My daughter came home from school yesterday and said that her teacher got a "pink slip". She said that the pink slip meant that you may or may not be let go next school year but that you were on notice (because of budget cuts again). It is not based on performance but seniority, last one in first one out. 7 got a "pink slip". My daughter's teacher is young but very good. I go into her class every Wednesday to help and she always seems to engage the kids and gets them excited about learning. My daughter asked why it mattered who was there first, why it isn't based on who were the best teachers. Try explaining budget cuts, teachers unions and tenure to an 11 year old. Then she said, "Our class already has 32 kids, if they take more teachers away how many more will we have in our class?". Her school back in the Dallas area had 21 last year, the year before that there were 20. Why can't this POS state look at Texas and get it's shit together?
On a side note. Back in 1997-98 I worked for a school district in the DFW area in purchasing. The head of purchasing explained to me that towards the end of the year they have to spend more money because of the "use it or lose it" rule. They are given X amount of funds every year, if they have money left over at the end of the year they don't get to keep it and the next years budget is decreased. Seriously what company works like that? You spend what you need to, not because you are going to lose the funds at the end of the year if you don't. How does that make sense? A budget should be based on what you need every year, not what you spent the previous year. I saw so much waste, they should give the school districts an incentive to not waste money and to come in under budget. I swear they work back-asswards. It would seriously piss you off if I told you all of it. When I came it was a new position, they bought a new chair and a new computer. There was a warehouse FULL of chairs and used computers. All the bids came through me and the ordering of supply requests from teachers. The offices at the school district were decorated to the hilt yet some schools were in need of serious repair. This wasn't the school district I lived in by the way and it was an upper-middle class area.