More than 20,000 California teachers pink-slipped

[Starry Messenger]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/03/15/MNHK1NL9RC.DTL

More than 20,000 public school teachers in California opened their mailboxes over the last few days to find a pink slip inside as districts met the state's Thursday deadline for dispensing the dreaded news to the educators that they may not have a job in the fall.

The layoff notices are preliminary, the districts' best guess at the amount of money they will get to educate kids next year after the Legislature concludes its annual budget fight this summer. But a proposed tax measure on the November ballot offers more uncertainty than usual.

Districts won't know until two months into the new school year whether voters will approve a tax increase that would prevent a $4.8 billion trigger cut to education funding, as proposed in the governor's budget.

That cut would be about $807 per student, the equivalent of 55,000 teacher layoffs or 17 days of school, according to The Education Coalition, representing 2.5 million teachers, parents, administrators, school boards and other school employees.

Over 50% were in Los Angeles alone. Happy summer "vacation"!

[snacker]

1. This saddens me...

what are doing to public education in this country??? Public school teachers have been dubbed the enemy, the "haves", and thugs here in Wisconsin. I never thought I'd live to see the day that public education would be so demonized.

If you think education is expensive, try the cost of ignorance!

[dkf]

2. I'm surprised tax receipts aren't recovering yet.

http://www.sacbee.com/2012/03/13/4332135/john-chiang-says-california-revenues.html

Hmm not looking good.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

3. This is pro forma...20K are not going to be fired

and there is no way LAUSD is going to lay of 10K people. Its an artifact of the law and the contracts.

There will most likely be layoffs, which is not a good thing, but not to this level. Still not clear at this point if the public will approve tax increases.