Meyer: How the ‘No Teacher Left Behind’ Bill Works
Far be it from Calbuzz to suggest that the California Teachers Association was the invisible hand in writing the provision in the state budget, passed by the Sacramento Democrats alone, that effectively prevents local school districts from laying off teachers when they make financial cutbacks.
Why would anyone suspect that the union that supplies legislators’ campaign air supplies has that kind of outsized influence in the Legislature? That would be cynicism of the worst sort, right?
But according to Michael Hulsizer, chief deputy for governmental affairs in the Kern County Office of Education, as reported by John Fensterwald, in approving AB 114, a budget trailer bill, legislators “did things that tie hands of school district boards, superintendents, and county superintendents that provide oversight of budgets. They limit officials at local levels to respond to the same risks they acknowledge exist through midyear cuts.”
We leave it to our editorial cartoonist, Tom Meyer, to demonstrate what it all means.
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And just for the record: Calbuzz has never hacked into anyone’s voice mail, nor have we bribed any cops. Yet.
I don’t get the “no teacher layoffs” = “ignore children” equation here. It would seem to me to be quite the reverse. Teacher layoffs cause class size to increase which results in children being ignored. Districts can choose to make layoffs elsewhere, say, reduce administration and non-teacher support staff.
The fact you admit to not getting it is good.
The folks that make this deal and think the same as you also don’t get it, but refuse to admit it.
Who really gets it are the kids…
You shed words, but little light. How do the kids, as you say, “get it?”
This is EXACTLY what Scott Walker got rid of in Wisconsin, without eliminating collective bargaining for pay. This is the reasonable way to allow public employees collective bargaining rights.