http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/05...ine-or-bailout/

"But the Washington Post editorial board urged lawmakers to reject the measure. In an editorial published May 14 under the headline, “Red Ink in the Classroom,” the Post lamented that last year’s stimulus bill had created among educators “an unfortunate expectation of yet more federal dollars to bail out the states.” “Should the federal government spend money it doesn't have to let school systems operate beyond their means?” the editorial asked. “We might have had a different view of this measure if its sponsors had figured out a way, as they promised with their adoption of pay-go guidelines, to pay for it rather than simply add to the nation's fast-growing national debt.”"

Well-said.


“Nobody is asking for it on an ongoing basis...,” Weingarten told Fox News

This is misleading, she may not be asking for ongoing Federal funds. However, the costs will not go away. Local funding would have to absorb the costs in future years.

To say it nicely. Her is a artical Weingarter wrote.................


By RANDI WEINGARTEN
A number of sectors of the economy appear to be bouncing back. Housing starts, home foreclosures and job creation all show movement in the right direction. But the fiscal situation in most states will not improve for quite some time. And, for public schools, the coming year promises to be the worst yet of the economic downturn.

Years of budget cuts in the vast majority of school districts already have taken their toll, with sharp reductions in after-school programs, academic enrichment and other so-called extras. Most states have exhausted their federal stimulus funds, and many states long ago tapped out their financial reserves. School districts now are cutting into bone, eliminating classroom teachers and core academic offerings like foreign languages.

According to a survey of more than 80% of school districts by the American Association of School Administrators, 275,000 teachers and other school staff will receive pink slips. It's not that these schools will educate fewer children, or that students won't need the personnel and programs that will be cut. But the cuts could rob an entire generation of students of the well-rounded education they need and deserve. Class sizes will swell, and students will lose important classes and programs, such as art, music, physical education, Advanced Placement classes, and counseling and intervention programs for those who need the most help.

I have been traveling the country, watching teachers, administrators and unions striving to implement some of the most progressive and effective reform efforts in decades. But genuine school reform can't be accomplished with fewer teachers, unmanageable class sizes, and fewer intervention programs for struggling students. Children don't have a pause button—they need a great education during good economic times and bad.
The federal government didn't let Wall Street fail. Why would we do less for our public schools, which undeniably are too important to fail? Almost every state will be unable to provide adequate funding for public schools until the financial situation improves.

The short-term solution to ensure kids start the next school year without major disruption is federal legislation to provide a $23 billion infusion to states to avert educational and economic disaster. The U.S. House of Representatives has passed the Local Jobs for America Act. A similar measure, the Keep Our Educators Working Act, is pending in the U.S. Senate. President Obama has thrown his support behind this emergency legislation.

And there is no doubt that this is an emergency. School districts finalizing their 2010-11 budgets are making tough decisions right now about drastic steps such as whether to cancel summer school, shift to a four-day school week, or issue layoff notices to teachers.

Unfortunately, there are attempts to load up the final version of the bill that is sent to the White House with everyone's favorite education initiatives. These amendments will stall or even halt what must be a swift response to safeguard children's education. The only way to prevent the cuts is to pass a clean bill—quickly.

Those of us urging swift passage of this bill are not opposing reform, as some have wrongly contended. Real reform doesn't come from add-ons scrambled into legislation intended for another purpose. This bill should be about one thing—averting draconian cuts that will damage our kids' education. These other items could be considered more appropriately and thoughtfully in separate legislation.

There is much good going on in our public schools. I have seen countless teachers putting their hearts and souls into their jobs, working long hours well beyond the school day, ready to do what it takes to provide their students with an excellent education. They belong in their classrooms, not on the unemployment lines. And they need support, tools and resources to do their important work.

Two very different scenarios are possible for the coming school year. The cuts to the programs and teachers our students need could continue and even worsen. Or elected leaders can do what it takes to ensure that the most damaging effects of the worst recession since the Great Depression do not play out in our children's classrooms.

Ms. Weingarten is president of the American Federation of Teachers.






OK, so the towns have used there stimulus money to pay for top heavy school budgets, and forgot this was a one time deal.

275 K teachers and staff get pink slips? I would like to see the numbers on how many were non-tenor teachers, aids, lunch room help and custodians.
in our town that is 90%+. Its not teachers that have been there 5 or 10 years.

unmanageable class sizes? class size is down on average of 50% in the last 30 years.

and what are they trying to add to the bill? oh come on take a guess. The want the money to go to the states that base the teachers on performance and not tenor. That's why she is pissed

With all the teachers (almost all non tenor) the class size will remain the same. All offered classes will stay. Its the trips, after school stuff and sports that suffer. Get this, The teachers have in the past had to teach 5 of the schools 9 periods. Next year they have to teach 6 (as their contract says ). Even with all of talk of being top heavy, the school will have 7 non-teaching teachers in the middle school and high school policing the teachers.







http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405...0030285560.html

I wonder if this would work?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...0051202659.html


Luckily, there's a third way that can rejuvenate America's teacher corps while charting a path toward fiscal sanity. The answer is to think "buyout," not "bailout."

This takes a little explaining. The coming teacher firings are doubly disastrous because labor contracts and state laws require that most layoffs be done on the basis of seniority -- that is, newer teachers get the ax first. The trouble with this "last-in, first-out" rule is that layoffs are made with no concern for whether the teachers in question are any good. Yet in many big districts, huge efforts have been made in recent years to hire talented young teachers via programs such as Teach for America and the New Teacher Project to work with the nation's neediest children. With one awful stroke, these layoffs could eviscerate years of such recruiting, giving poor kids the shaft once again.

This injustice is especially acute when, as great senior teachers in high-poverty schools have told me with passion, many of their long-serving colleagues are just going through the motions, hanging on until generous pensions click in. If it's really "all about the children," it's insane to fire younger teachers, no matter how effective they are, in order to protect more senior teachers, no matter how weak (and, incidentally, more costly) they may be.


The dilemma is compounded by the fact that teacher pensions represent a mammoth unfunded liability -- at least $330 billion nationally, according to a recent Manhattan Institute study, and perhaps as much as $900 billion if calculated conservatively. The longer that ineffective senior teachers hang on, the higher these pensions soar, because they're typically based on a teacher's highest annual incomes near the end of a career.

What to do? The federal government should turn calamity into opportunity by putting a Harkin-sized pot of money on the table that districts can tap to offer buyouts to senior teachers. This is what a business would do to refresh its workforce and begin to pay down outsized pension obligations. A 20-year veteran can cost twice as much in salary as a newer teacher -- and three or four times as much once retirement benefits and pensions are factored in. If a district can offer, say, a year's pay as an incentive for an ineffective senior teacher to retire early, it can bring in (or save) several younger ones and come out ahead fast.

Democrats should love the idea because it ensures that children in poor classrooms end up with better teachers. Republicans should love buyouts because they mean a farewell to senior teachers who are often staunch union loyalists and reactionaries, making room for younger talent interested in professionalizing teaching, rethinking archaic protections such as tenure, and bringing a culture of achievement to the classroom.

Union leaders like Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers should embrace buyouts, too, because they're a way to do what's right for kids while getting ahead of the brewing backlash against union recalcitrance. As Weingarten should realize, when unions are cast as villains even by liberal filmmaker Davis Guggenheim in his powerful new schools documentary, "Waiting for Superman" (due out in October), we're reaching a tipping point.

The real question is where to find the cash. A good start, says Lenny Mendonca of San Francisco's Bay Area Council, who first suggested the buyout idea to me, would be those billions in unused funds from the Troubled Assets Relief Program. There's a certain logic in using money meant to get "troubled assets" off the books to get deadwood teachers out of the classroom.

If Weingarten wants to stake her claim to the kind of visionary leadership her AFT predecessors Sandy Feldman and Albert Shanker exemplified, she'd put buyouts, not bailouts, at the center of the debate. If she won't, we'll need a leader respected by all sides to champion and broker this breakthrough. Over to you, Arne Duncan.

Matt Miller, a senior fellow at the Center for

NY did give some retirement incentives to teachers this year. Not only does this keep some of the younger teachers but it can replace the higher salaries with lower. By the way Lab, the Superintendent of my school district makes $400,000. The salary is $320,000 and almost $80,000 in incentives.

Holly sh!t 100K+ more than the prez

Lab, the Superintendent of Commack school district on Long Island, retired with a pension of $316,000. Now he is Superintendant of another school district and makes another $200,000. As much as some teachers may make, it is nothing compared to what is made with the administrators.

True. Only thing to keep in mined is they work a 8 hr day for the whole year. Not that it makes it any better.lol Time for a new board of ED over there

sure he is all about the kids. thats insane!