State Buget busting my budget!!!

[StitchBuddy]

I can't believe teachers are getting laid off by the hundreds and thousands in our area!! I never thought this would happen in Texas!! We are going to lose 40 teachers at our school! We are looking at each other wondering who is going to draw the short straw. It is so sad!!! We will all go on and get jobs other places. Life will go on, but what about the kids that are left in the ruins??? I still have a child in school and I am a worried parent! Oops! I meant State Budget!! I need to take typing lessons!

 

[aprilfoolwed]

Same thing happening in PA.

I am worried about my kids' education, and worried for my future career as an educator as well.

 

[StitchBuddy]

Yes, it is sad and no one seems to care. All they want is low taxes. Which I understand, I don't like paying close to $9000.00 a year in taxes on my house either, but I knew that when I bought my house. I don't want my property values to go down, because our schools go downhill! People are so short sighted!

 

[aprilfoolwed]

It's downright scary what's going on. I know the economy isn't good for anyone, but these are children's (and our own) futures that we are messing with at this point.

Really, really heart-breaking. And super scary that it's happening EVERYWHERE!

In the last week, school districts in a 30-mile radius reported that over 500 school personnel will lose their jobs.

And how on earth will that not affect class size? In one school district, elementary kids will have art/music/gym/library NINE times a year. That's it.

It just makes me sick.

 

[StitchBuddy]

Yes, it is disheartening. I don't know what the cause is in PA, but here in Texas if was our State Legislature that got us in this mess. They can't ever seem to get school funding right, so we go through some type of crisis every few years. They were told when they chose to do this that there would be a huge problem, but they went ahead with their plan. As a parent I am sick!! My child goes into high school next year and will sit with 35-40 kids in a class.

 

[Planogirl]

Perry also had his hand in messing up education IMO.

I don't know what to think about all of this either. Our district hasn't announced any cuts just yet.

 

[bigmama67]

In my town, there are 5 elementary schools. We got word last week that 9 teachers will be cut and one of the elementary school librarians will, as well. Fortunately the librarian at our elementary school has seniority...but I'm wondering how many students will be in my son's third grade class this fall (currently he has 19 in his second grade class). Wondering how many students will be in my DD's kindergarten class by the time she starts in the Fall of '14...and wondering if the M.A. in Primary Education (Pre-K through Grade 3) that I am pursuing will ever be used in the classroom...but I'm not even doing my student teaching till next spring and I'm thinking that things may at least be starting to settle down by then...only time will tell.

 

[cinabug]

I'm in Washington State, and the talk here is about cutting days from the school year statewide in addition to layoffs. In my district, more layoffs will mean combination classes of different grade levels, not something I'm looking forward to for my kids.

 

[StitchBuddy]

I have read they are thinking about letting districts cut salaries here in Texas. I would go for that rather than get laid off from the job I love!! Plus it would be better for the kids! Hopefully something will give a little!

 

[iheartdisney]

I know here in California most of our state budget problems acan come staright back to public union pensions... if something isn't done, in five years 40%- yes that is FOURTY PERCENT of the state's budget will go to pensions. But since Californians don't care to educate themselves before they hit the voting booth, I don't see anything changing.

 

[Took]

Sorry, iheartdisney, but it's not the unions....it's the state negotiators who decided to promise more than they could deliver and a series of Wall Street busts that wiped out a lot of investment money and short-changed pension funds.

Besides, what do you want retired teachers to do now--give everything back so Californians can enjoy low taxes?

 

[QVCshopper]

Yup! I'm in PA, and as the PP said, it's due to the pensions. The state owes the retired workers tons and tons of money and there's no where to get it. That's why a lot of companys have stopped their defined benefit plans in favor of 401(k)s; they are so expensive to run and support. It's going to get ugly before it gets better. We're trying to pick a new school district, but with all of the deficits and overcrowding issues, I just don't know... I'm in a school where a lot of parents opt to not send their kids, and instead go to private. That may keep the class sizes down, unless there's redistricting. It's scary!

 

[Planogirl]

Some pensions seem healthy and some not so much. You can't just take away retirement from people though. That is what they had to invest in at the time and it's often too late for them to suddenly build a new retirement package.

 

[chris31997]

Sorry, iheartdisney, but it's not the unions....it's the state negotiators who decided to promise more than they could deliver and a series of Wall Street busts that wiped out a lot of investment money and short-changed pension funds.

Besides, what do you want retired teachers to do now--give everything back so Californians can enjoy low taxes?

I'm sorry but it is both of them, the state negotiators and unions. These people negotiated with taxpayer money and no thought as to who was going to pay for it.


No, I don't want retired teachers to give anything up. It is not right to ask a person who is 60/65 and already retired to give it all up. However, someone who is 30 has time to save and needs to give up the same retirement plan that the current retirees have. Teachers that are not teaching because of legal issues need to be fired and lose everything.

 

[lunalibre]

I'm in Texas too, and everyone I know -- with or without kids in school -- is furious with the entire state government over the school funding mess. The problem with the current system is it has too many loopholes so that businesses don't have to pay their fair share. We would've hit this problem two years ago if it hadn't been for federal money for schools. I am so angry that short-sighted Republicans (since an overwhelming majority of TX legislators are Republicans) can't see that some things are worth paying for! I'm a mom, I vote, I've voted for Republicans, and darn it, I want decent schools for kids! If the state goes through with the draconian budget cuts, I hope to see a huge backlash when the next election rolls around.

 

[EKW]

I'm not sure everyone will find jobs! Here in Colorado most districts are facing the 4th straight year of major cuts. I lost my job last year...two of the gals I work with decided to leave education altogether because they were tired of the constant state of crisis.

I found a job. There was a threat that I'd lose it this spring...instead we're taking major paycuts and paying more for insurance. I already pay over $350 a month! The last time I made what I'll make next year was about 12 years ago.

I wish you the best...but have to agree with your main point: the kids are the ones who are really suffering from all this! The media and legislators play all kinds of games with the numbers. For example, they constantly present the concept that teachers aren't really working, since the teacher:student ratio is 1:17. What they never tell you is that those numbers include all the personnel who are required to meet Special Education requirements. In the building where I currently work there are 12 support staff educators. Those adults are counted in the ratio even though some of them work in near 1:1 situations. We had some classes with nearly 35 kids at one point. Parents and the general public get a very skewed view of education when they get their information from sources other than educators.

When they first passed NCLB there were all sorts of folks running around theorizing that the government was trying to destroy public education. I thought they were nuts. From today's viewpoint, I'm not so sure they were!

 

[torinsmom]

Sorry, iheartdisney, but it's not the unions....it's the state negotiators who decided to promise more than they could deliver and a series of Wall Street busts that wiped out a lot of investment money and short-changed pension funds.

Besides, what do you want retired teachers to do now--give everything back so Californians can enjoy low taxes?

Yeah, not from Unions here in NC; we don't have unions. We do have a retirement plan, which we pay into and the state pays into. They could stop that, but they'd have to give us the money we've put in with interest, so we could put it in a 401K.

One of the things our state is considering is raising the student-teacher ratio by 1-2 kids. On the proposal they have something saying "Research shows that the number of students in a classroom does not affect student achievement". I want to know where they got that from. Our classrooms already have 26-27 students from 1st-5th grade and there is physically no room for more kids.

It's just all really sad, because the kids are the ones who will suffer in the end. I am very lucky, b/c our school is a Montessori magnet school and since I am certified in Montessori and state certified, I should not lose my job. We will probably lose most of our assistant positions and our PE teacher will be half time.

 

[Swimalie]

In my town, there are 5 elementary schools. We got word last week that 9 teachers will be cut and one of the elementary school librarians will, as well. Fortunately the librarian at our elementary school has seniority...but I'm wondering how many students will be in my son's third grade class this fall (currently he has 19 in his second grade class). Wondering how many students will be in my DD's kindergarten class by the time she starts in the Fall of '14.

In VA we haven't had major budget cuts but due to growth, my son's kindergarten class has 25 kids for most of the time and 2 more added in during lunch, recess and encore (PE, library, art, etc). They had 28 and 1 moved and then they made a kindergarten/1st grade class that took 2 from each classroom. But those 2 from each class still join their original class for lunch, recess and encore making them even more over crowded. And next year it's not going to get any better with 100+ more students expected to join the school. A new school won't be finished until 2014 to relieve the overcrowding.

 

[daughtersrus]

This scares me quite a bit. My oldest DD is just finishing her first year teaching. She was offered her job back for next year at this school and also has a second offer for a job in a different district. She is opting to take the second job and give up one year of seniority. It's a long story but it's more important for her to have a job that she's happy with. I just hope that this decision doesn't come back to haunt her later.

DD#2 will graduate in Dec '13 also with a degree is Special Ed. I just hope that she will be able to find a job when she gets out.

 

[pigletof4]

I live within an inner city school district. Although the school district right now is also thinking about teachers. The school district I live in is trying to come up with $29.2 million for next years school budget. My children go to a private school, but I know of people whose children go to these schools. The classrooms are already crowded to begin with with about 30 kids per teacher right now. I can't imagine what is going to happen when they lay off teachers. There was also talk of raising our school taxes 4 mill to help, which would have been an additional $400/per year, but the state put a cap on how much they could raise it. Their not getting the 4 mill.