"To Teach Is To Learn Twice"

Those rumblings you hear all across the country aren't necessarily seismic. They could be coming from the nervous stomachs of teachers you know. The practice of "pink-slipping" whole batches of school employees come springtime has become as seasonal as the Ides of March or Saint Patrick's Day. It's a way for "troubled districts" to lighten their budgets in anticipation of an ever-leaner future. More than simply getting rid of the "dead wood," it stirs the pot and keeps things moving. It also sends many teachers who yearn for job security looking for the door.
San Francisco, who dodged a budget bullet last year via the city's "rainy day fund," will be sending out more than nine hundred pink slips next month in hopes of managing their current hundred million dollar shortfall. The layoffs will be based on seniority, not performance. Again, if I were a brand new teacher, I would be wondering what sense it makes to land on the front lines of urban education, only to be told my services would no longer be necessary. Along with the job cuts, programs will disappear and class sizes will creep back up. Congratulations, you get to keep your job, but it just got harder.
At least I don't work in Central Falls, Rhode Island. In this corner of the country, they're getting rid of all their teachers. Every one of them. It's not the budget up there. It's the lack of performance. The district wants teachers to get more training and do tutoring. The teachers want to get paid for that time. And that's the rub. Negotiations ended. Will there be a compromise? Eventually, at least half of those teachers could be rehired. Just like those teachers on the left side of the country still have a chance to keep their jobs if there was some creative solution to the budget crisis. If they still want them.