“Pink Friday”

Eduflack PD, Workforce

With all of the talk about the federal economic stimulus package and its specific education provisions, there seems to be a common belief that education funds (particularly those block grants and discretionary moneys going directly to the state) have little impact on employment (or unemployment) across the nation.  For those not involved in K-12 education on a day-to-day basis, we just can’t see that school districts would look to lay off teachers in the middle of an academic year.  After all, who has the vision of a classroom full of students, lacking a certified educator at the front of the room?

Unfortunately, it is an all-to-real reality.  As states and districts face massive budget crises, personnel cuts are often the first thing to consider.  After all, human resources make up more than 80 percent of our school operating costs.  Between salaries, health benefits, and retirement costs, keeping a teacher in the classroom costs far more than the meager wages many of them take home every week.  So cutting a teacher here or trimming another educator there can mean real savings for a school district in a financial pinch.
Case in point, California.  By now, we’ve all heard about California’s dire financial situation.  Virtually every program is faces the budgetary guillotine.  State workers are being told to take unpaid leave.  The state legislature even recently considered a California-wide ban on the purchase of all instructional materials (textbooks, software, etc.) for two years in the hopes of saving upwards of half a billion dollars a year (the ban was defeated at the end of the legislative session in November, but is likely to be revisited with the new legislature this year).
Last year, during better economic times, California’s public schools issued initial pink slips to 10,000 public school teachers, with nearly 5,000 of them ultimately losing their jobs.  This year, with financial realities in the Golden State far worse than they were in the previous (the latest is an $11 billion shortfall for K-16 education), we have to expect the number of notifications and the number of layoffs  to rise dramatically.
Fortunately, some are looking to throw a spotlight on this issue, reminding California residents that the fate of their school teachers is at risk.  Using the power of the Internet, Stand Up for Our Schools has launched Pink Friday 2009, a collection of online tools, blogs, and discussion forums focused on March 13 — the deadline for California school districts to issue preliminary pink slips to educators.  Check them out at www.pinkfriday09.org/  
Even if you aren’t a California resident, Pink Friday is an endeavor worth a quick look.  It reminds us that the economic stimulus package is about more than tax cuts, school construction, and even $300 million in “green” golf carts.  It’s also about ensuring that our school districts have the funds to provide a high-quality education to all students.  And that starts with teachers.  We may not want to believe that educators will get caught in the middle of these budget fights, and that teacher layoffs could become a reality in far too many states and districts, but it is a grim truth.  Shrinking state coffers mean layoffs of public sector employees, and that includes teachers, administrators, and paraprofessionals (even those in our beloved neighborhood schools).  
By this afternoon, we should know the full details of the economic stimulus package, including how much money is available to support teachers in the classroom and to provide school districts the needed financial resources to maintain their budgets and ensure that high-quality education and good teaching continues (particularly in those communities with the most at risk), even during such economic times.  Without such an investment in teachers, do we really think the next generation of students will be up to the rigors and challenges of the next economic crisis?  
This is not just an issue for current teachers working in today’s classrooms.  This is a topic that everyone — every state and local policymaker, every business leader, every parent, and every taxpayer — should pay close attention to.  When it comes to investing in our schools, priority number one has to be the teacher.  Without effective instruction, state-of-the-art buildings, the latest technology, and the greatest of instructional strategies will have minimal impact.

238 thoughts on ““Pink Friday””

  1. With all the hue and cry for K-12 public education, potential freeze or cuts in pay for teachers; people tend to forget that early childhood care and education is suffering greatly. It is not funded by school districts, its teachers do not have tenure, decent salaries, benefits, pensions and a sense of stability. Legislators seem to forget (or put aside) that if young parents don’t have good, affordable child care, they CANT work. If they can’t work, they can’t pay their tuition, preschool teachers are laid off, and the cat continues to chase its tail. Early childhood education, for the most part, is borne by private paying parents. CCDBG funds are not enough to sustain most subsidized centers; Head Start Program slots are scarce and over-funded for the outcomes these programs produce. Child care and food program subsidy funds for private, for-profit providers and difficult, if not impossible to obtain. Too bad, at least these providers PAY TAXES back into the economy. Legislators seem to forget that unless children are fully prepared to succeed and are ready for kindergarten and elementary school, what happens to the NCLB ratings? But this situation is nothing that hasn’t been written, probably more eloquently, by others before me. Too bad no one is paying attention enough to DO SOMETHING about it.

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  2. read your amazing article on our educational system and how the budget crisis is affecting our schools. I keep reading and hearing that money was and is being released to alleviate this flabbergasting blow to our educational system, however as one of the 15,000 teachers served with a pink slip in California so far, I only wonder, how in the world is this money creating and maintaining jobs when our districts tell us otherwise, they tell us that the money was only given to be used toward special Education and Title one, that leaves the majority of our regular education kids without an education. In Fontana Middle School alone they served pink slips to 27 teachers that are half our workforce in that school alone, this means that the 23 teachers who remained have to teach the 1300 students next year. In all of Fontana Unified School District they have served pink slips to 380 teachers, who fall under the category of Prob 1 and 2 as well as tenured, and another 125 to new teachers that were recently hired during the 2008/2009 school year. This brings me back to my original question, how are jobs being saved in schools when the numbers of pink slips are on the rise? Who are the ones watching our districts that preferred to fire us while making sure that they have enough money to spend on retreats and other frivolities? Who are the cops that are policing the ones spending that money? Our district told us that the Media and our legislators are misinforming us, when your report was mentioned to the teachers Union; they simply laughed and told us they will hold training on how to interpret media misinformation. I am going to include what the our district is telling the teachers on their website under the Buzz only accessible to teachers, “Now that the stimulus bill has been signed and we have a state budget, does the district know how many teachers they will be laying off? Unfortunately, the stimulus money does not help our general fund and the money cannot be used for general education teachers, which in turn has had no effect on the lay-offs. The money is coming to us in two pots: Title 1, which is one of the most restricted federal categorical programs, and IDEA, which is only to be used with our Special Education students. It is one-time money and not recommended to be used for salaries. The money will help our students, as it can be used for supplemental materials and staff development. I know you hear the President say that this money will save many jobs, but I am not sure how that can happen with restricted dollars” FUSD, 2009

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