7K Layoff Notices Sent To Los Angeles Teachers

In the end, not every notice will lead to a job loss, but given the circumstances, the school district felt obligated to give fair warning.

The news rippled across the campus Friday morning, and students were falling apart. They texted their parents and sought out one another to see if it could all be true.

"I saw kids crying in the quad," said Portia Amofa, student body president at Hamilton High School in West Los Angeles.

The students were finding out that some of their favorite teachers were among roughly 7,000 in L.A. Unified who had gotten layoff notices. In addition, the directors of two enormously popular and successful Hamilton programs, the humanities magnet and the music magnet, had been told by L.A. Unified that their positions were being eliminated.

It is a cruel reality, and OS does sympathize mightily with the students.

The parents, teacher's union, legislature in Sacramento, the last six governors or so, the Federal government (which has swamped the system with unfunded mandates, and refused refused refused to enforce the border with Mexico for the past several decades--this is during administrations of both parties, ya'll--not just the Dems) need all to be sat in the corner of the classroom with the old 'Dunce' hat perched on their heads.

It isn't like this sad day was not forseen, years ago. It is a mathematical inevitability that this day would come. And everyone just pretended it would never come in their term of office/lifetime.

OS hopes the kids remember this day well, and resolve amongst themselves to never, ever let governments get so out of control as to rob their children of their futures.

This sort of thing is the imposition of a cruel tax upon those completely incapable of paying it.

Less Is More: Four-Day School Weeks, And Everyone's Life Improves

Hmmm...

In contrast to the unconvincing 'it's all about the children' rap from this morning's conversation on Fox Business, school districts that go to a four-day week are seeing both student performance and faculty morale improve.

Hmmm...

When the teachers unions try to lay on that guilt 'It's all about the children', remember it's not. And the less time invested with these people, the better.

Home-school, anybody?

HT to Mish.

Varney Interview With Randy Weingarten Fox Business 7 June 2010

Here is the interview referenced earlier. Weingarten is taking a more conciliatory tone than has often been heard in years past from teachers' unions. She still attempts to shift blame and change the subject, and Varney keeps her on the subject.



He brings up the subject of a Federal bailout, and she changes the subject entirely, which in poker terms, is a 'tell'.

OS has inquired about a transcript, hopefully will hear one exists and is available.

This is a most informative interview, but the video only contains the first four minutes, unfortunately.

The States Versus The Unions: The Inevitable Conflict Is At Hand

The battle is now on--the inexorably shrinking tax base of the states vs. the entrenched unions holding Collective Bargaining Agreements with those states. The Federal Government kicked the can down the road into 2010-2011 budget year, by flooding the states with 'emergency cash', but there is a limit, and little stomach in Congress to continue this approach. A few Democrats can do math, and they know this can't continue, either fiscally or electorally.

The day of reckoning is now at hand in this budget year.

Chris Christie of New Jersey appears to have the will to win against the teachers' union. If he does, the job becomes easier for governors and legislatures everywhere else. If he loses...well, he said it himself in his remarks recorded below.

Worth a few minutes of your time to consider. If looking in from outside our borders, this is a pretty succinct explanation of the situation faced by each of our fifty states, and the thousands of local school authorities within the states. There is still a great deal of local control of schools, thankfully, although much less than in previous decades. For this we have Jimmy Carter to thank, who created in US Department of Education as a payoff to the National Education Association for their support in 1976.

The more the Feds intervene, the higher the costs, and lower the quality. Thus, in part, why we have arrived at this uncomfortable impasse. Thanks, Jimmy!



This morning's Fox Business segment with Stuart Varney featured a lively discussion with a teachers union president, attempting to spin the debate her way. After all, that's her job.

Varney didn't let her off the hook, and to the credit of both, all discourse remained civil. The name-calling usually resorted to by the union types (child-hater, education-hater, ignorant, racist) was not present, thankfully.

Will try to locate that video or transcript. It was an illuminating discussion.