Teacher Layoffs - Will the Carnage Ever End?

Last year, I had dinner with a couple; the gentleman was an entrepreneur, and his wife was a schoolteacher, teaching third graders. As more and more layoffs came to our local school district I dialed them up and asked if everything was okay and if she still had a job. She did and she was not in the first round of layoffs, and she also made it through the second. She figured she was safe because she had six years seniority. Unfortunately, she didn't realize how deep the cuts would eventually go - she was laid off six months later.

There was recently an interesting article in the Los Angeles Times Article titled "Teachers from low-performing schools face stigma on job search - L.A. Unified staffers say they're often judged by their old school's failings," by Howard Blume, July 8, 2011. The article stated; "In a bizarre game of musical chairs, nearly 1,000 Los Angeles teachers - who are guaranteed jobs somewhere in the school system - have been hunting for a school that wants them. And hundreds of them have to counter a stigma that they are undesirable castoffs, because they previously worked at low-performing schools that are being restructured."

That's rather harsh isn't it? A teacher works in one of the toughest school districts in California, with one of the highest dropout rates, and largest percentage of ESL kids, along with a terrible gang problem in the neighborhoods. Imagine doing such a tough job, one that most would never volunteer for, and wouldn't do even if they were drafted, they'd rather move to Canada! And yet, these folks have sacrificed themselves, and now that they've been laid off, they are being penalized? Wow, what a sad statement indeed.

Just before President Obama was elected, I had signed up for Google Alerts for "layoffs" and in the last 12 months nearly every day there have been notices of some school district in some part of the country laying off teachers, anywhere from 40 to 4,000 or more. Indeed, I've been discussing this on several "educational based social networks" and it appears what we have done now is demoralized all of the teachers and educators in our civilization.

Now then, how can we meet the future challenges for education in a technologically advanced society when we've done that? It has been said that a society is only as strong today as the strength of its education system 20-years the prior. I'd agree with that, and ask; what on Earth are we doing and how can we meet this challenge now? Please consider all this and think on it.

Lance Winslow is a retired Founder of a Nationwide Franchise Chain, and now runs theOnline Think Tank. Lance Winslow believes writing 24,000 articles by July 24, 2011 is going to be difficult because all the letters on his keyboard are now worn off now..

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