Where to Cut?

Campus Report ^ | August 7, 2009 | Bethany Stotts

[bs9021]

Where to Cut?

by: Bethany Stotts, August 07, 2009

One University of Washington professor is proposing a politically-incorrect solution to school district’s budget shortfalls this year. Research associate professor Marguerite Roza suggested in a July 30 briefing that districts might want to consider combining salary rollbacks with layoffs in order to retain more teachers and to keep class sizes low.

Using data from the American Federation of Teachers, Prof. Roza teachers received, on average, salary schedule increases around 2.87 percent per year between 1997 and 2007 and step changes, on average, of 3.16 percent annually. “These across-the-board changes to the schedule come in addition to the average 3.16 percent step change, such that a typical teacher continuing from one year to the next receives an average raise of 6.03 percent each year,” she wrote (emphasis added).

“So what does a district do if facing deep budget cuts and a now-negative [Consumer Price Index], even after implementing a hiring freeze?” she asked. “In some sectors, we might expect a salary freeze or even wage cuts.”

She later added, “In K-12 education, leaders are less likely to roll back or freeze actual wages, in part because they feel bound by the salary schedule...Freezing salaries, however, means either rolling back the schedule (by some negative percentage), or abandoning the schedule so that the step changes won’t apply—both actions have little precedent in districts.”

The study, “The Tradeoff Between Teacher Wages and Layoffs to Meet Budget Cuts,” was published through the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) and funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation....

[rovenstinez]

If this link is REAL http://www.usdebtclock.org/ WE’D BETTER GET SOMEONE IN WASHINGTON DC THAT LEARNS HOW TO CUT OUT THE EARMARKS AND PORK. AND IT AIN’T THE KENYAN.

[WayneS]

Cut what? Throats?

I’ve got some ideas, but I’d probably be turned in to the Whitehouse for saying “fishy” things.

;^)

PS - Attention Obamesssiah goons! The “Little Winky Smiley Face” icon posted at the end of the above comments indicates that they were made in jest. For those of you Obamessiah goons who achived your positions as a result of affirmative action, the word jest means “in a light-hearted or joking manner”. Thank you.

[WayneS]

Or even, ...achieved...

Sorry - Fumble fingers...

[Harley]

The first thing they should cut is the Husky football team. Talk about a resources drain for no gain.

[FrogMom]

How to fix education?

1. Cut out 80% of the administrators.

2. Cut pay to remaining adminstrators by 30%.

3. Tell the parents and children that they have ONE chance to behave in class, the kids who disrupt classes will be sent to the janatorial school.

4. Review all textbooks. English, math, and social studies don’t need to changed but about once a decade. Get good books and force the little bas... students to treat them with respect or PAY for them.

5. Cut out all basket weaving classes. Women’s studies? OUT. Black studies? OUT. Alien struggles in modern America? OUT. Green studies? OUT. Condom and banana studies? OUT.

6. Cut ALL affirmative action programs. That is genuine equality! If the little darling thinks it’s too white/western/religious to study, transfer them to the janitorial school.

7. Caught destroying school property with a magic marker, can of spray paint, baseball bat, wad of gum, etc., transfer them to the janitorial school.

8. Throw out all unions from the schools.

OR

Throw out ALL of these and let individual towns, cities, counties and states set their OWN rules, pay scales and educational standards!

[browardchad]

“This tradeoff between numbers of teachers and salary levels is evident in the Los Angeles Unified School District, where at the time of writing, the school board has decided to lay off 5,400 of its teachers and support personnel,” Prof. Roza. What she doesn’t mention, however, is that employees in the LAUSD protested the district’s attempts to deny lifetime health benefits to new teachers.

“One of the issues that angers teachers most is that the district, while cutting into benefits for everyone, is trying to take away lifetime health benefits only from new hires, in the hope that active-duty teachers will look the other way and breath a sigh of relief,” wrote David Rapkin, a “high school teacher and member of the [United Teachers Los Angeles] board of directors” for the Socialist Worker last December.

So, of course, it's better to lay off 5,400 people than sacrifice those "lifetime health benefits" for new hires -- of which there won't be any, obviously.

How noble of the union to stand up for imaginary people who won't be hired, rather than risk any cuts to those who already have a seat on the gravy train.