L.A. Unified board OKs layoff notices to about 9,000 employees.

[dynasaw]

Source: Los Angeles Times

The Los Angeles Board of Education approved issuing preliminary layoff notices to about 9,000 employees Tuesday despite a large demonstration by the teachers union and some board members' concerns over potential harm to educational quality.

In separate votes, the board approved sending letters to about 2,000 permanent elementary school teachers and about 3,500 probationary teachers informing them that they are in danger of losing their jobs. . .Before layoffs could occur in the nation's second-largest school system, the board would have to approve the terminations in June.

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-layoffs11-2009mar11,0,2401795.story

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The accompanying photo is chilling: The line of police facing the seated teachers. Note: L.A. Unified is "the nation's second-largest school system."

So Mr. Obama is this the way to improve education in the U.S.?

[Tansy_Gold]

1. Thank Howard Jarvis for this

Californios voted for Prop 13 to freeze property tax rates. That doomed the public school system to starvation. CA's schools went from the best in the nation down to just about the worst.


This is what the pukes want. They want education privatized so that either they will make money off of it or they alone will have access to it.


Tansy Gold

[slackmaster]

3. This is disinformation - Californians pay the highest taxes of anyone in the USA

Yes, our property tax rates are controlled. However, that is offset by high real estate values plus the highest personal income tax and sales taxes in the USA. We also pay among the highest fuel taxes, and our corporate taxes are high enough that some businesses have left the state to avoid them.

[DBoon]

4. Not true

per capita we rank at #10 (http://www.census.gov/govs/statetax/05staxrank.html). Vermont is #1. Oddly, we do not see Vermont residents up in arms over this situation.

and while prop 13 was cleverly marketed as homeowner tax relief, it placed a web of restrictions on government revenue that amounted to an early "drown government in a bathtub" experiment.

Due to property tax restrictions, California is excessive dependent on highly volitile sales and income tax revenue. When the economy sneezes, local and state government get pneumonia.

Due to restrictions on the ability of local government to raise taxes, local entities became immediately dependent on state funding. Local school district simply cannot fund their operating budgets out of local tax revenue, and have not bee able to do so since prop 13 passed

Prop 13 was never about homeowner tax relief. It was a trojan horse initiative designed to put into place right-wing policies designed to stangle the ability of government to provide services. It has suceeded very well at this.

[slackmaster]

5. OK, so we are #1 if you look at apples and #10 if you look at oranges

We have a higher percentage of non-taxpayers than Vermont does. From the perspective of a working middle-class taxpayer, our rates are the top. But I'll settle for #10 as a meaningful measure, since some of the people who don't work are school children.

One would think that #10 per capita in taxes would be sufficient to pay for basic stuff like schools. The problem isn't a lack of revenue. It's unrestrained spending, and an ongoing failure of the state government to set aside a reserve for lean times.

Property taxes are plenty high in Michigan, but schools there are laying people off too. The problem there is unemployment. We have that in California too.

[Brgotn]

8. It's obvious

that without laws the California government won't control their spending. When times were great they went on a spending orgy throwing caution to the wind. So yes, those laws are needed. It also depends on the responsibility of the agency. The one I work for has always spent the money wisely so with a few adjustments we have been able to weather this downturn ok so far. LA unified is infamous for their financial mismanagement so this might be a good opportunity for them to take a look at what they are doing and change their ways. Laying people off and blaming others for the layoffs is just a politically expedient way of doing thing for those who are in charge.

[davidinalameda]

10. the state has cut funding to school districts over the past few years

the districts have to depend on few dollars from the state and from property taxes within their communities

you have homes being assessed way below market value and Prop 13 only allows property taxes to be raised something like 2% a year

[Dreamer Tatum]

9. Utter disinformation

You act like no homes changed hands or were built or refinanced since Prop 13 was enacted. False.

[roody]

2. I wonder how many administrators they will be laying off?

[wackywaggin]

7. Administrators should be the first to go!!

It seems funny how the lowest paid, hardest working folks are the first to be laid off. Then quality goes down because no one picks up the slack because the district is left with all the highesat paid people that do as little as possible...In Minnesota we have an administrator who makes 200,000.00+ a year complaining she is not adequately paid when the average teacher makes only around 50,000 per year.

[Downwinder]

6. Shades of Oaxaca. Who's third world?? n/t

[CatholicEdHead]

11. Ouch

is there any future in K12 teaching anymore? Or is the trend towards paying them $18-20K/yr going to continue (pay rates in ND within the past decade).

[mbperrin]

12. California is below average in education spending. The national average

per pupil is $9138, while California spends $8486, behind states like West Virginia, Wyoming, and Arkansas, just to pick 3. Louisiana is the next state behind California at $8402
http://ftp2.census.gov/govs/school/06f33pub.pdf

[mbperrin]

13. And money matters. California 8th graders were 49th in the US

in reading scores in 2007, ahead only of New Mexico, Mississippi, and the District of Columbia.

http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/nde/statecomp/sortingSingleYear.asp

[Indy Lurker]

14. Nevermind