Of course, as you would expect, the academic offerings in the vocational schools are watered down and boring, and it’s virtually impossible to take vocational courses and still stay on a college-bound track. These days, we are crazy to wall people off and segregate them. The consequences may be too subtle for many to see on the spur of the moment, but they’re very real, even if only through the spawning of resentment and elitism.

Educating the young, keeping them healthy and well fed. These should be priorities in our society, not rejected as too frivolous and costly. We will pay dearly for this dreadfully wrong-headed oversight.

Or incentivize retirement with a new, made-in-America car. A green one.

Betcha those dittoheads have tenure and gobs of seniority, and always sign up first to be on the negotiating teams at contract time also. Eh? Been there too. Ooogh. I don’t envy your sister. Give here a long-distance hug from me, please. And save one for yourself, as an important part of her support system. ((((dear diablesseblu and dear sister))))

Thank you much for this post, Peterr.

I must go for now. My honey seems to think it would help sell our lovely house if there were at least a path through the clutter. Huh! Go figure!

((((hugs)))) to all you teachers and your support crews out there in cyberland. Your profession is a noble one. *bows in respect*

We had a State Board of Education member tell us that “No one guaranted your children a free education!”

We are shootin’ to be 55th in education!

Actually in the last decade California has been getting voc ed back in the high schools because of your point, 4 year college isn’t for everyone.

Will Children Be Casualties Of The Stimulus “Compromise”?
Christy’s up a couple flights

Be glad you don’t live in tax-free bankruptcy-ville California!

OUR California school districts are asked by the Governor to make mid-year cuts! — prior to having any legislative agreement on the budget for this year or the next one, to meet the state laws requiring a ‘balanced budget’ based on the Governor’s Budget, until a formal State Budget is approved.

(California Republicans cleverly have followed the ‘no tax’ mantra with the requirement that it takes a 2/3 vote to add any new taxes, which means it takes 3 Republican votes, and the ninnies have refused, with great discipline, to vote for any new taxes. Hence the bankruptcy of California!)

That means many school districts frantically shuffling students to fire union teachers mid-year and put the students who-knows-where.

Then there’s next year’s Governor’s budget cutbacks. Our small school district will lose $2.2 million, which means 34 teachers. It’s the end of all class size reduction K-3 and 9th grade (there are already 40 in calculus classes); doubling of ESL class size; no more high school electives (let’s hear it for the 3 R’s); adios to music and arts, unless parent fundraising buys them back.

Just imagine what happens in school districts that have no parent fundraising, no hope of buying back program for their districts.

And Prop 13, that grandfather of the tax cut mania, also mandates that taxes can’t be raised more than 2% a year. So all those forclosures and home price drops — up to 40% in some parts of the state — will cause a permanent end to those property tax funds (based on the value of a home when it is sold or loses value) for years and decades to come.

It’s the making of a perfect storm of downward socio-economic spiral. I’m shocked by the reports of Arizona. How did a Republican governor get installed, pray?

Teacher’s have throughout American history been used as hostages by governments for raising property taxes for whatever reason. The precedent I recall from a bit of research was the Chicago tax strike in the 1930s. Shutting down schools was the draconian measure taken to end the strike. In a situation like this, with an economic depression in the background, who is the aggrieved party? The teachers hard done by the government, in my view.

Our Dem Governor, Janet Napolitano, is now the Sec’y of Homeland Security. So there is no Lieutenant Governor, so the job fell to the Sec’y of State, a Rethug.

It has nothing to do with enrollement. It has to do with operating costs.