Education

Pink Slips Sent to Thousands of Calif. Teachers

By The Associated Press — March 16, 2010 2 min read
BRIC ARCHIVE
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

California’s budget crisis could cost nearly 22,000 teachers their jobs this year.

State school districts had issued 21,905 pink slips to teachers and other school employees by Monday, the legal deadline for districts to send preliminary layoff notices.

Not all the threatened layoffs will be carried out. The final tally depends on the state budget to be adopted for the coming fiscal year.

Last year, 60 percent of the 26,000 teachers who received pink slips ended up losing their jobs.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell expected this year’s actual job losses to be high, given the state’s persistent budget problems and the smaller pool of education stimulus money available from the federal government.

“These layoffs would be devastating to our schools, would harm our communities and would harm our education delivery system,” he said.

California schools rank at or near the bottom nationally in academic performance, student-teacher ratios in middle and high school, access to guidance counselors and the percentage of seniors who go directly to four-year colleges, according to a 2009 report by the Institute for Democracy, Education and Access at the University of California, Los Angeles.

The state’s public schools employ nearly 307,000 K-12 teachers, according to the state Department of Education. About 7 percent of those teachers have received pink slips.

The layoff figures do not include classified school employees such as bus drivers, maintenance workers and cafeteria staff. School districts have 45 days to issue pink slips to those workers, and as many as 10,000 could be facing unemployment, O’Connell said.

Education advocates say Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the state Legislature have made the job situation worse through their attempts to plug the state’s $20 billion budget deficit.

They say Proposition 98, a constitutional amendment passed by voters in 1988, requires the state to increase education funding each year based on the previous year’s budget.

By keeping this year’s education funding at last year’s level of $48 billion, as Schwarzenegger has proposed, the state is shortchanging schools by an estimated $2.4 billion, according to groups representing teachers and school administrators.

Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear said claims that education funding will be reduced are false.

“The governor has proposed protecting education while making devastating cuts in other areas to deal with our current deficit,” McLear said. “We are funding education at exactly the same level as last year.”

California’s schools benefited greatly from federal stimulus funding in 2009, with more than $4.8 billion in grants.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Education rejected California’s application for the first round of its “Race to the Top” competition, which will distribute $4.3 billion to states for education reform.

Less government support for education will translate into more layoffs, O’Connell predicted.

“Last year’s stimulus money saved thousands of jobs,” he said. “I expect the number of pink slips enacted this year to be higher.”

Related Tags:

Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Events

This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Assessment Webinar
Reflections on Evidence-Based Grading Practices: What We Learned for Next Year
Get real insights on evidence-based grading from K-12 leaders.
Content provided by Otus
Artificial Intelligence K-12 Essentials Forum How AI Use Is Expanding in K-12 Schools
Join this free virtual event to explore how AI technology is—and is not—improving K-12 teaching and learning.
Federal Webinar Navigating the Rapid Pace of Education Policy Change: Your Questions, Answered
Join this free webinar to gain an understanding of key education policy developments affecting K-12 schools.

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Education Quiz ICYMI: Moms for Liberty Launched Its Own University And More
Test your knowledge on the latest news and trends in education.
1 min read
Moms for Liberty co-founder Tina Descovich speaks before Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump at the Moms for Liberty annual convention in Washington, Friday, Aug. 30, 2024.
Moms for Liberty co-founder Tina Descovich speaks before Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump at the Moms for Liberty annual convention in Washington, Friday, Aug. 30, 2024.
Mark Schiefelbein/AP
Education Briefly Stated: April 16, 2025
Here's a look at some recent Education Week articles you may have missed.
9 min read
Education Quiz ICYMI: Do You Know What 'High-Quality Curriculum' Really Means?
Test your knowledge on the latest news and trends in education.
1 min read
Image of curricula.
iStock/Getty
Education Quiz ICYMI: Lawsuits Over Trump's Education Policies And More
Test your knowledge on the latest news and trends in education.
1 min read
Image of money symbol, books, gavel, and scale of justice.
DigitalVision Vectors