Friday the 13th – A California Educational Horror Story

The California Teachers Union (CTA) has declared next Friday to be Pink Friday in honor of all of the teachers that will be given pink slips by that day. I think they made an error in naming the event. This Friday is Friday the 13th, and the educational horror story may be scarier than the 8 horror movies made about Jason and this ominous day (ending with Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan). Perhaps a better name for their event would be Friday the 13th Part IX: The Educational Horror Is Unleashed.

Friday the 13th of March is the deadline for local school board to notify teachers whether they have a guaranteed job for the following year. A record number of pink slips are likely to be issued. CTA already estimates that over 20,000 teachers have received pink slips and that number will grow in this last week as the deadline approaches, I would guess in the range of 25,000 when the dust settles. To put this in some perspective, if my prediction is accurate more California teachers will be given layoff notices than the entire state teaching force in 17 different states. Prior to these layoffs, California had some of the largest classes in the nation (only Utah and Arizona have larger), and fewer other adults (librarians, administrators, counselors…) on campuses than virtually any other state. Now some of these teachers will end up being offered their jobs back some time in the summer when the budget dust settles. Basically, districts tend to over-cut positions in the spring to give themselves flexibility, and then hire back some of the teachers as they get more budget certainty in the summer. But unfortunately, many of the best and brightest of these 20,000 will be on to other things before they get hired back. Clearly with better school staffing policies, school districts could target these reductions at less effective teachers, but virtually all districts will make these decisions based on subject areas and then seniority. Districts will generally eliminate positions like librarians, vice principals, art and music teachers… But, then they will start cutting core teachers and increasing class size. Many have argued that class size reduction doesn’t matter much. In this case, we may want to hope that they are right because then this increase may not have a large impact. None the less, March 13 will mark a dark day for California education, and will likely take years to recover.